Editing Peleiades

{{Distinguish|Pleiades (disambiguation){{!}}Pleiades}}

'''Peleiades''' ([[Ancient Greek|Greek]]: {{lang|grc|Πελειάδες}}, "[[dove]]s") were the sacred women of [[Zeus]] and the [[Mother Goddess]], [[Dione (mythology)|Dione]], at the [[Oracle]] at [[Dodona]]. [[Pindar]] made a reference to the [[Pleiades (Greek mythology)|Pleiades]] as the "peleiades" a flock of doves, but the connection seems witty and poetical, rather than mythic. The chariot of [[Aphrodite]] was drawn by a flock of doves, however. A mythic element of a black dove that initiated the oracle at Dodona, which [[Herodotus]] was told in the 5th century BC may be an attempt to account for a [[folk etymology]] applied to the archaic name of the sacred women that no longer made sense (an [[aitiological myth]]). Perhaps the ''pel-'' element in their name was originally connected with "black" or "muddy" root elements in names like [[Peleus]] or [[Pelops]] and [[peliganes]] (Epirotian, Macedonian senators), Attic ''polios'', Doric ''peleios'' grey, old, [[PIE]] *pel-, "gray". Peleiades are often confused with the [[nymphs]] Pleiades.<ref>[[Herodotus]]. ''[[Histories (Herodotus)|The Histories]]'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0126:book=2:chapter=54:section=1 2.54.1].</ref><ref>SGA - International Association Terra Antiqua Balcanica, Institute for the Study of Man. ''The Journal of Indo-European Studies'', p. 473.</ref><ref>Yonge, [https://books.google.com/books?id=T98IAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA785&dq=Peleiades+Athenaeus#PPA783,M1 p. 783].</ref><ref>Hutchinson, [https://books.google.com/books?id=40khUpN3_CgC&pg=RA1-PA90&dq=Pindar+Peleiades&sig=PxM9T-bv3s6nIguTT4NvIR1QAQo p. 90].</ref>

==See also==
*[[Ancient Epirotes]]
*[[Pythia]]
*[[Hiereiai]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Sources==
*Athenaeus (translated by Charles Duke Yonge). ''The Deipnosophists, Or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenaeus''. Henry G. Bohn, 1867 (Original from Harvard University).
*Hutchinson, G. O. ''Greek Lyric Poetry: A Commentary on Selected Larger Pieces''. Oxford University Press, 2001. {{ISBN|0-19-924017-5}}

==External links==
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20120209181147/http://www.mythindex.com/greek-mythology/P/Peleiades.html Greek Myth Index - Peleiades]

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[[Category:Ancient Greek priestesses]]
[[Category:Ancient Greek seers]]
[[Category:Classical oracles]]
[[Category:Religion in ancient Epirus]]