Note 64 — PART II CHAPTER VIII ORIGINS OF THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY THE THRACIAN WORSHIP OF DIONYSOS

ἀθανατίζουσι δὲ τόνδε τὸν τρόπον . . . οὔτε ἀποθνήσκειν ἑωυτοὺς νομίζουσι, ἰέναι τε τὸν ἀπολλύμενον παρὰ Ζάλμοξιν δαίμονα (οἱ δὲ αὐτῶν τὸν αὐτὸν τοῦτον οὐνομάζουσι Γεβελέϊζιν), Hdt. iv, 94. Here, as regularly in Greek use of the words, we must not understand by ἀθάνατον εἶναι a mere shadowy (if timeless) survival of the soul after death as in the Homeric Hades. Such a belief if it had been held by the Getai would not have struck Hdt. or his readers as remarkable in the slightest degree. It must therefore imply an unending and fully conscious existence, in this last respect resembling the life on earth.