Homer mentions Dodona in the Iliad, where Achilles prays to "High Zeus, Lord of Dodona, Pelasgian, living afar off, brooding over wintry Dodona." No buildings appear in Homer's account -- just the tree, the open sky, and the Selloi, those strange bare-footed priests who maintained direct contact with the earth. The oracle may have begun as a shrine to a Mother Goddess, identified elsewhere as Rhea or Gaia but known here as Dione. Zeus arrived later, joining and partly supplanting her. Unlike at other sites, Dione was never fully displaced at Dodona. Dedicatory inscriptions found at the site mention both "Dione" and "Zeus Naios" -- Zeus of the spring that flowed beneath the oak. A newer interpretation suggests that the prophetic sounds came not just from rustling leaves but from bronze objects hung from the branches, ringing in the wind like a vast chime. The sacred tree spoke in metal and wood together.

The prophetesses at Dodona were called peleiades -- doves. Herodotus, visiting in the 5th century BCE, recorded a story told by Egyptian priests at Thebes: two priestesses had been carried away by Phoenicians, one sold in Libya and the other in Greece, and these women founded the oracles at Siwa and Dodona respectively. The prophetesses at Dodona told Herodotus a different version involving actual black doves that flew from Egypt and spoke with human voices. Was the dove connection a folk etymology, an attempt to explain an archaic title whose meaning had been lost? The pel- element in the name may connect to words meaning "dark" or "old" -- the same root found in names like Peleus and Pelops. Whatever its origin, the dove imagery persisted, and the women who interpreted the oak's messages held an authority that preceded even the more famous Pythia at Delphi.

Over 4,200 oracular tablets have been recovered from Dodona, dating roughly from the mid-6th to early 2nd centuries BCE. All were written in Greek, attesting to more than 1,200 personal names from across the Greek world. Non-Greek names -- Thracian, Illyrian -- make up around one percent of the total. The questions scratched into these thin lead sheets are overwhelmingly practical: Should I marry? Will my business prosper? Is the child mine? Am I going to recover from this illness? The great oracle of Zeus, second only to Delphi in prestige, spent most of its time answering the anxieties of ordinary people. Aristotle considered the region around Dodona to be where the Hellenes originated, noting that the Selloi "were formerly called Graikoi, but now Hellenes." Some scholars believe the very words "Hellas" and "Greece" trace their origins to this valley.

Dodona remained relatively modest in its built environment until King Pyrrhus of Epirus transformed it around 290 BCE. He made it the religious capital of his domain, grandly rebuilding the Temple of Zeus, adding a theater for dramatic performances, and establishing a festival with athletic games and musical contests. Later, Philip V of Macedon reconstructed the buildings again in the late 3rd century BCE. Roman destruction followed in 167 BCE when Aemilius Paulus razed the Molossian cities. Thracian soldiers under King Mithridates sacked the sanctuary around 88 BCE. Yet Dodona kept reviving. Under Augustus, it was prominent enough to merit an honorary statue of Livia. The traveler Pausanias noted the sacred oak still standing in the 2nd century CE. As late as 362 CE, Emperor Julian consulted the oracle before his Persian campaigns.

In 391 CE, Emperor Theodosius ordered all pagan temples closed and all pagan religious activities banned. At Dodona, the ancient oak tree -- the one through which Zeus had spoken for perhaps two millennia -- was cut down. The oracle fell silent for the last time. Yet even this ending was not total. The site retained enough significance that a bishop of Dodona named Theodorus attended the First Council of Ephesus in 431 CE, suggesting that the Christian community recognized the power of the place even as it rejected the god who had inhabited it. Today, the remains lie in a valley beneath Mount Tomaros, south of the city of Ioannina. The theater Pyrrhus built still arcs against the hillside. The foundations of Zeus's temple still mark the ground. The sacred oak is gone, but the wind still moves through the valley, and if you listen carefully enough, you might understand why people once believed it carried a voice.