Enquiry about offspring to inherit Elena Martín González Stavroula Konstantopoulou Carlos Candel Lozano “Dodona Travels to Ithaca. Artificial Intelligence Applied to the Edition of Greek Inscriptions”, NextGenerationEU, Consolidación Investigadora 2023 (CNS2023-144714) I.Dodone Online 5A

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Lead tablet, with a hole at one end, which predates the engraving of the text.

2.5 6.8 0.16

It is inscribed on both sides. The same tablet preserves another inscription on the same side (6A), as well as traces of earlier inscriptions that remain discernible but are no longer legible. Two further inscriptions are preserved on the opposite side (7B and 8B).

Doric

Archaic, red (Ψ for Χ; R for P in one instance, l. 1).

Letter height: 0.3 cm; interlinear space: 0.1 cm.

5th century BC

Dodona Dodona, Evangelidis' excavation 1935 Archaeological Museum of Ioannina inv. M20; ΑΜΙ 12209

Encoded according to the EpiDoc Guidelines, version 9.

 English Ancient Greek Latin French German Modern Greek Spanish Question Offspring Facsimile, photograph, and autopsy conducted by Carlos Candel Lozano (2024) Initial encoding by Stavroula Konstantopoulou.

, 255 no. 15 (, 472 no. 153; , 76; , 233 no. 143; , 89 no. 2) 45 (, 143; , 74); 5A (, 47; 5A [last consulted 05/06/2026]) forthcoming.

Cf. , 79; , 301; , 160, n. 78.

Κλεάνορι περὶ γενεᾶς πατριχ · ἐκ τᾶς νῦν ἐόνθας γυναικός.
A punctuation mark precedes the preposition (see forthcoming). ἐόνθας Γόνθας Γόνθας Γόνθας ἐόνθας ἐόνθας The initial Ε is a secure reading.

For Cleanor about offspring to inherit his patrimony from his current wife.

Para Cleánor sobre descendencia que herede su patrimonio de su mujer actual.

The formula of oracular enquiry with the consultant’s name in the dative at the beginning of the text is well attested in the Dodona oracular corpus (e.g. 118B and 1271B). Therefore, Wilhelm’s claim that the text must be an answer, and Lhôte’s suggestion that it constitutes an anacoluthon, are not well supported. On the controversial issue of the presence of answers on the Dodona tablets, see .

Contrary to the parallel form πατροῦχος, which denotes the sole heiress in Herodotus (Hdt. 6.57) and the Gortyn Code (cf. , with earlier bibliography), the adjective πατρωϊῶχος (l. 2) does not point to female offspring but rather to offspring capable of inheriting the paternal estate. In the present context, Cleanor appears to be enquiring whether he will beget by his current wife an heir, presumably a male one, to succeed to his patrimony (cf. , 47). For enquiries concerning offspring on the Dodona tablets, and especially male offspring, see , 147 and , 7-8.

For the otherwise unattested feminine participial form ἐόνθας (Attic οὔσης), which Evangelidis and Lhôte interpreted as the name of the wife, see , 47. For the use of punctuation marks in the Dodona oracular tablets, see .

Ithaca attributes the inscription to Epirus with high accuracy (93.86%) and it dates it to the end of the 5th century BC (410-410 BC max). See Ithaca results and metadata, and a snapshot of the geographical attribution.

 Facsimile by Carlos Candel Lozano, 2026.