10.

This oracle, according to Ephorus, was established by Pelasgi, who are said to be the most ancient people that were sovereigns in Greece. Thus the poet speaks,

and Hesiod,

[Pg 502]
[CAS. 328] I have spoken of the Pelasgi in the account of Tyrrhenia.

With respect to Dodona, Homer clearly intimates that the people who lived about the temple were barbarians, from their mode of life, describing them as persons who do not wash their feet, and who sleep on the ground. Whether we should read Helli, with Pindar, or Selli, as it is conjectured the word existed in Homer, the ambiguity of the writing does not permit us to affirm confidently. Philochorus says, that the country about Dodona was called, like Eubœa, Hellopia; for these are the words of Hesiod,

“There is a country Hellopia, rich in corn-fields and pastures; at its extremity is built Dodona.”

It is supposed, says Apollodorus, that it had this name from the “hele,” or marshes about the temple. He is of opinion that the poet did not call the people about the temple Helli, but Selli, adding, that Homer mentions a certain river (near) of the name of Selleis. He specifies the name in this line,

“At a distance far from Ephyra, from the river Selleis.”

[Demetrius of Skepsis contends that] Ephyra of Thesprotia is not here meant, but Ephyra of Elis. For the river Selleis is in Elis, and there is no river of this name either in Thesprotia or among the Molotti. The fable of the oak and the doves, and other similar things, like the stories connected with Delphi, although they are subjects more adapted to engage the attention of a poet, yet are appropriate to the description of the country with which we are now occupied.

Dodona was formerly subject to the Thesproti, as was the mountain Tomarus, or Tmarus, (both names are in use,) below which the temple is situated. The tragic writers and Pindar give the epithet of Thesprotis to Dodona. It was said to be subject, in later times, to the Molotti. Those called by the poet Jove’s interpreters,2869 and described by him as men with unwashen feet, who slept on the ground, were, it is said, called Tomuri2870 from Mount Tomarus, and the passage in the Odyssey containing the advice of Amphinomus to the suitors not to attack Telemachus before they had inquired of Jupiter is as follows,

“If the Tomuri of great Jove approve, I myself will kill him, and I will order all to join in the deed; but if the god forbid it, I command to withhold.”2871

For it is better, it is asserted, to write Tomuri2872 than Themistæ,2873 because in no passage whatever are oracles called by the poet Themistæ, this term being applied to decrees,2874 or statutes and rules of civil government; and the persons are called Tomuri,2875 which is the contracted form of Tomaruri,2876 or guardians of Tomarus.

In Homer, however, we must understand θέμιστες in a more simple sense, and, like βουλαί, by the figure Catachresis, as meaning commands and oracular injunctions as well as laws; for such is the import of this line:

“To listen to2877 the will of Jove, which comes forth from the lofty and verdant oak.”