I.Dodone Online 24A+25A+26B: Enquiry regarding migration to Kroton
Description: Lead tablet, with three folds. W: 14 cm × H: 1.8 cm × D: 0.21 cm.
Layout description: The tablet is inscribed on both sides. The surface of face A shows extensive traces of erasure. The tablet bears an inscription on each side by the same hand: a question on face A ( I.Dodone DVC 24A+25A ) and a summary of the same question on face B. The last three lines of the inscription on face A were written in smaller letters and positioned towards the right edge of the tablet to fit the available space. They are separated from the preceding text by a finely incised line. Ιnterpunct occurs once, in line 5.
Dialect: Doric
Alphabet: Achaian
Date: end of the 5th century BC
Findspot: Dodona, Evangelidis’ excavation 1935.
Original location: Dodona
Last recorded location: Archaeological Museum of Ioannina inv. M47; AMI 11507
Editor(s): Elena Martín González; Stavroula Konstantopoulou
Edition based on: Facsimile and photograph.
Bibliography: Vokotopoulou 1992, 81 no 8, fig. 3b (SEG 43.325; I.Dodone Lhôte 114; Eidinow 2007, 74, 76 no 5, 107; Nocita 2018, 512-513); I.Dodone DVC 24A+25A+26B (CIOD 24-25 [last consulted 15/07/2026]); Dodonaios, 307 no 73 (G. Giannakis, E.K. Skalisti); Johnston 2021, 114; Giannakis 2024a, 124; Giannakis 2024b, 110, 129.
Cf. Méndez Dosuna 2008, 59 (on οἴκησις), 64 (on elision of final nu); de Jong 2015, 124 (English translation); Chaniotis 2016, §201 (classifying inscription on face B as an answer); Parker 2016, 88-89 n. 84; Chaniotis 2017a, 58; Rizzo 2017, 730 (on consulations from Magna Graecia); Vecchio 2019, 110 (Italian translation); Crespo – Giannakis 2019, 50 (on dialectal mixture); Malkin – Blok 2024, 160 n. 28; Domínguez Monedero 2026, 94 (on παμπασία); Lipka 2026, 18 n. 34.
Text
Apparatus
l. 3: <ε>ἰς Vokotopoulou 1992; ἰς I.Dodone Lhôte and the subsequent editors.
l. 3: ΚΡΤΟΝΑ tablet, correcting the previously engraved ΚΤΤΟΝΑ, according to the editors of I.Dodone DVC.
l. 3: βέλτιον SEG, Eidinow 2007
l. 3: ΑΜΕΙΝΟ tablet; ἄμεινον Vokotopoulou 1992
English Translation
God. Good Fortune. About property and migration to Kroton, is it better and more advantageous for him, for his descendance and for his wife?
In Kroton.
Spanish Translation
Dios. Buena Fortuna. Sobre el conjunto de las propiedades y la migración a Crotón, ¿es mejor y más ventajoso para él, para su descendencia y para su mujer?
En Crotón.
Commentary
The origin of the consultant remains uncertain. Vokotopoulou 1992 notes that the alphabet could belong to Magna Graecia, but it is not exclusive to that region. I.Dodone Lhôte (and CIOD) considers the consultant an Epirote intending to settle in Kroton, interpreting the archaic gamma and digamma as survivals of the local alphabet of Dodona. By contrast, Johnston 2021 regards the angled lunate gamma as evidence of Achaian, probably colonial Achaian, lettering. On the dialect of Achaia and its colonies in Magna Graecia, see Méndez Dosuna 1991.
The name of Kroton is reconstructed on the fragmentary tablet I.Dodone DVC 319 ([—Κ]ρότονι), which Lhôte (CIOD) attributes to the same hand and interprets as an earlier version of the present enquiry, although this connection remains conjectural.
The text on face B has been interpreted either as a summary of the question on face A or as an oracular response. On the controversial issue of the presence of answers on the Dodona tablets, see Martín González 2021.
On the ubiquitous term παμπασία in the oracular tablets, see Domínguez Monedero 2026, 92-99. For misspellings in the oracular lamellae, see Méndez Dosuna 2018b, 267-272. For the use of punctuation marks in the Dodona oracular tablets, see Méndez Dosuna forthcoming.
Ithaca Results: Ithaca attributes the inscription to Epirus with a high probability (92.78%). Chronologically, the distribution peaks at 400-390 BC (ca. 69%), with a mean date of 391 BC, broadly consistent with the dating proposed by the editors of I.Dodone DVC (end of the 5th century BC). See the Ithaca results and associated files.
Themes / Keywords: Migration
Images
Figure 1. Photograph of side A of the lead tablet, from the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, National Archive of Monuments (Ephorate of Antiquities of Ioannina). Copyright: Hellenic Ministry of Culture (CC BY-NC 4.0).
Project: “Dodona Travels to Ithaca. Artificial Intelligence Applied to the Edition of Greek Inscriptions”. Grant CNS2023-144714, funded by MICIU/AEI (10.13039/501100011033) and by the European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR
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File history: Created on 2026-06-15 by Stavroula Konstantopoulou.