Note 68 — PART II CHAPTER VIII ORIGINS OF THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY THE THRACIAN WORSHIP OF DIONYSOS

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— 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.