d using the names of
the gods, and from the Pelasgians the Hellenes afterwards received them:

53, but whence the several gods had their birth, or whether they all
were from the beginning, and of what form they are, they did not learn
till yesterday, as it were, or the day before: for Hesiod and Homer I
suppose were four hundred years before my time and not more, and these
are they who made a theogony for the Hellenes and gave the titles to
the gods and distributed to them honours and arts, and set forth their
forms: but the poets who are said to have been before these men were
really in my opinion after them. Of these things the first are said by
the priestesses of Dodona, and the latter things, those namely which
have regard to Hesiod and Homer, by myself.

54. As regards the Oracles both that among the Hellenes and that in
Libya, the Egyptians tell the following tale. The priests of the Theban
Zeus told me that two women in the service of the temple had been
carried away from Thebes by Phenicians, and that they had heard that one
of them had been sold to go into Libya and the other to the Hellenes;
and these women, they said, were they who first founded the prophetic
seats among the nations which have been named: and when I inquired
whence they knew so perfectly of this tale which they told, they said
in reply that a great search had been made by the priests after these
women, and that they had not been able to find them, but they had heard
afterwards this tale about them which they were telling.

55. This I heard from the priests at Thebes, and what follows is said by
the prophetesses 52 of Dodona. They say that two black doves flew from
Thebes to Egypt, and came one of them to Libya and the other to their
land. And this latter settled upon an oak-tree 53 and spoke with human
voice, saying that it was necessary that a prophetic seat of Zeus should
be established in that place; and they supposed that that was of the
gods which was announced to them, and made one accordingly: and the dove
which went away to the Libyans, they say, bade the Libyans to make an
Oracle of Ammon; and this also is of Zeus. The priestesses of Dodona
told me these things, of whom the eldest was named Promeneia, the next
after her Timarete, and the youngest Nicandra; and the other people of
Dodona who were engaged about the temple gave accounts agreeing with
theirs.

56. I however have an opinion about the matter as follows:--If the
Phenici