Sabazios (Ancient Greek:Σαβάζιος,romanized: Sabázios,modern pronunciationSavázios; alternatively,Sabadios[3]) is a deity originating inAsia Minor.[4] He is the horseman andsky father god of thePhrygians andThracians.[5]
Sabazios gained prominence across theRoman Empire, particularly favored in theCentral Balkans due to Thracian influence. Scholars have long debated Sabazios' origins, with current consensus leaning towards his Phrygian roots.[4]
Though theGreeksinterpreted Phrygian Sabazios[6] as bothZeus andDionysus,[7] representations of him, even intoRoman times, show him always on horseback, wielding his characteristic staff of power.
According to scholars, the deity's name is variously written in epigraphy: Σεβάζιος, Σαβάζοις, Sabazius, Sabadius, Σαβασεἷος.[8]
It seems likely that the migrating Phrygians brought Sabazios with them when they settled inAnatolia in the early first millennium BCE, and that the god's origins are to be looked for inMacedonia andThrace. The ancient sanctuary ofPerperikon in modern-dayBulgaria, uncovered in 2000,[9] is believed to be that of Sabazios.[citation needed]
Possible early conflict between Sabazios and his followers and the indigenous mother goddess of Phrygia (Cybele) may be reflected inHomer's brief reference to the youthful feats ofPriam, who aided the Phrygians in their battles withAmazons. An aspect of the compromise religious settlement, similar to the other such mythic adjustments throughout Aegean culture, can be read in the later Phrygian KingGordias' adoption "with Cybele"[10] ofMidas.
One of the native religion's creatures was theLunar Bull. Sabazios' relations with the goddess may be surmised in the way that his horse places a hoof on the head of the bull, in a Roman marble relief at theBoston Museum of Fine Arts.[11] Though Roman in date, the iconic image appears to be much earlier.
More "rider god" steles are at the Burdur Museum, inTurkey. Under the Roman EmperorGordian III the god on horseback appears on coins minted at Tlos, in neighboring Lycia, and at Istrus, in the province of Lower Moesia, between Thrace and the Danube. It is generally thought that the young emperor's grandfather came from an Anatolian family, because of his unusual cognomen, Gordianus.[12] The iconic image of the god or hero on horseback battling thechthonic serpent, on which his horse tramples, appears onCeltic votive columns, and with the coming ofChristianity it was easily transformed into the image ofSaint George and the Dragon, whose earliest known depictions are from tenth- and eleventh-century Cappadocia and eleventh-century Georgia and Armenia.[13]
Among Roman inscriptions from Nicopolis ad Istrum, Sabazios is generally equated withJove and mentioned alongsideMercury.[14] Similarly in Hellenistic monuments, Sabazios is either explicitly (via inscriptions) or implicitly (via iconography) associated with Zeus. On a marble slab from Philippopolis, Sabazios is depicted as a curly-haired and bearded central deity among several gods and goddesses. Under his left foot is a ram's head, and he holds in his left hand a sceptre tipped with a hand in thebenedictio latina gesture.[15] Sabazios is accompanied by busts on his right depicting Luna, Pan, and Mercury, and on his left by Sol, Fortuna, and Daphne.[14] According to Macrobius, Liber and Helios were worshipped among the Thracians as Sabazios;[14] this description fits other Classical accounts that identify Sabazios withDionysos. Sabazios is also associated with a number of archeological finds depicting a bronze, right hand in the benedictio latina gesture. The hand appears to have had ritual significance and may have been affixed to a sceptre (as the one carried by Sabazios on the Philippopolis slab). Although there are many variations, the hand of Sabazios is typically depicted with a pinecone on the thumb and with a serpent or pair of serpents encircling the wrist and surmounting the bent ring and pinky fingers. Additional symbols occasionally included on the hands of Sabazios include a lightning bolt over the index and middle fingers, a turtle and lizard on the back of the hand, an eagle, a ram, a leafless branch, thethyrsos, and theMounted Heros.[14]
The ecstatic Eastern rites practiced largely by women in Athens were thrown together for rhetorical purposes byDemosthenes in undermining his opponent Aeschines for participating in his mother's cultic associations:
On attaining manhood you abetted your mother in her initiations and the other rituals, and read aloud from the cultic writings ... You rubbed the fat-cheeked snakes and swung them above your head, cryingEuoi saboi andhues attes, attes hues.[16]
Transference of Sabazios to the Roman world appears to have been mediated in large part throughPergamum.[17] The naturallysyncretic approach of Greek religion blurred distinctions. Later Greek writers, likeStrabo in the first century CE, linked Sabazios withZagreus, among Phrygian ministers and attendants of the sacred rites of Rhea and Dionysos.[18] Strabo's Sicilian contemporary,Diodorus Siculus, conflated Sabazios with the secret 'second' Dionysus, born of Zeus and Persephone,[19] a connection that is not borne out by surviving inscriptions, which are entirely toZeus Sabazios.[20][21] The ChristianClement of Alexandria had been informed that the secret mysteries of Sabazius, as practiced among the Romans, involved aserpent, achthonic creature unconnected with the mounted skygod of Phrygia:"'God in the bosom' is a countersign of the mysteries of Sabazius to the adepts". Clement reports: "This is a snake, passed through the bosom of the initiates".[22]
Much later, the Byzantine Greek encyclopedia,Suda (c. 10th century), flatly states
Sabazios ... is the same as Dionysos. He acquired this form of address from the rite pertaining to him; for the barbarians call the bacchic cry "sabazein". Hence some of the Greeks too follow suit and call the cry "sabasmos"; thereby Dionysos [becomes] Sabazios. They also used to call "saboi" those places that had been dedicated to him and hisBacchantes ... Demosthenes [in the speech] "On Behalf of Ktesiphon" [mentions them]. Some say that Saboi is the term for those who are dedicated to Sabazios, that is to Dionysos, just as those [dedicated] to Bakkhos [are] Bakkhoi. They say that Sabazios and Dionysos are the same. Thus some also say that the Greeks call the Bakkhoi Saboi.[23]
In Roman sites, though an inscription built into the wall of the abbey church of San Venanzio at Ceperana suggested to a Renaissance humanist[24] it had been built upon the foundations of a temple toJupiter Sabazius, according to modern scholars not a single temple consecrated to Sabazius, the rider god of the open air, has been located.[21] Small votive hands, typically made of copper or bronze, are often associated with the cult of Sabazios. Many of these hands have a small perforation at the base which suggests they may have been attached to wooden poles and carried in processions. The symbolism of these objects is not well known.[21]
The first Jews who settled inRome were expelled in 139 BCE, along with Chaldaean astrologers by Cornelius Hispalus under a law which proscribed the propagation of the "corrupting" cult of "Jupiter Sabazius", according to the epitome of a lost book ofValerius Maximus:
Gnaeus Cornelius Hispalus,praetor peregrinus in the year of the consulate of Marcus Popilius Laenas and Lucius Calpurnius, ordered the astrologers by an edict to leave Rome and Italy within ten days, since by a fallacious interpretation of the stars they perturbed fickle and silly minds, thereby making profit out of their lies. The same praetor compelled the Judeans, who attempted to infect the Roman custom with the cult of Jupiter Sabazius, to return to their homes.[25]
By this it is conjectured that the Romans identified the JudeanYHVH Tzevaot ("sa-ba-oth", "of the Hosts") asJove Sabazius.
This possibly mistaken connection of Sabazios and Sabaot was often repeated. In a similar vein,Plutarch maintained that the Judeans worshippedDionysus, and that the day ofSabbath was a festival of Sabazius.[26] Plutarch also discusses the identification of the Judean God with the "Egyptian"Typhon, an identification which he later rejects, however. The monotheisticHypsistarians worshipped the Most High under this name, which may have been a form of the Jewish God.
Media related toSabazios at Wikimedia Commons| Tribes (List) | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kings |
| ||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
Wars with the Roman Empire |
| ||||||||||||||||
| Roman Dacia /Free Dacians |
| ||||||||||||||||
| Research | |||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
