On the Ancient HELLENES. 139 
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the certainty of that ancient fact. But it will fcarce, I imagine, 
be fuppofed, that one fingle old Egyptian prieftefs had the ad- 
drefs and courage to erect the oracle in queftion. Whatever 
the modern Greeks may have dreamed upon that fubjeé, fhe 
mutt have had men as her co-adjutors in that operation. Thefe 
co-adjutors were the original Selli. Thefe people were actually 
emigrants from Egypt and Phceenicia. As the Egyptians, in the 
earlieft times, were averfe to navigation, all the Egyptian chiefs 
who brought colonies into Greece, were obliged to tranfport 
themfelves on board Pheenician veflels, and of courfe generally 
imported a mixture of thefe people. The fact then was,~—The 
original inhabitants of the neighbourhood of Dodona were a 
-colony of Egyptians and Phoenicians *. The Egyptians were, 
however, the leaders in that emigration. Some part of thefe 
belonged to the facerdotal tribe, and had been originally mini- 
fters of the temple of No-ammon, Thebes or Diofpolis. Thefe 
probably confifted of both fexes, and thefe actually founded 
the oracle and built the temple of Juprrzer Dodonezus, in imi- 
tation of that of the fame Deity in Egypt. Like the pricfts: of 
Delphi of a later date, they employed a prieftefs to publifh the 
oracles to thofe who confulted them. After fome years, Dione, 
or the Moon, was admitted to a participation of the worfhip 
there eftablifhed. Upon this occafion, three additional prieft- 
effes were appointed to minifter to that divinity. 
From this deduction, it appears obvious, that the Helli or 
Selli of Dodona were originally a colony from Egypt and Phoe- 
nicia ; that the leaders of this colony were Egyptians from The- 
bais of Egypt; that thefe brought in their train. fome of the 
priefts of Juprrer at Thebx, or were perhaps themfelves a 
fwarm difcharged from that feminary; that from them the re- 
gion about Dodona was called He/las, and the natives Hellenes: 
Pig that 
* I fay Pheenicians, becaufe moft of the names of the objects about the temple 
appear to be Pheenician. 
