ABSTRACT
Zeus, like Apollo at Delphi, took over from an older occupancy, an oracle of Earth. Archaeological evidence further shows that Zeus was associated not with Hera, the great mother goddess of the Argive plain, but with his older consort Dione, who had her own shrine. The presence of doves as part of the oracle accounts for the shrine of Aphrodite which exists among the ruins, for doves are sacred to her. Heracles was also and had his shrine; he was the legendary ancestor of the kings of Epirus. Archaeology has unearthed for us a series of lead tablets extending from the fifth to the second century bc and recording questions put to the oracle. Some of the myths, represented often enough on vases, are more violent, and tell how Apollo had to conquer the shrine by killing the monstrous snake Pytho, who ‘ministered the oracle of Earth’, and had to do penance for his sacrilegious act.
