According to Hesiod, the Ioannina Basin was a rich, fertile region which was known as Ellopia.
The Ellopes were a Doric tribe from Thesprotia, who lived in the Ioannina Basin at ancient Ellopia and are referenced in th Homer’s Iliad, as a tribe of priests and seers.
This was later confirmed by Aristotle, who further supported that the “cradle” of Greece was the region bordering Dodona and the River Acheloos, Ancient Ellopia.
The people of Ellopia, having strong religious and spiritual beliefs, commonly slept on the ground in order to come into closer contact with divine energy.
This was, after all, the period in time during which Dodona first began to see use as a place of worship of the Great Goddess, which was later supplanted by the worship of Zeus.
This place, bordering Dodona and the River Acheloos, the cradle of Greece, was ancient Ellopia.