Editing Zeus (section)

===Oracles===
Although most oracle sites were usually dedicated to [[Apollo]], the heroes, or various goddesses like [[Themis]], a few oracular sites were dedicated to Zeus. In addition, some foreign oracles, such as [[Baʿal]]'s at [[Heliopolis (Syria)|Heliopolis]], were [[interpretatio graeca|associated]] with Zeus in Greek or [[Jupiter]] in Latin.

====The Oracle at Dodona====

The cult of Zeus at [[Dodona]] in [[Epirus]], where there is evidence of religious activity from the second millennium BC onward, centered on a sacred oak. When the ''[[Odyssey]]'' was composed (circa 750 BC), divination was done there by barefoot priests called ''Selloi'', who lay on the ground and observed the rustling of the leaves and branches.<ref>''Odyssey'' 14.326-7</ref> By the time [[Herodotus]] wrote about Dodona, female priestesses called [[peleiades]] ("doves") had replaced the male priests.

Zeus's consort at Dodona was not [[Hera]], but the goddess [[Dione (Titaness/Oceanid)|Dione]] — whose name is a feminine form of "Zeus". Her status as a [[Titan (mythology)|titaness]] suggests to some that she may have been a more powerful pre-Hellenic deity, and perhaps the original occupant of the oracle.

==== The Oracle at Siwa ====
The [[oracle of Ammon]] at the [[Siwa Oasis]] in the Western Desert of [[Egypt]] did not lie within the bounds of the Greek world before [[Alexander the Great|Alexander]]'s day, but it already loomed large in the Greek mind during the archaic era: [[Herodotus]] mentions consultations with [[Zeus Ammon]] in his account of the [[Greco-Persian Wars|Persian War]]. Zeus Ammon was especially favored at [[Sparta]], where a temple to him existed by the time of the [[Peloponnesian War]].<ref>[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160%3Abook%3D3%3Achapter%3D18 3.18].</ref>

After Alexander made a trek into the desert to consult the oracle at Siwa, the figure arose in the Hellenistic imagination of a [[Libyan Sibyl]].