The main purpose of this monograph is to investigate the net of the socio-economic, political and religious interactions, which developed around the oracular sanctuary of Dodona from the archaic period to the time of the Roman conquest of Epirus. Its stated purpose is to highlight the multi-functional character of the shrine, which was not only a cult place, but also a meeting point and political centre as well as a commercial hub of private individuals and communities offering, consulting and performing rituals. Thus, besides looking at the itineraries leading to the sanctuary through the help of GIS technology according to an approach already fruitfully applied to Epirus by scholars working on network analysis, exchanges, routes and fortification systems, C.-H. strives to explore the dynamics of the contacts, i.e. all the interactions whose focal point was Dodona.

Though not explicitly stated, it seems clear that C.-H. also aims to provide an overview of the history, of the characteristics and of the organisation of the sanctuary. These two ‘paths’ often overlap and give rise to a rather heterogeneous account, in which several topics pile up in subchapters and paragraphs, without the necessary in-depth examination of the individual issues.

The book consists of eight chapters, including an introduction and conclusion. After a first chapter, serving as an introduction, where the methodology and purposes of the work are explained, in Chapter 2 C.-H. briefly tries to put the shrine in context, by outlining the history of the first explorations by nineteenth-century travellers and by describing the geomorphological features of the Dodona plain and of Epirus. Thereafter, he discusses the characteristics of political organisation, starting from the issue of polis formation in Epirus, then cursorily tackles the question of the Epirote ethnicity and outlines the political development of the Epirote ethne. Limited space is devoted to the history of the shrine in the archaic and classical periods through an overview of the votive offerings, of the oracular activity and of the religious and political role of the shrine in the Molossian state. Chapter 3 sketches the development of the sanctuary from Hellenistic times to the Roman conquest of Epirus, i.e. the most important period in the history of the region, after the creation of the koinon and ethnos of the Epirotes. Chapter 4 leaves aside the issue of path and communication and focuses exclusively on religious matters, as it deals with the cults and rites performed at Dodona, with the sacred officials, the gods worshipped there, the Naia festival and any ritual connecting Dodona with the rest of Greece.

The second part of the book matches more closely the core ideas expressed in the introduction. Chapter 5 discusses the role of the sanctuary in its regional context and in the rest of the ancient Greek world; Chapter 6 deals with the archaeology of ancient ‘pilgrimage’ at Dodona, while Chapter 7 examines the multi-functional dimension of the sanctuary, which, as with many other shrines, was not only a cult place, but also a meeting point and a political and economic centre. The conclusions look mainly at the historical role of Dodona as a focal point both for the communities living in north-west Greece and for other Greeks spread throughout the eastern Mediterranean. Two indexes, one of names, the other listing references to archaeological reports, close the volume.

The monograph poses several issues. To begin with, one may ask what the title, or at least the first part of it, means. ‘Experience’ is the process of getting knowledge from doing, seeing or feeling something, and it recalls contemporary approaches on the (digital) reconstruction of immersive past realities, especially in museum contexts. Thus, seeing the title ‘Experiencing Dodona’, one might expect a discussion of human actions, reactions and feelings relating to a visit to Dodona while this aspect is outside the scope of the book.

More serious problems arise from the lack of adequate treatment of the evidence and the bibliography. A deeper insight into modern scholarship would have been useful especially when dealing with controversial issues such as the dating of the Epirote and Molossian decrees as discussed by E.A. Meyer (The Inscriptions of Dodona and a New History of Molossia [2013]) and the character of the political organisation of the region in the fourth and third centuries bce. As for the ancient sources, a case in point is Pindar, whose verses are crucial for understanding Dodona's foundation legend(s) as well as the interregional dimension of the sanctuary. Pindar's testimony is either completely dismissed or misunderstood, for example C.-H. writes (p. 102) that Pindar ‘dedicated at least four paeans to Dodona’, since he seems to believe that frr. 57, 58, 59 and 60 S–M stem from independent compositions while, according to the reference editions by Snell and Maehler and by Rutherford, they belong to a single poem. Equally problematic is the treatment of material culture, as in the case of the claimed strong ties between the sanctuaries of Dodona and Olympia (pp. 25–6; 131–2) on the basis of the presence in both sanctuaries of warrior statuettes with raised spear-holding arm (pp. 25–6): this votive offering, known as the ‘Steiner warrior’ type after Kunze's classification, is not exclusively attested in Olympia and in the sanctuaries of Zeus, but also in several other ninth- and eighth-century bce shrines, particularly in Delphi.

Less important, but nevertheless an issue, is the fact that sometimes previous scholarship is misguidedly reported. For example, as regards my PhD thesis, C.-H. reports statements that I have never written, as at p. 115, where he writes that ‘Piccinini states that the doves stood on the branches of the oak and did not fly (Piccinini 2012, pp. 291–292)’. And at pp. 177–8 he states, ‘Piccinini counters this claim [the local production of votives] citing a fragment of Hesiod, who describes pilgrims as bringing their own gifts (Piccinini 2012, pp. 158–159)’, while I regarded this not as a far-ranging statement, but as a piece of evidence that might attest such use ‘at an early phase of development’.

Mistakes and inaccuracies are numerous: sites in Illyria (Epidamnus and Apollonia) are registered as Epirote (pp. vi; 159–62); fifth-century evidence is listed among archaic sources (p. 30); the term ‘evolution’, which implies a positive improvement, is preferred over the more neutral ‘development’; ‘epigraph’ over ‘inscription’ (p. 39); ‘isolation’ and ‘marginality’ are used as synonyms (p. 26).