[65] ἀθανατίζουσι δὲ καὶ Τέριζοι (τερετιζοι Phot.) καὶ Κρόβυζοι καὶ τοὺς ἀποθανόντας ὡς Ζάλμοξίν φασιν οἴχεσθαι, Phot. Suid., EM. Ζάμολξις. The Krobyzoi are a well-known Thracian stock. The Terizoi are not elsewhere mentioned; perhaps they may be placed in the neighbourhood of Τίριστις, Τίριξις ἄκρα = C. Kaliakra (cf. C. Müller on Arrian, P. Eux. 35); there we also hear of a Τίριστις πόλις, Ptolem. With this Tomaschek also agrees (D. alten Thraker, Ber. Wien. Ak.> 128, iv, p. 97). In this case they would be neighbours of the Krobyzoi. [279]
[66] οὐκ ἀποθνῄσκειν ἀλλὰ μετοικίζεσθαι νομίζοντες is what we hear of the Getai in Julian, Caes. 327 D. animas (putant) non extingui sed ad beatiora transire, Mela, ii, 18.
[67] . . . τοὺς ἀποθανόντας ὡς Ζάλμοξίν φασιν οἴχεσθαι, ἥξειν δὲ αὖθις. καὶ ταῦτα ἀεὶ νομίζουσιν ἀληθεύειν. θύουσι δὲ καὶ εὐωχοῦνται ὡς αὔθις ἥξοντος τοῦ ἀποθανόντος, Phot. Suid., EM. Ζάμολξις. Mela, ii, 18: alii (among the Thracians) redituras putant animas obeuntium.
[68] Hdt. iv, 95, Zalmoxis, a slave of Pythagoras in Samos, is set free and comes back a rich man to his poverty-stricken country. He collects together the leading men of the race in a room, where he entertains them and seeks to persuade them of the belief that neither he nor they nor their descendants will die but that they will all come after death to a place where they will enjoy all good things in abundance. Thereupon he withdraws into a secret underground chamber and lives there for three years. In the fourth year he comes to light again and “the Thracians are persuaded of the truth of what Zalmoxis had told them.” This implies—though Hdt. omits to say so, and so does [Hellan.] π. νομ. βαρβ. (following Hdt.) ap. Phot., etc., s. Ζάμολξις—that he had also promised that he and his adherents should return to earth alive after the expiry of a definite period (three years). That such a belief in the “return” of the dead was actually held by the Thracians is clear enough from the quotations given in the last [note]. The story of Zalmoxis’ trick (which was perhaps intended humorously by its inventors) seemed suspicious even to Hdt., but it is not pure invention (any more than the analogous stories about Pythagoras, Trophonios, and later Empedotimos): it is rather a euhemerist version of a miraculous legend. The disappearance of Zalmoxis into a subterranean chamber is a distortion of the belief in his permanent abode in a hollow mountain-side, an ἀντρῶδές τι χώριον in Mt. Kogaionon of which Str. 298 speaks plainly enough. In that mountain the god dwells; just as Rhesos κρυπτὸς ἐν ἄντροις τῆς ὑπαργύρου χθονός of Mt. Pangaios, dwells there as an ἀνθρωποδαίμων [E.], Rh. 970; cf. chap. iv, [n. 36]. He lives there undying like the Βάκχου προφήτης, who has become a god, to whom the tragedy obscurely alludes in ll. 972 f. as living on Mt. Pangaios (this may perhaps refer to Lykourgos—see G. Hermann, Op. v, 23 f.—surely not to Orpheus as Maass, Orpheus, p. 68 [1895], suggests). The obvious parallel is Amphiaraos and Trophonios in their caves, and Orig., Cels. iii, 34 (see above, chap. iii, [n. 13]), puts them and Zalmoxis together. We may safely complete Hdt.’s account of how the ἀπολλύμενοι of the Getai go away and have everlasting life παρὰ Ζάλμοξιν δαίμονα (iv, 94), by saying that they reach this same hollow mountain, a subterranean place of delight where they dwell with the god. Mnaseas compares Zalmoxis with Kronos (FHG.; Phot. Suid. EM., as before) and the similarity doubtless resides in the fact that both rule over the spirits of the blest in another world. But besides this the Thracian belief must also have included the idea of a periodical appearance of the god in the upper world. Hdt.’s story of the trick practised by Zalmoxis shows this (the return of the souls to which the story also points, is a sort of counterpart of this). Are we to suppose that the ἐπιφάνεια of the god was expected after the expiry of three years (just as it was after two years in the Dionysos festival; see above, [n. 27])? We do not know whether these Thracian tribes celebrated the ἐπιφάνεια of the god with “enthusiastic” worship. Such an element in the cult of Zalmoxis seems to be suggested by the fact that we hear of “physicians of Zalmoxis” (Pl., Charm. 156 D) and of mantikê—which is generally closely bound up with ἰατρική—[280] in the cult of this god. This must be the meaning of calling Zalm. himself μάντις: Str. 762, 297; cf. also the otherwise valueless account of Ant. Diog. ap. Porph. VP. 14–15. Finally, the enthusiastic character of the cult seems to be implied in the identifying of the priest with the god by the Getai (as in the similar cases mentioned above, notes [32] and [59]). Thus, the high priest is himself called “god”: Str. 298 (he has authority over both king and state: cf. the ἱερεὺς τοῦ Διονύσου among the Bessoi, above, [n. 53]; cf. Jordanes, Get. 71). This made it easy for the “god” Zalmoxis, whom even Hdt. quite rightly regarded as δαίμων τις Γέτῃσι ἐπιχώριος (iv, 96) to be metamorphosed into a man of the historical past (he is this in D.S. 1, 94, 2; Str. vii, 297; cf. Jordanes, Get. 39). If the contemporary priest was called “god” it might naturally be concluded that the “god” Zalmoxis was once only a priest too.
[69] Hermip. ap. Jos., Ap. i, 22.
[70] In E., Hec. (1265 ff.) the Thracian Polymestor prophecies to Hekabe that she shall become a dog after her death, πύρσ’ ἔχουσα δέργματα. Hekabe asks πῶς δ’ οἶσθα μορφῆς τῆς ἐμῆς μετάστασιν; Pol.: ὁ Θρῃξὶ μάντις εἶπε Διόνυσος τάδε. It looks as if Eur. in this allusion to a belief in metempsychosis was intending to give a realistic touch of Thracian national character. He was well informed in such matters.
[71] The connexion between Thracian Dionysos-worship and the belief in immortality and cult of the dead is vouched for, acc. to Rapp, Dionysosc. 15 ff., by the insc. found by Heuzey in Thracian districts. An epitaph found at Doxato (near Philippi) says of one who has died young (ll. 12 ff.): reparatus vivis in Elysiis. Sic placitum est divis aeterna vivere forma qui bene de supero lumine sit meritus.—nunc seu te Bromio signatae (see Anrich, Antike Mysterienwesen, 123 f.) mystides ad se florigero in prato congregem uti Satyrum, sive canistriferae poscunt sibi Naïdes aeque, qui ducibus taedis agmina festa trahas . . . (CIL. iii, 686). It is true that this remarkable fantasy contains nothing directly alluding to specifically Thracian worship. On the other hand this is certainly suggested and both the Thracian god and his connexion with a cult of the dead is implied in the use of the local cult-title of Dionysos in an offering made by Bythos and Rufus to the thiasi Liberi patris Tasibasteni of 300 denarii ex quorum reditu annuo rosalibus (and so at the yearly festival of the dead) ad monimentum eorum vescentur. CIL. iii, 703; cf. 704. Even the conjunction by E., Hec. 1265 ff., of the belief in palingenesia with the oracle of the Thracian Dionysos seems to imply a connexion between that belief and the cult of Dionysos.
[72] πολλοὶ μὲν ναρθηκοφόροι, παῦροι δέ τε Βάκχοι ap. Pl., Phd. 69 C. The strict meaning of this Orphic verse (Lob., Agl. 813 ff.) is that out of the multitudes who take part in the Bacchic festival only a few have any real right to call themselves by the name of the god—as having become one with him through their ecstasy and exaltation. A special morbid state was necessary for that: the same state which in other circumstances made the real shamans, Piajes, etc.
[73] Even when their ἔκστασις had ceased the ecstatic worshippers still regarded as real the visions which they had enjoyed in that condition: οἷον συνέβη Ἀντιφέροντι τῷ Ὠρείτῃ καὶ ἄλλοις ἐξισταμένοις. τὰ γὰρ φαντάσματα ἔλεγον ὡς γενόμενα καὶ ὡς μνημονεύοντες, Arist. π. μνήμης, 1, p. 451a, 8. “Magicians who had subsequently been converted to Christianity were still convinced of the reality of their earlier visions: they thought they had seen something perfectly real.” [281] Müller, Amerik. Urrelig. 80. Add: Tylor, ii, 131; Cranz, Greenland, p. 197.