Dodona's Oracle and its Importance to the Romans This research is an attempt to identify the importance of the Dodona's oracle to the Romans through literary Greek and Latin sources. The oracle of Dodona had acquired great importance for the ancient Greeks, but later that importance was transferred to Delphi. Dodona's oracle arose in the sacred grove of the Zeus' Temple there. The myth recounts that the oracle was brought up by an Egyptian pigeon (priestess) who had to come from the Temple of

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... us Ammon in Thebes to Dodona. The dove (priestess) settled around sacred oak tree of Zeus; just as the oak was associated with the god Zeus, the dove was associated with the goddess Dione, wife of Zeus, his partner in that temple, and the mother of the goddess Aphrodite (Venus). The sources alternate the attribution of the prophecy to the pigeon, to the priestess, to the oak tree, and to those priests whom Homer called the Silloi who lived and slept on the ground under the oak tree. The oracle of Dodona was known to the Romans, and its belongings (pigeonsoak trees) were mentioned directly or indirectly in literary sources, whether among poets of the Golden Age such as Virgilius, Probertius, and Ovidius; or Silver-Age poets such as Valerius Flaccus. These belongings were mentioned too in the works of the writers of the imperial era, whether in an early period of it, such as Lucanus or in Late period, such as Arnopius. So, the research was divided into three main points; we begin with an introduction: it deals with the definition of the oracle and how ancient it was and the temple so as. The second point deals with the origin of the oracle. The third point deals with how the oracle of Dodona was important to the Romans according to what was mentioned in the literary sources. Then comes the conclusion that summarizes the most important findings from the research. In this study, the researcher followed the descriptive analytical approach, which is the dominant approach in the treatment of human studies. ἀιι᾽ ὁ ζεὸο αὐηόο ἐζηηλ ὁ ιέγσλ, δηὰ ηνύησλ δὲ θζέγγεηαη πξὸο ἡκᾶο. (Plato, Ion, 534D.) ‫نبه‬ ‫دودونا‬ ‫ءة‬ ‫الرومان‬ ‫عشد‬ ‫أهسيتها‬ ‫و‬ 9