5.3 Flashcards
Where was the oracle of Dodona located?
Which area of Greece?
Epirus
northern Greece
When does Homer refer to the oracle of dodona?
What does he say consultants can learn there?
From what?
Who else’s poetry contains the same idea?
Odyssey 14 & 19
Zeus’ will
the great oak tree
Hesiod
What does Homer mention in Iliad 16?
Called what?
What is it presumed they would have done?
Interpreters
Selloi
read signs in the rustling of leaves and waving of branches
What gender does Homer suggest the priests were?
Who mentions the opposite?
century?
Book?
What are these called?
What is unclear about them?
male
Herodotus
5th
Histories 2.55
Doves (Peleiades)
whether they replaced or worked alongside Homer’s Selloi
What do Homer and Hesiod indicate about the oak tree?
it was the centre of interest at the site
What does Nicol argue? (in regards to how the oracle worked)
What year?
signs were communicated by other phenomena than the tree
1958
Who refers to sacred doves and a sacred spring?
They were a greek philosopher from which period?
Philostratus
Roman
What else could have been read as bearing signs?
the dramatic weather
What were the bronze cauldrons?
how were they arranged?
why?
How long could the noise last?
tripods
To touch each other
So that if one was struck the sound would carry through the others
A very long time
How were the two columns at the site arranged?
What did one bear the statue of?
holding?
with fragments of what at its ends?
the other supported?
What would happen when the wind would catch the scourge?
side by side
a young man
a scourge
bone
a small copper cauldron
The bones would strike the cauldron
What was a possible function of the cauldron ringing?
Who suggests they may have been considered ‘sign-bearing’?
What could ringing bronze mimic the sound of?
What was also possible?
to ward off evil spiritual influences
Nicol (1958)
thunder
a combination of both
Tablets made from what were found at Dodona?
containing what?
ranging in date from?
to?
lead
people’s questions to the oracle
5th century BC
1st century BC
Consultants had their written question passed to who?
then what?
what do few tablets contain?
the priestess
they awaited her reply
written answers
What could the asked questions be? (3)
As evidenced by examples in what?
from men or women
very personal
cover a wide range of issues
THe red box
What was the format of many questions?
what does this indicate?
What is an example of a written answer?
What was the reply?
yes/no
replies may have been terse
a consultant asked which god they should go to
Hermion
What does Nicol argue, regarding personal experience of the divine?
There was no what?
compared with?
What happened instead?
What would have increased the feeling?
What went with every question made?
What does Nicol acknowledge?
‘consultation was a somewhat impersonal affair’
direct communication with the god
the experience at an Asclepeion
a written question given to officials and reply awaited
writted replies
offerings and invocations to Zeus
the questions could be individualised
What is the conclusion?
How was it personal? (3)
The latter of which being in what sense?
How was it impersonal?
consultation was personal in some respects, not others
individuals made individual enquiries, received individual replies, nature of questions
of being of a non-public nature
the process of consultation itself
Who asked which god to pray to for useful offspring?
Hermon
Who asked which god to sacrifice to to be healed of illness?
Nikokrateia
Who asked whether a child is his?
Who was pregnant?
Lysanias
Annyla
Who asked whether they should be a farmer or not?
Agelochus
Who wondered whether it was useful and profitable to keep sheep?
Kleoutas
Who asked whether his family should move?
Where?
an unnamed inquirer
Kroton
Who asked about something he’d lost?
What was lost?
What did he ask?
Agis
blankets and pillows
if someone had stolen them
