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[370] Dione appears only here in Homer; she is named incidentally, among other daughters of Okeanos and Tethys, in Hesiod Theog. 353, and as present at the childbearing of Leto, Hymn. Apol. 93. These appear to be only attempts to connect with the Olympian system an earlier goddess who did not really belong to it. Her cult seems to have been Thesprotian and connected with that of Zeus at Dodona, where she was his “σύνναος”. She also had an altar in Athens near the Erechtheion (with “Ζεὺς ὕπατος”? See Preller G. M. ^{4} i. 125), which all points to an antiquity more remote than that of Hera. The name itself is probably connected with Lat. Diana, and in formation it resembles “Διώνυσος”.

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