Description: Lead tablet with two folds, now preserved in four adjoining fragments. W: 13.7 cm × H: 1.9 cm × D: 0.012 cm.
Layout description: The tablet is inscribed on both sides. Side A preserves only one inscription, Porinos’ question, whereas side B bears two inscriptions: one (37B), a summary of the present text written by the same hand, and another (36B), unrelated to it, which must represent the tablet’s first use. At present, side B is covered with insulating tape used to secure the fragments together, hampering its legibility.
Dialect: Ionic
Alphabet: Ionic-Attic
Letters: Letter height: 0.3 (circular letters: 0.2 cm; the last four letters of l. 2: 0.3-0.4 cm); interlinear space: 0.1-0.2 cm. (35A); 0.2 cm (omikron 0.1 cm) (37B).

Date: 4th century BC.

Findspot: Dodona Evangelidis’ excavations 1929-1935.
Original location: Dodona
Last recorded location: Archaeological Museum of Ioannina inv. M68; AMI 11985
Autopsy: autopsied by Elena Martín González in 2025.

Editor(s): Elena Martín González; Stavroula Konstantopoulou
Edition based on: Facsimile, photograph. Autopsy conducted by Elena Martín González (2025).

Bibliography: Eidinow 2007, 94-95, 99 nr. 17 (preliminary edition of inscription in face A by Christidis); I.Dodone DVC 35A+37B (Chaniotis 2013, § 201; Parker 2016, 82; Chaniotis 2017a, 58; Lhôte 2017, 43-44; Méndez Dosuna 2018b, 266, 279; Tselikas 2018, 255; Giannakis 2024b, 105, 124-126; Martín González 2024, 75-79; CIOD 4 [last consulted 25/06/2026]).
Cf. Lombardo 2017, 119 n. 47; Crespo – Giannakis 2019, 55 (on dialectal mixture); Moga 2021, 460, n. 8 (on Zeus Pronaios); Katsikoudis 2022, 164 n. 9 (on Zeus Pronaios).

Apparatus

English Translation

God. To the Good Fortune, Zeus Pronaios and Dione. Porinos, Cumaean, son of Evandros, asks the god whether it will better and more advantegous for him to serve the satrap and governor.

Porinos to the satrap.

Spanish Translation

Dios. A la Buena Fortuna, a Zeus Pronaios y a Dione. Porino, cumano, hijo de Evandro, pregunta al dios si será mejor y más favorable para él servir al sátrapa y gobernador.

Porino al sátrapa.

Commentary

Porinos’ enquiry belongs to a group of oracular tablets that exhibit dialectal mixture (see Crespo – Giannakis 2019): the main text is written in the consultant’s Ionic dialect, whereas the introductory formula employs the Doric forms of the gods’ names characteristic of the sanctuary. According to Tselikas 2018, the use of the epithet Pronaios instead of Naios for Zeus reflects the influence of the Delphian Athena Προναΐα. Lhôte’s restoration of the verb in l. 2 as εἰρωτᾶ[ι], in the present tense, is consistent with the space available in the lacuna caused by the fold of the tablet.

Méndez Dosuna 2018b argues on dialectal grounds that the ethnic may refer either to Kyme in Euboea or to Cumae, the Euboean colony in Italy, the latter being the more widely accepted identification, although the third compensatory lengthening in εἰρωτᾶ[ι] would not be expected in Euboean. By contrast, Lhôte 2017 argues on historical grounds that the ethnic refers to Aeolian Cyme (see below), a view subsequently adopted by Lombardo 2017. For the provenance of the consultants to the oracle, which is explicitly indicated in only nine tablets, see Georgoulas 2023.

The inscription also contains one of the rare references in the Dodona tablets to the historical context of the consultation, namely the mention of a Persian satrap. As Chaniotis 2017a points out, the reference to the satrap requires that the inscription be dated before Alexander the Great’s campaigns against Persia (336 BC); consequently, he dates it to the early fourth century BC. Lhôte 2017, on the other hand, narrows down the chronology of the inscription to ca. 360-358 BC, within the context of the so-called Satraps’ Revolt, during the final years of the reign of Artaxerxes II Mnemon. On the basis of the testimony of Polyaenus (7.14), Lhôte 2017 and Carbon (CIOD) further identify the satrap mentioned in the inscription with Orontes, who captured Cyme with the assistance of Greek mercenaries during his conflict with Artaxerxes III in 355/54 BC.

Eidinow 2007 raises the possibility that the verb θεραπεύω should be understood in the sense of “to treat medically,” rather than as referring to mercenary service. On this interpretation, Porinos would have been an itinerant physician summoned by the satrap.

Chaniotis 2017a suggests interpreting the inscription on side B not as a summary or label, but as the oracle’s response to Porinos’ enquiry on side A. Both inscriptions were written by the same hand. For the vexed question of the oracle’s responses, see Martín González 2021.

Ithaca Results: Ithaca attributes the inscription to Epirus with high accuracy (91.38 %), but it dates it to the end of the 3rd century BC (210-200 BC max, 11.59%). Of the twenty text restoration hypotheses proposed by Ithaca, the first, the dative ending of the participle θεραπεύοντ[ι], is highly satisfactory and coincides with the editors’ restoration. The second, the accusative form (θεραπεύοντ[α]), assigned a much lower probability, is morphologically (but not sintactically) acceptable, while the remaining proposals do not yield valid Greek forms and can therefore be discarded. See Ithaca results and metadata, and a snapshot of the geographical attribution.

Themes / Keywords: Job

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 2026-06-15 by Stavroula Konstantopoulou.

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