to be the most ancient of the Oracles which are among the Hellenes,
and at that time it was the only one. So when the Pelasgians asked the
Oracle at Dodona whether they should adopt the names which had come from
the Barbarians, the Oracle in reply bade them make use of the names.
From this time they sacrificed using the names of the gods, and from the
Pelasgians the Hellenes afterwards received them: but when 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.

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. This I heard from the priests
at Thebes, and what follows is said by the prophetesses of Dodona. They
say that two black doves flew from Thebes in Egypt, and came one of them