Students of archaeology are now familiar with the splendid work in which Constantin Carapanos two years ago gave to the world the results of his discoveries at Dodona. The vexed question of the site of the ancient temple was finally set at rest, it will be remembered, by the discovery of a large number of inscriptions recording dedications to Zeus Naïos and Dione. The immense quantity of relics and works of art brought to light in the course of the excavations has been exhaustively catalogued in the work, Dodone et ses Ruines, and they have been illustrated and described by various scholars and reviewers. The inscriptions, too, have, at least on the Continent, come in for some share of notice and criticism. A detailed account of these inscriptions—their contributions to the lexicon, to dialectology, to local and general history, and to topography—is still a desideratum. For, as was only to be expected, the interpretations and criticisms of Carapanos himself are rather general than critical. His text, moreover, is frequently open to objection.In a classification of these inscriptions our attention is at once drawn to an obviously new category; and it is with this alone that we propose to concern ourselves in the present article. The category comprises a quantity of more or less legible inscriptions engraved upon one or both sides of leaden plates often not exceeding a millimetre in thickness. These plates form a unique series of documents belonging to the archives of the famous oracle at Dodona, and contain the questions addressed, or prayers offered, to the deity by his votaries, who might be either communities or individuals.
Affect, Belief, and the Arts
