CGRN 250

Date :

ca. 400-350 BC

Justification: alphabet and lettering (Lhôte). The alphabet belongs to the period after the alphabet reform of 403 BC, but still shows traces of earlier lettering (e.g. asymmetrical nu).

Provenance

Dodona , found during Evangelidis' excavations in 1935. The tablet is now in the Museum of Ioannina (inv. no. 12851; DVC list the inventory no. as M837).

Support

Opisthographic lead tablet or lamella.

Height: 2.3 cm
Width: 5.8 cm
Depth: 0.06 cm

Layout

Like many tablets from the oracle of Dodona, the lamella is a palimpsest. It bears two inscriptions on each side, all in different hands: DVC 2393-2394 on side A; DVC 2395-2396 on side B. Both pairs of inscriptions are written in an opposite (or "mirrored") direction from one another. Only one of the inscriptions of the four inscribed successively on the tablet, namely DVC 2393A on face A, is the subject of the edition given below.

Letters: unknown height.

Bibliography

Edition here based on Carbon and Lhôte CIOD , DVC 2395B+2393A (1/10/2021), with the collaboration of E. Martín González; a copy of the ph. is available on the main page for DVC 2300-2400 .

Cf. also: DVC 2393A, with drawing; Carbon 2015a.

Further bibliography: Lhôte 2006; Brugnone 2011; Georgoudi 2012; Pironti - Pirenne-Delforge 2013; Parker 2015; Martín González 2021.

Text

[..^?.. περὶ τῶ]ν χρεῶν ἀν⟨ε̑⟩λε Δὶ Κτησίωι αἶ[γα ..^?..]
^vacat τῶι Διὶ τῶι Πατρ[ώιωι ..^?..]
^vacat τῶι Διονύσωι ἀπ[αρχάν (?) ..^?..]
^vacat τῶι ΛΕ[..^?..]
5^vacat ταῖς Ἐλειθυίαις [..^?..]
^vacat

Translation

[... concerning the] affairs, he prescribed: to Zeus Ktesios a goat [...]; to Zeus Patroios [...]; to Dionysos [a first-offering (?) ...]; to [...]; (5) to the Eilethyiai [...].

Traduction

[... au sujet des] affaires, il a prescrit : à Zeus Ktesios un caprin [...]; à Zeus Patroos [...]; à Dionysos [des prémices ? ...] ; à [...] ; (5) aux Ilithyies [...].

Commentary

The responses of the oracle of Dodona were seldom recorded on the inscribed tablets that have been located throughout this sanctuary in vast numbers (more than several thousand are now known through the publications of Lhôte and especially DVC; large numbers also remain unpublished and continue to be excavated at the site). Nearly all of the lead tablets that are preserved contain questions (an admirable survey and careful demonstration of this is now offered by Martín González). A variety of different consultants, apparently inscribing the lead lamellae with their own distinctive hands and scripts, as well as priests and other officials, are known through these documents. Some tablets also contain letters or numbers, labels, abecedaries, etc. Many, as in the present case, are palimpsests, inscribed with a multiplicity of different inscriptions. Normally, if and when recorded at the site, answers must have been inscribed on other supports and taken away by the consultants for future reference. Yet sometimes answers may have been jotted down quickly on the same tablet on which the question was recorded, usually on the other side. In most cases, however, it remains difficult to demonstrate absolutely that this is the case, due to the fragmentary character of the inscriptions as well to their formulary: even an infinitive or an imperative can represent a fragment from a question rather than an answer (by contrast, an almost universally accepted example is the tablet DVC 107A-108B which preserves on one side "Shall I campaign on land?" and on the other "Stay on land, absolutely"; see Martín González, p. 201-202 and CIOD for further discussion).

Unless the present case is a distinctive sort of "shopping list" of sacrifices that was submitted to the oracle for confirmation, its very specificity suggests that it is one of the rare cases where an answer was recorded (it was already identified as such in Carbon 2015, no. 3; for cautious acceptance of this, with further discussion, see Martín González p. 214-215). It would therefore belong to a small, selective group of documents: these particular answers can only be identified as such due to the fact that they contain lists of divinities, in the dative, normally followed by highly specific offerings. Strong support for their identification also comes from the procedure which is implied by the tablets. Besides Dodona's illustrious mythical tradition (see Lhôte 2006: ix-xv; Georgoudi), it is now clearly established that one of the fundamental mechanisms through which the oracle operated was cleromancy (see esp. Parker). Frequently mentioned among the questions asked of the oracle is the verb ἀναιρέω, properly denoting the action of "taking up" the lots, and thus "prophesying" or "commanding". To the extremely common question "so-and-so asks Zeus Naios and Diona by praying and sacrificing to which of the gods (or heroes etc.) they would fare better or succeed in such-and-such an enterprise" (ὁ δεῖνα ἐπερωτῆι τὸν Δία τὸν Ναῖον καὶ τὰν Διώναν τίνι κα θεῶν ἢ ἡρώων θύων καὶ εὐχομένος κτλ.), as well as to other forms of questions, the personnel of the oracle appear to have responded after almost certainly deliberately or intentionally drawing lots. These lots would provide a tailored list of divinities and heroes that the consultant could attempt to propitiate with the right sacrifices and offerings. Good examples of what these lots may have looked like are provided by the cleromantic balls from Himera published by Brugnone: each of the small (ca. 2 cm) bronze spheres is inscribed with the name of a deity in the genitive (the set may have belonged to an oracle or a μάντις, such as the one that provided an answer strongly connected with Dodona at Apollonia in Illyria, cf. CGRN 40). For other examples of oracular consultations and responses in the present collection, in most cases involving sortition, see CGRN 24 (Athens), fr. A, lines 10-12, and CGRN 104 (Halikarnassos); CGRN 227 (Anaphe) involves a more direct answer, perhaps revealing a different divinatory procedure at play.

The present inscription has been identified by Lhôte as connected with a question preserved on the other side of the tablet, in DVC 2395B; in the CIOD edition, this is given as: [θεός, τύχα· ἐπικοινῆ]ται Λύκος τῶι Διὶ τῶι [Ναίωι | καὶ ἁ δεῖνα τί κα] ὀν(ά)σιμον δράο̣ντες [- - | - - εἰς τὸν] ἀεὶ χρόνον. The relationship between the two texts is far from certain, given that they are written in different hands. But they are contemporaneous and Lykos' question, which may also have involved his wife, simply enquired about a beneficial or profitable (ὀν⟨ά⟩σιμον) course of action. The tenor of this question therefore corresponds well with the answer reprised here: concerning χρέα ("affairs" or "debts", see below on line 1), it prescribes a series of offerings to deities whose spheres of influence are closely connected with the individual's patrimony (Zeus Ktesios, Zeus Patroios, perhaps Dionysos) as well as with the development of his family (the Eleithyiai; see below). In an analogous fashion, another potential question-and-answer pair appears to juxtapose an—at least partly Athenian—legal dispute about properties with sacrifices to Zeus Patroios, a libation to Tyche (aptly invoked in this contentious context), and perhaps others offerings (unspecified or missing) to Herakles, Erechtheus, and Athena Patroia (cf. Lhôte 2006, nos. 141A-B, reedited in the CIOD ). A different tablet, which has never been properly published, presents a list of deities which may respond to a consultation by a city or an important group: Zeus Naios of Dodona, as well as Zeus Olympios, Brontaios, Eukles, Bouleus, Kore, Artemis Hagemona and the Hero Archagetas, all receiving piglets, libations or dedications (cf. Lhôte 2006, nos. 141A-B, with a revision in the CIOD ). Other very fragmentary and enigmatic examples include DVC 2035A (cf. the CIOD version, with ph.). In responding to specific questions, all of these texts are ad hoc ritual instructions. They point to a background of ritual norms from which the personnel of the oracle drew, along with their expertise, but, unlike in other cases of oracular injunctions underpinning the foundation of a cult (cf. again here CGRN 104, Halikarnassos, and CGRN 227, Anaphe), it cannot be demonstrated that these oracular answers served to implement durable ritual norms.

Line 1: In the preserved reading on the tablet, ΑΝΛΕ, one or more letters have manifestly been omitted (through the regular occurrence of similar mistakes, it can be demonstrated that consultants often wrote rapidly on the tablets from Dodona). The original reading of DVC was ἄν⟨ε⟩λε, an imperative ("draw the lots!"), representing a form of command to the god (Zeus Naios) that is recorded with some frequency in the Dodonean tablets (see the evidence collected by Parker). We should instead reasonably suppose a form of the aorist: ἀν[ε̑]λε or ἀν[εῖ]λε. It is possible that the subject of the verb—the god—was included in the lacuna to the left or merely implied. The subject of the enquiry is very pithily formulated: "concerning the χρέα". It remains difficult to determine what may lie behind the rather capacious term of χρέος here. We have chosen to translate it quite vaguely as “affairs”—rather than more specifically "goods", "debts", financial "obligations" or the like (cf. LSJ s.v. I)—taking into account the fact that the answer not only concerns patrimony (Zeus Ktesios and Patroios) but also progeny (the Eileithyiai). Doubtless the consultants may have had a more precise idea of the subject of their enquiry. At any rate, the oracle appears to recommend the sacrifice of a goat (if the restoration is correct) to Zeus Ktesios. The cult-title of Zeus is rather surprisingly not Pasios—how Ktesios is usually called in a Doric framework. Be that as it may, this god was the protector par excellence of ancestral property (see here also CGRN 96, Kos, lines 149-155); he appropriately appears alongside Zeus Patroios here (see directly below).

Line 2: Zeus Patroios, "Paternal Zeus", was perhaps occasionally invoked in private questions at Dodona (cf. DVC 3210A, unless it is a response) and is more clearly present in a few answers (see above; cf. also DVC 1122B with Carbon 2015, no. 5). Many questions at Dodona were concerned with ancestral properties, jobs or businesses (see the word index in DVC s.v. πατρῷος). Zeus Patroios is also prescribed as the recipient of sacrifices in another (Apolline) oracular response: CGRN 104, Halikarnassos, lines 7 and 36.

Line 3: The connection of Dionysos with the subject of the consultation is perhaps less clear than in the case of the other gods mentioned. DVC point in the direction of the cult of Dionysos prevalent in the area of Dodona and in Epirus (with further references). A plausible line of interpretation could start by taking into account the fact that a majority of consultants were farmers. A first-offering, if correctly restored, would be an apt way to honour a god closely connected with agricultural production, particularly vine-growing, and thus to contribute to the ensuring the prosperity of the consultant(s), which was at the core of the concern here.

Line 4: Regrettably, the reading Λ̣Ε̣ or Δ̣Ε̣ is difficult to interpret and the continuation of the inscription has apparently become effaced. In any case, it can be said that this line, beginning with τῶι, must have contained another male deity or hero to whom an offering was to be made.

Line 5: The mention of the Eleithyiai in the plural is noteworthy, though found already in Homer (Il. 11.267-272, 19.101-105). Worship of (triple) goddesses with this name is attested in Athens (cf. IG II³ IV 1141—on a relief containing three linked female herms, 1147, 1149-1150) and in Knidos (I.Knidos 180). The Eilethyiai must have been invoked in connection with the present or future offspring of the consultant(s); cf. Pironti and Pirenne-Delforge's discussion of the figure of Eileithyia. The presence of these deities in an oracular response at Dodona further affirms the comparison with the bronze spheres from the "mantic kit" of Himera: one of these is inscribed Ἐπιλυσαμέ⟨ν⟩ας, for which Brugnone admirably adduces Hsch. s.v. Ἐπιλυσαμένη ... μία τῶν Εἰλειθυιῶν. This was one of the names of the three Eileithyiai, referring specifically to a role as the "deliverer" of both women and children from childbirth. It was inscribed on a sort of κλῆρος, almost certainly to be used in divination.

Publication

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike International License 4.0 .

All citation, reuse or distribution of this work must contain somewhere a link back to the DOI (https://doi.org/10.54510/CGRN250), as well as the year of consultation (see “Home” for details on how to cite or click “Export Citation” to create a reference for this specific file).

Authors

Jan-Mathieu Carbon
Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge

How To Cite

Brief citation of the Greek text : CGRN 250, lines x-x.

Reference to the file as a critical study of the inscription : Jan-Mathieu Carbon et Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge, "CGRN 250: Oracular response from the sanctuary of Dodona", in Collection of Greek Ritual Norms (CGRN), 2017-, consulted on November 21, 2024. URL: http://cgrn.ulg.ac.be/file/250/; DOI: https://doi.org/10.54510/CGRN250.

Full citation of the CGRN in a list of abbreviations or a bibliography is the following : Jan-Mathieu Carbon, Saskia Peels-Matthey, Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge, Collection of Greek Ritual Norms (CGRN), 2017-, consulted on November 21, 2024. URL: http://cgrn.ulg.ac.be; DOI: https://doi.org/10.54510/CGRN0.

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			<author>Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge</author>
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									<p>Like many tablets from the oracle of Dodona, the lamella is a palimpsest. It bears two inscriptions on each side, all in different hands: <bibl type="abbr" n="DVC">DVC</bibl> 2393-2394 on side A; <bibl type="abbr" n="DVC">DVC</bibl> 2395-2396 on side B. Both pairs of inscriptions are written in an opposite (or "mirrored") direction from one another. Only one of the inscriptions of the four inscribed successively on the tablet, namely <bibl type="abbr" n="DVC">DVC</bibl> 2393A on face A, is the subject of the edition given below.</p>

					<p>Letters: <height unit="cm">unknown</height>.</p>
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						<p><origDate notBefore="-0400" notAfter="-0350">ca. 400-350 BC</origDate>
							</p>
							<p><desc>Justification: alphabet and lettering (Lhôte). The alphabet belongs to the period after the alphabet reform of 403 BC, but still shows traces of earlier lettering (e.g. asymmetrical <foreign>nu</foreign>).</desc></p>
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							<p><placeName type="ancientFindspot" key="Dodona" n="Central_and_Northern_Greece"><ref target="https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/530843" type="external">Dodona</ref>, found during Evangelidis' excavations in 1935. The tablet is now in the Museum of Ioannina (inv. no. 12851; DVC list the inventory no. as M837).</placeName>
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			<div type="bibliography">
				<head>Bibliography</head>
				
				<p>Edition here based on Carbon and Lhôte <ref target="https://dodonaonline.files.wordpress.com/2021/10/ciod_dvc_2395b2393a.pdf" type="external">CIOD</ref>, DVC 2395B+2393A (1/10/2021), with the collaboration of E. Martín González; a copy of the ph. is available on the main page for <ref target="https://dodonaonline.com/ciod-dvc-2300-2400/" type="external">DVC 2300-2400</ref>.</p>
				
<p>Cf. also: <bibl type="abbr" n="DVC">DVC</bibl> 2393A, with drawing;
<bibl type="author_date" n="Carbon_2015a">Carbon 2015a</bibl>.</p>

<p>Further bibliography: 
<bibl type="author_date" n="Lhôte 2006">Lhôte 2006</bibl>;
<bibl type="author_date" n="Brugnone 2011">Brugnone 2011</bibl>;
<bibl type="author_date" n="Georgoudi 2012">Georgoudi 2012</bibl>;
<bibl type="author_date" n="Pironti - Pirenne-Delforge 2013">Pironti - Pirenne-Delforge 2013</bibl>;
<bibl type="author_date" n="Parker 2015">Parker 2015</bibl>;
<bibl type="author_date" n="Martín González 2021">Martín González 2021</bibl>.
	</p>
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				<head>Text</head>
				<ab>

<lb xml:id="line_1" n="1"/><gap reason="lost" extent="unknown" unit="character"/><supplied reason="lost"> <w lemma="περί">περὶ</w></supplied> <supplied reason="lost">τῶ</supplied>ν <w lemma="χρέος">χρεῶν</w> <name type="authority"><name type="oracle"><w lemma="ἀναιρέω">ἀν<supplied reason="omitted">ε̑</supplied>λε</w></name></name> <name type="deity" key="Zeus"><w lemma="Ζεύς">Δὶ</w></name> <name type="epithet" key="Ktesios"><w lemma="Κτήσιος">Κτησίωι</w></name> <name type="animal" key="goat"><w lemma="αἴξ">αἶ<supplied reason="lost">γα</supplied></w></name> <gap reason="lost" extent="unknown" unit="character"/>
					
<lb xml:id="line_2" n="2"/><space quantity="9" unit="character"/> τῶι <name type="deity" key="Zeus"><w lemma="Ζεύς">Διὶ</w></name> τῶι <name type="epithet" key="Patroios"><w lemma="πατρῷος">Πατρ<supplied reason="lost">ώιωι</supplied></w></name> <gap reason="lost" extent="unknown" unit="character"/>

<lb xml:id="line_3" n="3"/><space quantity="9" unit="character"/> τῶι <name type="deity" key="Dionysos"><w lemma="Διόνυσος">Διονύσωι</w></name> <name type="genericOffering"><w lemma="ἀπαρχή">ἀπ<supplied reason="lost">αρχάν</supplied></w></name> <supplied reason="lost">(?)</supplied> <gap reason="lost" extent="unknown" unit="character"/>

<lb xml:id="line_4" n="4"/><space quantity="9" unit="character"/> τῶι <name type="deity" key="unknown"><orig><unclear>ΛΕ</unclear></orig></name><gap reason="lost" extent="unknown" unit="character"/>

<lb xml:id="line_5" n="5"/><space quantity="10" unit="character"/> ταῖς <name type="deity" key="Ilithyiai"><w lemma="Εἰλείθυια">Ἐλε<unclear>ι</unclear>θυίαι<unclear>ς</unclear></w></name> <gap reason="lost" extent="unknown" unit="character"/>

<lb/><space extent="unknown" unit="line"/>

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				<head>Translation</head>
				
<p>[... concerning the] affairs, he prescribed: to Zeus Ktesios a goat [...]; to Zeus Patroios [...]; to Dionysos [a first-offering (?) ...]; to [...]; (5) to the Eilethyiai [...].</p>
				
			</div>
			<div type="translation" xml:lang="fre">
				<head>Traduction </head>

<p> [... au sujet des] affaires, il a prescrit : à Zeus Ktesios un caprin [...]; à Zeus Patroos [...]; à Dionysos [des prémices ? ...] ; à [...] ; (5) aux Ilithyies [...].</p>

			</div>
			<div type="commentary">
				<head>Commentary</head>
				
<p>The responses of the oracle of Dodona were seldom recorded on the inscribed tablets that have been located throughout this sanctuary in vast numbers (more than several thousand are now known through the publications of Lhôte and especially <bibl type="abbr" n="DVC">DVC</bibl>; large numbers also remain unpublished and continue to be excavated at the site). Nearly all of the lead tablets that are preserved contain questions (an admirable survey and careful demonstration of this is now offered by Martín González). A variety of different consultants, apparently inscribing the lead lamellae with their own distinctive hands and scripts, as well as priests and other officials, are known through these documents. Some tablets also contain letters or numbers, labels, abecedaries, etc. Many, as in the present case, are palimpsests, inscribed with a multiplicity of different inscriptions. Normally, if and when recorded at the site, answers must have been inscribed on other supports and taken away by the consultants for future reference. Yet sometimes answers may have been jotted down quickly on the same tablet on which the question was recorded, usually on the other side. In most cases, however, it remains difficult to demonstrate absolutely that this is the case, due to the fragmentary character of the inscriptions as well to their formulary: even an infinitive or an imperative can represent a fragment from a question rather than an answer (by contrast, an almost universally accepted example is the tablet <bibl type="abbr" n="DVC">DVC</bibl> 107A-108B which preserves on one side "Shall I campaign on land?" and on the other "Stay on land, absolutely"; see Martín González, p. 201-202 and <ref target="https://dodonaonline.files.wordpress.com/2021/05/ciod_dvc_107-108.pdf" type="external">CIOD</ref> for further discussion).</p>

<p>Unless the present case is a distinctive sort of "shopping list" of sacrifices that was submitted to the oracle for confirmation, its very specificity suggests that it is one of the rare cases where an answer was recorded (it was already identified as such in Carbon 2015, no. 3; for cautious acceptance of this, with further discussion, see Martín González p. 214-215). It would therefore belong to a small, selective group of documents: these particular answers can only be identified as such due to the fact that they contain lists of divinities, in the dative, normally followed by highly specific offerings. Strong support for their identification also comes from the procedure which is implied by the tablets. Besides Dodona's illustrious mythical tradition (see Lhôte 2006: ix-xv; Georgoudi), it is now clearly established that one of the fundamental mechanisms through which the oracle operated was cleromancy (see esp. Parker). Frequently mentioned among the questions asked of the oracle is the verb ἀναιρέω, properly denoting the action of "taking up" the lots, and thus "prophesying" or "commanding". To the extremely common question "so-and-so asks Zeus Naios and Diona by praying and sacrificing to which of the gods (or heroes etc.) they would fare better or succeed in such-and-such an enterprise" (ὁ δεῖνα ἐπερωτῆι τὸν Δία τὸν Ναῖον καὶ τὰν Διώναν τίνι κα θεῶν ἢ ἡρώων θύων καὶ εὐχομένος κτλ.), as well as to other forms of questions, the personnel of the oracle appear to have responded after almost certainly deliberately or intentionally drawing lots. These lots would provide a tailored list of divinities and heroes that the consultant could attempt to propitiate with the right sacrifices and offerings. Good examples of what these lots may have looked like are provided by the cleromantic balls from Himera published by Brugnone: each of the small (ca. 2 cm) bronze spheres is inscribed with the name of a deity in the genitive (the set may have belonged to an oracle or a μάντις, such as the one that provided an answer strongly connected with Dodona at Apollonia in Illyria, cf. <ref target="CGRN_40">CGRN 40</ref>). For other examples of oracular
consultations and responses in the present collection, in most cases involving sortition, see <ref target="CGRN_24">CGRN 24</ref> (Athens), fr. A, lines 10-12, and <ref target="CGRN_104">CGRN 104</ref> (Halikarnassos); <ref target="CGRN_227">CGRN 227</ref> (Anaphe) involves a more direct answer, perhaps revealing a different divinatory procedure at play.</p>

<p>The present inscription has been identified by Lhôte as connected with a question preserved on the other side of the tablet, in <bibl type="abbr" n="DVC">DVC</bibl> 2395B; in the <ref target="https://dodonaonline.files.wordpress.com/2021/10/ciod_dvc_2395b2393a.pdf" type="external">CIOD</ref> edition, this is given as: [θεός, τύχα· ἐπικοινῆ]ται Λύκος τῶι Διὶ τῶι [Ναίωι | καὶ ἁ δεῖνα τί κα] ὀν(ά)σιμον δράο̣ντες [- - | - - εἰς τὸν] ἀεὶ χρόνον. The relationship between the two texts is far from certain, given that they  are written in different hands. But they are contemporaneous and Lykos' question, which may also have involved his wife, simply enquired about a beneficial or profitable (ὀν<supplied reason="omitted">ά</supplied>σιμον) course of action. The tenor of this question therefore corresponds well with the answer reprised here: concerning χρέα ("affairs" or "debts", see below on line 1), it prescribes a series of offerings to deities whose spheres of influence are closely connected with the individual's patrimony (Zeus Ktesios, Zeus Patroios, perhaps Dionysos) as well as with the development of his family (the Eleithyiai; see below). In an analogous fashion, another potential question-and-answer pair appears to juxtapose an—at least partly Athenian—legal dispute about properties with sacrifices to Zeus Patroios, a libation to Tyche (aptly invoked in this contentious context), and perhaps others offerings (unspecified or missing) to Herakles, Erechtheus, and Athena Patroia (cf. Lhôte 2006, nos. 141A-B, reedited in the <ref target="https://dodonaonline.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/ciod_lod_141.pdf" type="external">CIOD</ref>). A different tablet, which has never been properly published, presents a list of deities which may respond to a consultation by a city or an important group: Zeus Naios of Dodona, as well as Zeus Olympios, Brontaios, Eukles, Bouleus, Kore, Artemis Hagemona and the Hero Archagetas, all receiving piglets, libations or dedications (cf. Lhôte 2006, nos. 141A-B, with a revision in the <ref target="https://dodonaonline.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/ciod_lod_142.pdf" type="external">CIOD</ref>). Other very fragmentary and enigmatic examples include <bibl type="abbr" n="DVC">DVC</bibl> 2035A (cf. the <ref target="https://dodonaonline.files.wordpress.com/2021/10/ciod_dvc_2036b2034a2035a.pdf" type="external">CIOD</ref> version, with ph.). In responding to specific questions, all of these texts are <foreign>ad hoc</foreign> ritual instructions. They point to a background of ritual norms from which the personnel of the oracle drew, along with their expertise, but, unlike in other cases of oracular injunctions underpinning the foundation of a cult (cf. again here <ref target="CGRN_104">CGRN 104</ref>, Halikarnassos, and <ref target="CGRN_227">CGRN 227</ref>, Anaphe), it cannot be demonstrated that these oracular answers served to implement durable ritual norms.</p>

<p>Line 1: In the preserved reading on the tablet, ΑΝΛΕ, one or more letters have manifestly been omitted (through the regular occurrence of similar mistakes, it can be demonstrated that consultants often wrote rapidly on the tablets from Dodona). The original reading of <bibl type="abbr" n="DVC">DVC</bibl> was ἄν<supplied reason="omitted">ε</supplied>λε, an imperative ("draw the lots!"), representing a form of command to the god (Zeus Naios) that is recorded with some frequency in the Dodonean tablets (see the evidence collected by Parker). We should instead reasonably suppose a form of the aorist: ἀν<supplied reason="lost">ε̑</supplied>λε or ἀν<supplied reason="lost">εῖ</supplied>λε. It is possible that the subject of the verb—the god—was included in the lacuna to the left or merely implied. The subject of the enquiry is very pithily formulated: "concerning the χρέα". It remains difficult to determine what may lie behind the rather capacious term of χρέος here. We have chosen to translate it quite vaguely as “affairs”—rather than more specifically "goods", "debts", financial "obligations" or the like (cf. <bibl type="abbr" n="LSJ">LSJ</bibl> s.v. I)—taking into account the fact that the answer not only concerns patrimony (Zeus Ktesios and Patroios) but also progeny (the Eileithyiai). Doubtless the consultants may have had a more precise idea of the subject of their enquiry. At any rate, the oracle appears to recommend the sacrifice of a goat (if the restoration is correct) to Zeus Ktesios. The cult-title of Zeus is rather surprisingly not Pasios—how Ktesios is usually called in a Doric framework. Be that as it may, this god was the protector <foreign>par excellence</foreign> of ancestral property (see here also <ref target="CGRN_96">CGRN 96</ref>, Kos, lines 149-155); he appropriately appears alongside Zeus Patroios here (see directly below).</p>

<p>Line 2: Zeus Patroios, "Paternal Zeus", was perhaps occasionally invoked in private questions at Dodona (cf. <bibl type="abbr" n="DVC">DVC</bibl> 3210A, unless it is a response) and is more clearly present in a few answers (see above; cf. also DVC 1122B with Carbon 2015, no. 5). Many questions at Dodona were concerned with ancestral properties, jobs or businesses (see the word index in <bibl type="abbr" n="DVC">DVC</bibl> s.v. πατρῷος). Zeus Patroios is also prescribed as the recipient of sacrifices in another (Apolline) oracular response: <ref target="CGRN_104">CGRN 104</ref>, Halikarnassos, lines 7 and 36.</p>

<p>Line 3: The connection of Dionysos with the subject of the consultation is perhaps less clear than in the case of the other gods mentioned. <bibl type="abbr" n="DVC">DVC</bibl> point in the direction of the cult of Dionysos prevalent in the area of Dodona and in Epirus (with further references). A plausible line of interpretation could start by taking into account the fact that a majority of consultants were farmers. A first-offering, if correctly restored, would be an apt way to honour a god closely connected with agricultural production, particularly vine-growing, and thus to contribute to the ensuring the prosperity of the consultant(s), which was at the core of the concern here.</p>

<p>Line 4: Regrettably, the reading Λ̣Ε̣ or Δ̣Ε̣ is difficult to interpret and the continuation of the inscription has apparently become effaced. In any case, it can be said that this line, beginning with τῶι, must have contained another male deity or hero to whom an offering was to be made.</p>

<p>Line 5: The mention of the Eleithyiai in the plural is noteworthy, though found already in Homer (<title>Il.</title> 11.267-272, 19.101-105). Worship of (triple) goddesses with this name is attested in Athens (cf. <bibl type="abbr" n="IG II³">IG II³</bibl> IV 1141—on a relief containing three linked female herms, 1147, 1149-1150) and in Knidos (<bibl type="abbr" n="I.Knidos">I.Knidos</bibl> 180). The Eilethyiai must have been invoked in connection with the present or future offspring of the consultant(s); cf. Pironti and Pirenne-Delforge's discussion of the figure of Eileithyia. The presence of these deities in an oracular response at Dodona further affirms the comparison with the bronze spheres from the "mantic kit" of Himera: one of these is inscribed Ἐπιλυσαμέ<supplied reason="omitted">ν</supplied>ας, for which Brugnone admirably adduces Hsch. s.v. Ἐπιλυσαμένη ... μία τῶν Εἰλειθυιῶν. This was one of the names of the three Eileithyiai, referring specifically to a role as the "deliverer" of both women and children from childbirth. It was inscribed on a sort of κλῆρος, almost certainly to be used in divination.</p>	
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