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Zalmoxis[a] is adivinity of theGetae andDacians (a people of the lowerDanube), mentioned byHerodotus in hisHistories Book IV, 93–96, written before 425 BC.[3]
He is said to have been so called from the bear's skin (ζάλμος,zalmos) in which he was clothed as soon as he was born.[4]
According toJordanes'Getica, he was a learned philosopher, before whom two other learned men existed, by the names of Zeuta andDeceneus.[5]
Herodotus writes about Zalmoxis in book 4 of hisHistories:[3]
93. ... the Getae are the bravest of the Thracians and the most just.94. They believe they are immortal forever living in the following sense: they think they do not die and that the one who dies joins Zalmoxis, a divine being; some call this same divine beingGebeleizis. Every four years, they send a messenger to Zalmoxis, who is chosen by chance. They ask him to tell Zalmoxis what they want on that occasion. The mission is performed in the following way: men standing there for that purpose hold three spears; other people take the one who is sent to Zalmoxis by his hands and feet and fling him in the air on the spears. If he dies pierced, they think that the divinity is going to help them; if he does not die, it is he who is accused and they declare that he is a bad person. And, after he has been charged, they send another one. The messenger is told the requests while he is still alive. The same Thracians, on other occasions, when he thunders and lightens, shoot with arrows up in the air against the sky and menace the divinity because they think there is no god other than their own.
Herodotus asserts that Zalmoxis was originally a human being, a slave who converted theThracians to his beliefs.[6] The Greeks of the Hellespont and the Black Sea tell that Zalmoxis was a slave ofPythagoras, son of Mnesarchos, on the island ofSamos. After being liberated, he gathered huge wealth and, once rich, went back to his homeland. Thracians lived simple hard lives. Zalmoxis had lived among the wisest of Greeks, such as Pythagoras, and had been initiated into Ionian life and theEleusinian Mysteries. He built a banquet hall, and received the chiefs and his fellow countrymen at a banquet. He taught that neither his guests nor their descendants would ever die, but instead would go to a place where they would live forever in complete happiness. He then dug an underground residence. When it was finished, he disappeared from Thrace, living for three years in his underground residence. The Thracians missed him and wept fearing him dead. The fourth year, he came back among them and thus they believed what Zalmoxis had told them.[7]
Zalmoxis may have lived much earlier than Pythagoras and was rumored either to be a divine being or from the country of the Getae.
"Now I neither disbelieve nor entirely believe the tale about Salmoxis and his underground chamber; but I think that he lived many years before Pythagoras; [2] and as to whether there was a man called Salmoxis or this is some deity native to the Getae, let the question be dismissed." —Herodotus[6]: IV 96
Scholars have several different theories about this account by Herodotus the disappearance and return of Zalmoxis:
This last theory precisely parallels the legend of the universal kingFrode[original research?], given in bothYnglingsaga andGesta Danorum ofSaxo Grammaticus, particularlyYnglingsaga 12 andGesta Danorum,[8] in which Frode disappears into the earth for three years after his death.[non-primary source needed]
It is difficult to define the time when a cult to Zalmoxis may have existed. It is only certain that it predates Herodotus, who lived in the5th century BC. Some scholars have suggested that the archaic doctrine of Zalmoxis points to a heritage from before the times of Indo-Europeans, but this is difficult, if not impossible, to demonstrate.[9]
Plato claims[10] that Zalmoxis was also a great physician who took aholistic approach to healing body and soul (psyche), being thus used by Plato for his own philosophical conceptions.
Strabo in hisGeography mentions a certainDeceneus (Dékainéos) whom he calls aγόητα "magician".[11] According to Strabo, kingBurebista (82–44 BC) hired Deceneus, who had been in Egypt, to "tame" his people. As a sign of the people's obedience, they consented to destroy all their wines as ordered by Deceneus. The "reform of Deceneus" is the interpretation by the 6th-century bishop and historianJordanes, who includes the Getae in his history of the Goths (as assumed ancestors of the Goths). Jordanes describes how Deceneus taught the Getae philosophy and physics. Even if it is more probable that Jordanes interjected his own philosophical knowledge into the text, many modern Romanian authors consider that Deceneus was a priest who reformed the religion of the Getae, changing the worship of Zalmoxis into a popular religion and imposing strict religious rules, such as the restriction of wine consumption. Jean Coman deems this prohibition as the origin of the dietary restrictions followed by the modern Orthodox Church during Lent.[citation needed]
According toIamblichus (280–333 AD), "for instructing the Getae in these things, and for having written laws for them, Zalmoxis was by them considered as the greatest of the gods."[12]
Aristotle is said, in the brief epitome of hisMagicus given by Diogenes Laertes, to have compared Zalmoxis with thePhoenician Okhon andLibyanAtlas. Some authors[who?] assume Zalmoxis was another name ofSabazius, the ThracianDionysus, orZeus. Sabazius appears in Jordanes as Gebelezis. Leaving aside the suffixes-zius/-zis, the rootSaba- =Gebele-,[citation needed] suggesting a relationship of the name of the goddess Cybele, as "Cybele's Zeus".Mnaseas of Patrae identified Zalmoxis withCronos, as doesHesychius, who has "Σάλμοξις ὁ Κρόνος".[citation needed]
InPlato's writings, Zalmoxis is mentioned as skilled in the arts of incantation. Zalmoxis gave his name to a particular type of singing and dancing (Hesych).[13] His realm as a god is not very clear, as some considered him to be a sky-god, a god of the dead, or a god of the Mysteries.[citation needed]
The "Zalmoxian religion" is the subject of a scholarly debate that has continued since the beginning of the 20th century. According to some scholars, such as Vasile Pârvan, Jean Coman, R. Pettazzon, E. Rohde andSorin Paliga, since ancient sources do not mention any god of the Getae other than Zalmoxis, the Getae weremonotheistic.[9] However, Herodotus is the only ancient author who explicitly states that the Getae had only one divinity. The sending of a messenger to Zalmoxis and the fact that Getae shot arrows towards the sky have prompted some authors to believe Zalmoxis was asky god, but his journey into a cavern has led others to suggest that he was achthonic divinity.[14]
A third group of scholars believe that the Getae, like other Indo-European peoples, werepolytheistic. They draw on ancient authors such asDiodorus Siculus, who states that the Getae worshippedHestia as well as Zalmoxis.[15]
A number of etymologies have been given for the name. In hisVita Pythagorae,Porphyrius (3rd century) says that he was so named because he had been wrapped in a bearskin at birth, andzalmon is the Thracian word for "hide" (τὴν γὰρ δορὰν οἱ Θρᾷκες ζαλμὸν καλοῦσιν).Hesychius (c. 5th century) haszemelen (ζέμελεν) as aPhrygian word for "foreign slave".
The correct spelling of the name is also uncertain. Manuscripts of Herodotus'Historiae have all four spellings, viz.Zalmoxis,Salmoxis,Zamolxis,Samolxis, with a majority of manuscripts favouringSalmoxis. Later authors show a preference forZamolxis. Hesychius quotes Herodotus, usingZalmoxis.
The-m-l- variant (Zamolxis) is favoured by those wishing to derive the name from a conjectured Thracian word for "earth",*zamol. Comparisons have also been made with the name of Zemelo andŽemelė, thePhrygian andLithuanian goddess of the earth, and with the Lithuanianchthonic godŽemeliūkštis.[16] The Lithuanian wordŽalmuo means "corn shoot" or "fresh grass".Žalmokšnis is another possible form of it.
The-l-m- variant is admitted to be the older form and the correct form by the majority of Thracologists, as this is the form found in the older Herodotus manuscripts and other ancient sources. The-l-m- form is further attested in Daco-Thracian inZalmodegikos, the name of a Getic King; and in Thracianzalmon, 'hide', andzelmis, 'hide' (PIE*kel-, 'to cover'; cf. Englishhelm).
The other name for Zalmoxis, Gebeleizis, is also spelled Belaizis and Belaixis in Herodotus manuscripts.
According to Mircea Eliade:
The fact that Romanian folk mythology around their prophet Elijah contains many elements of a god of the storm proves at least that Gebeleizis was still active in the moment when Dacia was christianised, whatever his name was in this era. It can also be admitted that subsequently a religious syncretism, encouraged by the high priest and the priestly class, ended up on confusing Gebeleizis with Zalmoxis.[17]
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