Dodona

Dodona, in the mountains of Epirus, was the oldest oracle in Greece, where priests read the will of Zeus in the rustling leaves of a sacred oak. In the Iliad Achilles prays to Zeus of Dodona before Troy; the goddess Dione was honoured beside him.

Around 290 BC Pyrrhus made it his kingdom's religious capital, rebuilding the Temple of Zeus and adding a theatre and games. The Aetolians burned it in 219 BC and Philip V of Macedon restored it, but raiders in the pay of Mithridates sacked it around 88 BC.

Pilgrims came in Roman times: Pausanias saw the sacred oak in the second century, and the emperor Julian consulted the oracle in 362. In 391 or 392 Theodosius I closed the pagan temples and had the oak cut down, though a Christian bishopric survived into the fifth century.