this plausible account of Herodotus, it is not
impossible that some equivocal expressions in the Hebrew and Arabian
languages may have given rise to the story. 'Himan,' in the one
language, signified 'a priest;' and 'Heman,' in the other, was the
name for 'a pigeon.' Possibly those who found the former word in the
history of ancient Greece, written in the dialect of the original
Phoenician settlers, did not understand it, and by their mistake,
caused it to be asserted that a dove had founded the oracle of
Dodona. Bochart tells us that the same word, in the Phoenician
tongue, signifies either 'pigeons,' or 'women;' but the Abbe Sallier
has gone still further, and has shown that, in the language of the
ancient inhabitants of Epirus, the same word had the two
significations mentioned by Bochart.

This oracle afterwards grew famous for its responses, and the
priests used considerable ingenuity in the delivery of their
answers. They cautiously kept all who came to consult them at a
distance from the dark recess where the shrine was situated; and
took care to deliver their responses in a manner so ambiguous, as to
make people believe whatever they pleased. In this circumstance
originates the variation in the descriptions of the oracle which the
ancients have left us. According to some, it was the oaks that
spoke; according to others, the beeches; while a third account was
that pigeons gave the answers; and, lastly, it was said that the
ringing of certain cauldrons there suspended, divulged the will of
heaven. Stephanus Byzantinus has left a curious account of this
contrivance of the cauldrons; he says that in that part of the
forest of Dodona, where the oracle stood, there were two pillars
erected, at a small distance from each other. On one there was
placed a brazen vessel, about the size of an ordinary cauldron: and
on the other a little boy, which was most probably a piece of
mechanism, who held a brazen whip with several thongs which hung
loose, and were easily moved. When the wind blew, the lashes struck
against the vessel, and occasioned a noise while the wind continued.
It was from them, he says, that the forest took the name of Dodona;
'dodo,' in the ancient language, signifying 'a cauldron.'

Strabo says that the responses were originally given by three
priestesses: and he gives the reason why two priests were afterwards
added to them. The B