I.Dodone Online 5A: Enquiry about offspring to inherit
Description: Lead tablet, with a hole at
one end, which predates the engraving of the text.
W:
6.8 cm × H:
2.5 cm × D:
0.16 cm.
Layout description: It is inscribed on both sides. The same tablet preserves another inscription on the same side (6A), as well as
traces of earlier inscriptions that remain discernible but are no longer legible.
Two further inscriptions are preserved on the opposite side (7B and 8B).
Dialect: Doric
Alphabet: Archaic, red (Ψ for Χ; R for P in one instance, l. 1).
Letters:
Letter height: 0.3 cm; interlinear space: 0.1 cm.
Date: 5th century BC.
Findspot: Dodona, Evangelidis’ excavation
1935
Original location: Dodona
Last recorded location: Archaeological
Museum of Ioannina
inv. M20; ΑΜΙ 12209
Editor(s): Elena Martín González; Stavroula Konstantopoulou; Carlos Candel Lozano (autopsy)
Edition based on: Facsimile, photograph, and autopsy conducted by Carlos Candel Lozano (2024).
Bibliography: Evangelidis 1935, 255 no. 15 (BE 1939, 472 no. 153; Wilhelm 1953, 76; BE 1955, 233 no. 143; Eidinow 2007, 89 no. 2) I.Dodone Lhôte 45 (Piccinini 2015, 143; Méndez Dosuna 2008, 74); I.Dodone DVC 5A (Méndez Dosuna 2018a, 47; CIOD 5A [last consulted 05/06/2026]) Candel Lozano forthcoming.
Cf. Parker 2016, 79; Haussker 2023, 301; Piccinini 2026, 160, n. 78.
Apparatus
l. 2: A punctuation mark precedes the preposition (see Candel Lozano forthcoming).l. 3: ἐόνθας: Γόνθας Evangelidis 1935; Γόνθας Lhôte 2006; Γόνθας CIOD; <ἐ>όνθας Wilhelm 1953; ἐόνθας I.Dodone DVC. The initial Ε is a secure reading.
English Translation
For Cleanor about offspring to inherit his patrimony from his current wife.
Spanish Translation
Para Cleánor sobre descendencia que herede su patrimonio de su mujer actual.
Commentary
The formula of oracular enquiry with the consultant’s name in the dative at the beginning of the text is well attested in the Dodona oracular corpus (e.g. I.Dodone DVC 118B and 1271B). Therefore, Wilhelm’s claim that the text must be an answer, and Lhôte’s suggestion that it constitutes an anacoluthon, are not well supported. On the controversial issue of the presence of answers on the Dodona tablets, see Martín González 2021.
Contrary to the parallel form πατροῦχος, which denotes the sole heiress in Herodotus (Hdt. 6.57) and the Gortyn Code (cf. Lajeunesse 2018, with earlier bibliography), the adjective πατρωϊῶχος (l. 2) does not point to female offspring but rather to offspring capable of inheriting the paternal estate. In the present context, Cleanor appears to be enquiring whether he will beget by his current wife an heir, presumably a male one, to succeed to his patrimony (cf. Méndez Dosuna 2018a, 47). For enquiries concerning offspring on the Dodona tablets, and especially male offspring, see Piccinini 2015, 147 and Laes 2020, 7-8.
For the otherwise unattested feminine participial form ἐόνθας (Attic οὔσης), which Evangelidis and Lhôte interpreted as the name of the wife, see Méndez Dosuna 2018a, 47. For the use of punctuation marks in the Dodona oracular tablets, see Méndez Dosuna forthcoming.
Ithaca Results: Ithaca attributes the inscription to Epirus with high accuracy (93.86%) and it dates it to the end of the 5th century BC (410-410 BC max). See Ithaca results and metadata, and a snapshot of the geographical attribution.
Themes / Keywords: Offspring
Images
Figure 1. Facsimile by Carlos Candel Lozano, 2026.
Project: “Dodona Travels to Ithaca. Artificial Intelligence Applied to the Edition of Greek Inscriptions”, NextGenerationEU, Consolidación Investigadora 2023 (CNS2023-144714)
Licence: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike International License 4.0. All citation, reuse or distribution of this work must contain a link to the URL https://dodonaonline.com/ and the filename, as well as the date of consultation.
File history: Created on 2026-06-05 by Stavroula Konstantopoulou.