Description

The bronze effigies of leaves (fig. 38) and oaks found in the Sanctuary of Zeus, as well as the depiction of such a tree on a copper coin (fig. 39) from Dodoni, around 300 BC, serve to identify the sacred tree in the particular oracle. In the Odyssey (14.327-328 and 19.296-297) it is mentioned that initially the oracles were given by the holy figure. The rustling of its leaves suggested to her the idea that the particular tree was speaking ("polyglot oak", Sophocles Trachiniae v. 1168 and "reasoning oak", Plato's Phaedrus 275b). The prophetic potential of the oak must be related to tree worship, according to which a sacred tree is a micrograph of the universe and the cycle of life (imago mundi) and a symbol of the rebirth of nature.