Note 10 — PART II CHAPTER VIII ORIGINS OF THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY THE THRACIAN WORSHIP OF DIONYSOS

Sabazios: Σαβάζιον τὸν Διόνυσον οἱ Θρᾷκες καλοῦσιν Sch. Ar., Ves. 9; cf. Sch. Ar., Lys. 388; D.S. 4, 4, 1; Harp. Σαβοί; Alex. Polyh. ap. Macr. i, 18, 11 (Sebadius: cf. Apul., M. viii, 25, p. 150, 11 Ey. The original form of this name seems to have been Savos, Savadios, Kretschmer, Einleitung in. d. Gesch. d. griech. Spr. 195 f.; Usener, Götternamen 44). Sabos, Phot. p. 495, 11–12 Pors. Hesych. s.v.; Orph., H. 49, 2, etc. The fact that others could call Sabazios a Phrygian god (Amphitheos π. Ἡρακλείος βʹ ap. Sch. Ar., Av. 874; Str. 470; Hsch. s.v.), only serves to bring out more clearly the opinion, unanimously held even in antiquity, that the Thracians and the Phrygians were closely related. Sabazios (besides being identified with Helios: Alex. Polyh. l.c.; cf. Soph. fr. 523 N.), as the supreme and almighty god of the Thracians, was even called Ζεὺς Σαβάζιος (Val. Max. i, 3, 2), esp. on inss. (a few are given in Rapp, Dionysoscult [Progr.] p. 21; cf. also ins. from Peiraeus Ἐφ. Ἀρχ. 1883, p. 245; Ins. Pergam. i, 248, 33, 49: from Pisidia, Papers of the Amer. School at Athens, ii, p. 54, 56. Jovi Sabazio, Orelli, Ins. 1259). We even find Ζεὺς Βάκχος, Ζεὺς Ἥλιος (BCH. vi, 189).—The name Σαβάζιος was derived from σαβάζειν = εὐάζειν, διὰ τὸν γενόμενον περὶ αὐτὸν εὐασμόν (θειασμόν): Sch. Ar., Av. 874; Lys. 388. So, too, Βάκχος was on this view only another way of expressing the same meaning; since this name also was derived by the ancients from βάζειν = εὐάζειν (it is really from the root ϝαχ (ἀχέω) Βάκχος, with “affrication”; a reduplicated form of it is ϝιϝαχος, Ἴακχος, ἰαχέω, ἰακχέω; cf. Curtius, Griech. Etym.5, p. 460, 576). Other names of the Thracian Dionysos are the following: Βασσαρεύς (Βάσσαρος, Orph., H. 45, 2), derived from βασσάρα the long dress (made of skin?) worn by the Βασσαρίδες = Θρᾴκιαι βάκχαι, AB. 222, 26 f.; Hsch. s.v. Βασσάραι and EM. s.v. (the last compiled from Orion and Sch. Lyc. 771). Other accounts (not contradicting in this point the statement of Hsch.) made it the dress worn by the god himself: Sch. Pers. i, 101. (The Βασσαρεύς was generally described as bearded and even senili specie, like the representation of Dionysos himself in the oldest Greek art: Macr. i, 18, 9.) If Βασσαρεύς means “the wearer of the long fox-skin” we should be strongly reminded of the—also Thracian—god Ζάλμολξις (Ζάλμοξις), whose name was derived from ζαλμός = δορὰ ἄρκτου (Porph., VP. 14, though this comes only from Antonius Diogenes 6), and probably means “he who is cloaked in the bearskin” (see Fick, Spracheinh. d. Indog. Europ., p. 418; Hehn, Culturpflanz. 428 E.T.).—Γίγων a name of Dionysos, EM. 231, 28: perhaps a name given to the god in the city Gigonos mentioned in the same passage, and the ἄκρα Γίγωνις at the western end of the Thracian Chalkidike.—EM. 186, 32, is too short to be intelligible: βαλιά· διαποίκιλος. καὶ τὸν Διόνυσον Θρᾷκες.—Δύαλος Διόνυσος παρὰ Παίοσιν, Hesych.