DESCRIPTION
THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE
INFORMATION
 
 
A place of significance in the Dodoni sanctuary was reserved to the adoration of goddess Dioni, the mythological mother of goddess Aphrodite. Both Dioni and Themis were called ?Naian goddesses, cohabitants and worshipped together with Zeus?. The earlier temple dedicated to Dioni was situated near the Sacred Residence to the north and made part of the central section of the sanctuary. Built in the second half of the fourth century or in the early third century BC, the temple was set on fire by the Aetolians in 219 BC and was subsequently abandoned.

It was oriented from east to west, in an almost square plan (9.80 x 9.40m) and was about half as big as the adjacent temple of Zeus. It disposed of a cella and a pronaos (front section) with four Ionic columns of sandstone at the fa?ade; the superstructure was made of unfired (?green?) bricks. The stone threshold of the entrance pierced in the intermediate wall that separates the cella from the pronaos, still survives; the double-leaf door was 1.20m wide. At the far end of the cella are preserved the remains of a pedestal supporting the ceremonial statue of Dioni, the so called ?edos? (habitat). The revered ?edos? was honoured every year by the Athenians, who sent honourable ?theories? (dignitaries as city representatives) and abundant gifts, following a Dodoni oracle.

When the sanctuary was reconstructed after 219 BC, a new temple sacred to Dioni was erected to the south, visibly diverging from the temple of Zeus. It was an Ionic tetrastyle (four-columned) with a frontal portico (?prostyle?) temple disposing of a pronaos (anteroom) and the cella, measuring overall 9.60 x 6.35m. The columns were made of conglomerate externally plastered with fine lime mortar or marble mortar that rendered to the surfaces the whiteness and smoothness of marble. The stepped fa?ade was of good quality limestone, similar to the columns of the parodoi (passageways, public entrances) in the theatre. A wall separates the pronaos from the cella, featuring a stone threshold that still survives together with traces of the double-leaf door, 1.30m in width. At the far end of the cella stands the pedestal which supported the statue of Dioni.
 
 
 
Mythological / Historic Persons
Dakaris Sotitris