40 Polak, Persien, ii, 245 ff.—We have only to read the accounts derived from personal experience of the sensations and hallucinatory states accompanying hashish-smoking—such as those given, for instance, by Moreau (de Tours) Du hachisch et de l’aliénation mentale (Paris, 1845), esp. pp. 23 ff., 51 ff., 59 ff., 90, 147 ff., 151 ff., 369 ff.—to have a complete parallel to the condition which underlay Bacchic excitement. There, too, is the complete ἔκστασις of the spirit, a waking dream-state, an ὀλιγοχρόνιος μανία. It only requires the special tone and character given to the hallucinations and illusions by deep-rooted religious or fanciful conceptions—and the external machinery for cultivating such illusions—to make them an exact equivalent of the delirious condition of the real βάκχοι at the nightly festival of Dionysos. (The helpless state of impressionability to outward—e.g. musical—and inward influences is a marked feature of the intoxication and fantasia of hashish.) Other narcotics also have similar effects (Moreau, p. 184 ff.).
41 Pl., Ion, 534 A (perhaps an allusion to the words of Aischines Socr. in the Ἀλκιβιάδης [Aristid. Rh. ii, 23 f. Dind.]).
42 E., Ba. 142 f., 706 ff. (144 Συρίας δ’ ὡς λιβάνου καπνός).
43 Anaesthesia of the Bakchai: ἐπὶ δὲ βοστρύχοις πῦρ ἔφερον οὐδ’ ἔκαιεν, Ba. 757 f.—suum Bacche non sentit saucia volnus, dum stupet Edonis exululata iugis, Ov., Tr. 4, 1, 41 f. qualis deo percussa maenas . . . atque expers sui volnus dedit nec sensit, Sen., Troad. 682 ff. Similar insensibility to pain (certainly not always feigned) was shown in their ekstasis by the self-wounding galli of Kybele, the priests and priestesses of Mâ (Tibull. 1, 6, 45 ff.)—something of the sort is reported of the prophets of Baal (1 Kings xviii, 28). See in general on the subject of anaesthesia and the ὀρθῶς κατεχόμενοι ὑπὸ τῶν θεῶν, Iamb., Myst. 3, 4, p. 110 Par. In the case of the shamans, the Indian Yogis, the dervishes, and the natives of North America the existence of such states of insensibility in religious excitement has been actually observed.
44 κατεχόμενος ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ (Pl., Men. 99 D; X., Sym. i, 10. κατεχόμενοι ὥσπερ αἱ βάκχαι, Pl., Ion, 534 A; Sym. 215 C. μανέντι τε καὶ κατασχομένῳ, Phdr. 244 E). ἡ δ’ ἀφρὸν ἐξιεῖσα καὶ διαστρόφους κόρας ἑλίσσουσ’, οὐ φρονοῦσ’ ἃ χρῆν φρονεῖν, ἐκ Βακχίου κατείχετο, E., Ba. 1122 ff. κάτοχοι above, n. 24.
45 ἔνθεός τε γίγνεται καὶ ἔκφρων καὶ ὁ νοῦς οὐκέτι ἐν αὐτῷ ἔνεστιν, Pl., Ion, 534 B (where it is applied to the inspired poet but properly belongs to the Bakchai).
46 ἔκστασις, ἐξίστασθαι is often used of the inspired state. μαίνεσθαι, ἐνθουσιᾶν, ἔνθεον γίνεσθαι, ἐκστῆναι are all used in the same sense and apply to the “inspired” prophets (Βάκιδες, Σίβυλλαι) and the poets: Arist., Prob. 30, 1, p. 954a, 34–9. ἐξίσταται καὶ μαίνεται, Arist. HA. 6, 22, p. 577a, 12. The religious ὀργιασμοί, ἐκστάσιας ψυχᾶς ἐπάγοντι: Phintys ap. Stob., Fl. iv, 23, 61a, p. 593 H. ἔκστασις is a state in which the soul seems estranged from itself; when the οἰκεῖαι κινήσεις οὐκ ἐνοχλοῦνται ἀλλ’ ἀπορραπίζονται (Arist., Pa. Nat. 464a, 25). The word became weak and commonplace enough in later usage, but it was evidently meant, originally, to express the “exit” of the “soul” from its body. In the same way the phrase used of one who 275 goes off into a faint: τὸν δ’ ἔλιπεν ψυχή originally meant the same thing and was so understood, see above (chap. i, n. 8). The same idea occurs again in P. Mag. Par., l. 725, p. 63 Wessely: ὑπέκλυτος δ’ ἔσει τῇ ψυχῇ καὶ οὐκ ἐν σεαυτῷ ἔσει ὅταν σοι ἀποκρίνηται [the god conjured up].
47 ἔκστασις ἐστιν ὀλιγοχρόνιος μανία [Galen] ὅρ. ἰατρ. 485 (xix, p. 462). μανίη ἔκστασίς ἐστι χρόνιος Aretaeus, Chr. Pass. 1, 6, p. 78 K.
48 Διόνυσον μαινόλην ὀργιάζουσι βάκχοι, ὠμοφαγίᾳ τὴν ἱερομανίαν ἄγοντες, καὶ τελίσκουσι τὰς κρεωνομίας τῶν φόνων ἀνεστεμμένοι τοῖς ὄφεσιν ἐπολολύζοντες εὐάν, Clem. Al., Protr. ii, p. 11 P.
49 The ἐνθουσιῶντες ἐκ θεοῦ τινος become like the god, λαμβάνουσι τὰ ἔθη καὶ τὰ ἐπιτηδεύματα (τοῦ θεοῦ), καθόσον δυνατὸν θεοῦ ἀνθρώπῳ μετασχεῖν, Pl., Phdr. 253 A. More boldly ἑαυτῶν ἐκστάντας ὅλους ἐνιδρῦσθαι τοῖς θεοῖς καὶ ἐνθεάζειν, Procl. in Rp. ii, 108, 23 Kr.—οὐκ ἔκστασις ἅπλως οὕτως ἐστίν, ἀλλὰ (in its positive sense) ἐπὶ τὸ κρεῖττον ἀναγωγὴ καὶ μετάστασις, Iamb. Myst. 3, 7, p. 114, 9 Parth.
50 ἔνθεοι γυναῖκες of the Bakchai, S. Ant. 963. αἱ Βάκχαι ὅταν ἔνθεοι γένωνται—Aesch. Socr. ap. Aristid., Rh. (ii, 23 Dind.). ἔνθεος ἤδε ἡ μανίη (the religious sort) Aret., p. 84 K. The essential meaning of ἔνθεον εἶναι (plenum esse deo) is clearly defined in Sch., E., Hip. 141: ἔνθεοι λέγονται οἱ ὑπὸ φάσματός τινος ἀφαιρεθέντες τὸν νοῦν, καὶ ὑπ’ ἐκείνου τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ φασματοποιοῦ κατεχόμενοι καὶ τὰ δοκοῦντα κείνῳ ποιοῦντες. The ἔνθεος is completely in the power of the god; the god speaks and acts through him. The ἔνθεος has lost his consciousness of himself; like the θεῖοι ἄνδρες (which phrase in Plato has the same meaning as ἔνθεοι ἄνδρες) esp. the θεομάντεις, λέγουσι μὲν ἀληθῆ καὶ πολλά, ἴσασι δ’ οὐδὲν ὧν λέγουσι, Pl., Men. 99 C. (Philo, Spec. Leg. ii, p. 343 M., says of the inspired prophet: ἐνθουσιᾷ γεγονὼς ἐν ἀγνοίᾳ, μετανισταμένου μὲν τοῦ λογισμοῦ . . . ἐπιπεφοιτηκότος δὲ καὶ ἐνῳκηκότος τοῦ θείου πνεύματος καὶ πᾶσαν τῆς φώνης ὀργανοποιΐαν κρούοντος κτλ.; cf. Iamb., Myst. 3, 4, p. 109.)
51 ἔνθεοι μάντεις (Bakides, Sibyllai) Arist., Prb. 30, 2, 954a, 37. θεομάντεις Pl., Men. ad fin. μαντικὴ κατὰ τὸ ἔνθεον, ὅπερ ἐστὶν ἐνθεαστικόν [Plu.] Plac. Phil. 5, 1, 1 [Dox., p. 415].
52 μάντις δ’ ὁ δαίμων ὅδε (Dionysos)· τὸ γὰρ βακχεύσιμον καὶ τὸ μανιῶδες μαντικὴν πολλὴν ἔχει· ὅταν γὰρ ὁ θεὸς εἰς τὸ σῶμ’ ἔλθῃ πολύς, λέγειν τὸ μέλλον τοὺς μεμηνότας ποιεῖ, E., Ba. 298 ff. Here the inner relationship of the inspiration mantikê and the “possession” which took place in ecstatic frenzy is expressed with all possible clearness (drunkenness is surely not referred to!). This is how Plu., Smp. 7, 10, p. 716 B, also understood Eur. Prophesying Mainads: μαινάδας θυοσκόους E., Ba. 224—οὐδεὶς ἔννους ἐφάπτεται μαντικῆς ἐνθέου καὶ ἀληθοῦς, ἀλλ’ ἢ καθ’ ὕπνον τὴν τῆς φρονήσεως πεδηθεὶς δύναμιν ἢ διὰ νόσον ἢ διά τινα ἐνθουσιασμὸν παραλλάξας, Pl., Ti. 71 E. νοσήματα μαντικὰ ἢ ἐνθουσιαστικά make inspired μάντεις what they are: Arist. Prob. 954a, 35. Such mantikê takes place in the state of furor, cum a corpore animus abstractus divino instinctu concitatur, Cic., Div. i, 66. A famous case is that of Kassandra from whom the deus inclusus corpore humano, non iam Cassandra loquitur, § 67; cf. the Sibyl who prophesies μαινομένῳ στόματι (Heraclit. fr. 12 By. = 92 D.) and the Pythia at Delphi prophesying in a state of μανία. For the prophecy of Korybantic Phrygians possessed and “frenzied”, see Arrian ap. Eust., on D.P. 809.
53 Hdt. vii, 111 (for Hdt. the Βησσοί seem to be a division, perhaps a clan, of the Satrai. Polyb., Strabo, Pliny, Dio C., and others know them as an independent Thracian tribe): πρόμαντις γυνὴ χρέουσα κατάπερ ἐν Δελφοῖσι—which means that she prophesied in ecstasy, for that is what the Pythia at Delphi did. (See Sch. Ar., Plut. 39; 276 Plu., Def. Or. 51, p. 438 B. Lucan vi, 166 ff., clearly describes the phenomena supposed to attend their religious ekstasis: artus Phoebados irrupit Paean, mentemque priorem expulit, atque hominem toto sibi cedere iussit pectore. bacchatur demens aliena, etc.)
54 ὁ Θρῃξὶ μάντις Διόνυσος, E., Hec. 1267. Rhesos dwelling in Mt. Pangaios is Βάκχου προφήτης, Rh. 972. ἀφικέσθαι τοῖς Λειβηθρίοις παρὰ τοῦ Διονύσου μάντευμα ἐκ Θρᾴκης, Paus. 9, 30, 9. Aristoteles qui Theologumena scripsit, apud Ligyreos (?) ait in Thracia esse adytum Libero consecratum, ex quo redduntur oracula. Macr. 1, 18, 1. The wife of Spartacus, herself a Thracian, was μαντική τε καὶ κάτοχος τοῖς περὶ τῶν Διόνυσον ὀργιασμοῖς, Plu., Crass. 8. Octavian in Thrace consulted in Liberi patris luco barbara caerimonia, i.e. an oracle: Suet., Oct. 94. Even in 11 B.C. the Bessoi still had a ἱερεὺς τοῦ Διονύσου, Vologeses, who by means of prophesyings (πολλὰ θείασας) and τῇ παρὰ τοῦ θεοῦ δόξῃ stirred up his people to rebel against the Odrysai: D.C. 54, 34, 5. In 29 B.C. M. Crassus had handed over to the Odrysai the piece of land occupied by the Bessoi ἐν ᾗ καὶ τὸν θεὸν ἀγάλλουσι, D.C. 51, 25, 5.—The spirit of the old Thracian ecstatic cult reappeared in the character of the Bacchic worship introduced from Greece into Italy whose excesses (in 186 B.C.) are narrated by Livy: 39, 8 ff.: among these being viros velut mente capta cum iactatione fanatica corporis vaticinari: 39, 13, 12.
55 Compare, for example, what we are told of the religious dances of the Ostiaks (Erman, Travels in Siberia, ii, 45 f., E. T., Cooley), the Haokah dance of the Dakota, the “medicine-dance” of the Winnebago in North America (Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, iii, 487 ff., 286 ff.), the dance of voodoo negroes in Haiti (Nouv. annales des voyages, 1858, iii, p. 90 ff.). For the violent religious dances of the people in ancient Peru see Müller, Amerik. Urrelig. 385; in Australia, R. Brough-Smith, Aborigines of Victoria, i, 166 ff. (1878). Among the Veddas of Ceylon there was a dance of the “devil’s priests” (called Kattadias) dressed up as demons: see Tennent, Ceylon, i, 540 f.; ii, 442.—In antiquity the following have the closest relationship to the ecstatic cult of the Thracians: the dance festivals in honour of the “Syrian Goddess”, of the Kappadocian Mâ, of the Phrygian Mountain Mother, and of Attis (the last having much the same origin as the Thracian festival, but being more strongly affected by Semitic influences, and perhaps by the religious practices of the prehistoric inhabitants of Asia Minor). Besides these we may remember the account given by Poseidonios ap. Strabo, 198, D.P. 570 ff., of the excited nocturnal festival celebrated in honour of “Dionysos” in an island at the mouth of the Loire by the women of the Namnites (Samnites, Amnites) Διονύσῳ κατεχόμεναι in the wildest delirium (λύττα).
56 This is regularly the meaning of such excesses practised by “magicians”. The shaman (with his “soul”) voyages out into the spirit-world; see the remarkably vivid account of Radloff, Siberien, ii, 1–67; and also Erman, Zschr. f. Ethnologie, ii, 324 ff.; A. Krause, Tlinkitindianer, p. 294 ff., 1885. So does the Lapp magician (Knud Leem, Lappen in Finmarken [E.T. in Pinkerton’s Voyages]). The Angekok enters into communion with his Torngak (Cranz, Hist. of Greenland, i, p. 194, E.T., 1820); the Butio with the Zemen (Müller, Amerik. Urrelig., 191 f.); the Piajes with the spirits (Müller, 217). Thus, too, communication with the divine “grandfather” of the people is established by means of dances, etc., among the Abipones (Dobrizhoffer, Abipones, ii, 64, E.T.). The expulsion of the soul to visit the spirit-world is also practised (in their convulsions) by the 277 magicians of the North American Indians, the people of the Pacific Islands (Tylor, ii, 133), etc. Such practices start out from a commonly held conception of the nature of body and soul and of their relations with the unseen. The magicians believe “that in their ecstatic condition they can break through the barrier between this world and the next”, Müller 397. To facilitate this process they employ the various means alluded to of stimulating their senses.
57 The most remarkable case of this is provided by the history of a religious sect of our own day widely spread in Russia, who call themselves “the Christs”, i.e. sons of God. The sect was founded by a holy man named Philippov in whose body God one day took up his abode; after which the man spoke as the living God himself and gave commandments. The sect particularly stood for the idea that the divine dwells in mankind, Christ in men and Mary in women, and that the sense of their presence can be awakened in men by the action of the Holy Ghost, through the force of strong belief, by saintliness and by religious ecstasy. To produce the ecstasy dances are held in common. About midnight, after long prayers, hymns, and religious addresses, the participators in the secret festival, both men and women, dressed in strange costumes begin to dance. Soon the ranks and circles of the dancers and singers break up; individuals begin to turn round and round, revolving on their own axis with incredible speed, balancing meanwhile on their heels. The excitement of the dancing and leaping crowd grows continually greater. Finally one of them calls out “He comes; He is near—the Holy Ghost”. The wildest ecstasy takes hold of every one. Details may be found in N. Tsakni’s La Russie sectaire, p. 63 ff. (cf. what is said in the same work, p. 80 ff., of the religious dances of the Skopzes, and p. 119 f. of the sect of the “Leapers”).—All this is true Bacchanalia christiana and therefore mentioned here.
58 e.g. Mariner, Tonga Islanders, i, 108 (1817); Wrangel, Reise in Siberien, i, 286 (i, 267 f., French trans.); Radloff, Siberien, ii, 58. Even the respectable Cranz, whose own point of view made it impossible for him to appreciate properly the Angekok practices so clearly observed by him, admits that many of them really saw visions that suggested “something supernatural” to them: Hist. of Greenland, p. 197 E.T. Something similar is said about ecstatically dancing dervishes by Lane, Modern Egyptians, ii, 197.
59 Magicians called by the name of the god (Keebet) among the Abipones: Dobrizhoffer, ii, 248. Similar cases elsewhere: Müller, 77. In Tahiti the person inspired by the god so long as the “inspiration” lasted (several days sometimes) was himself called “god” or given the name of some particular god: Waitz, Anthropol. vi, 383. In the case of an African tribe dwelling on the banks of Lake Nyanza the chief spirit sometimes takes temporary possession of one of the magicians (man or woman) who then bears the name of the spirit: Schneider, Relig. d. Afrik. Naturv. 151. Sometimes the identity of the magician with the god is expressed by the wearing of the god’s distinguishing dress and imitation of his outward appearance (in the manner of the Thracian Βάκχοι); cf. the devil-dancers in Ceylon, etc.
60 When it acquires a more philosophical temper mysticism seeks its unification with the highest (the ἔλλαμψις τῆς φύσεως τῆς πρώτης) more by means of the completest passivity of mind and body. It employs the εἰς αὑτὴν ξυλλέγεσθαι καὶ ἀθροίζεσθαι of the soul (Plato), or its withdrawal from all that is finite and particular (the recojimiento of the Spanish mystics). The profoundest quietude of spirit brings 278 about the unification with the One behind all multiplicity; cf. the Neoplatonic mystics, the Buddhists, etc. Sometimes both are found together; absorption and passivity of the spirit side by side with wild excitement. Both methods were practised by the Persian Sufis. Chardin, Voyage en Perse, iv, 458 (cd. Langlés) says of them, cependant ils se servent plus communément du chant de la danse et de la musique, disant qu’ils produisent plus sûrement leur extase. It may be that the cult of religious exaltation is always the real origin of these ecstatic states. Though the cult sometimes falls into decay itself, its offspring the ἔκστασις survives.
61 In the language of these mystics the words mean: he knows that the passionate longing for reunion with God, the Soul of the universe, breaks down the individual personality and its limitations—“for where Love awakes to life the Self dies, that gloomy tyrant.”
62 Γέται οἱ ἀθανατίζοντες, Hdt. Iv, 93–4 (ἀπαθανατίζοντες, Plato and others, see Wesseling on D.S. i, p. 105, 32).
63 . . . οὐδένα ἄλλον θεὸν νομίζοντες εἰ μὴ τὸν σφέτερον (the Zalmoxis just mentioned) Hdt. iv, 94 fin. There we are told that the Getai πρὸς βροντήν τε καὶ ἀστραπὴν τοξεύοντες ἄνω ἀπειλεῦσι τῷ θεῷ, οὐδένα κτλ. If it were true (as most people seem to think) that the god (ὁ θεός) threatened by the Getai during thunder was their own god Zalmoxis, then it certainly is difficult, or, indeed, impossible, to understand the point of explaining the threatening of this god by the statement that they hold him for the only true god. The truth is that the τῷ θεῷ refers simply to the “sky” during a thunderstorm. The usage is common in Greek and is only transferred to the Getai by a rather awkward extension. This thundering θεός is not Zalmoxis at all (hence Z. is not as some have thought a “sky-god”). The Getai regarded Zalmoxis as the only god: the Thunderer is no real god to them (at the most a bad demon or a magician or something of the kind). To show that they are not afraid of him they shoot arrows against him, probably in the hope of breaking the thundercloud. (Parallels in other countries: Grimm, p. 1088; Dobrizhoffer, ii, 78. In India, Oldenberg, 491–4. Excitement during an eclipse of the moon: Weissenborn on Livy, 26, 5, 9. Reminiscence of such customs in the myth of Herakles: [Apollod.] 2, 5, 10, 5. From Hdt. by indirect channels comes Isig., Mir. 42 [p. 162 West.]; cf. also the account of D.C. 59, 28, 6 about Caligula.—Pallad., RR. i, 35 [contra grandinem].)
64 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.
65 ἀθανατίζουσι δὲ καὶ Τέριζοι (τερετιζοι Phot.) καὶ Κρόβυζοι καὶ τοὺς ἀποθανόντας ὡς Ζάλμοξίν φασιν οἴχεσθαι, Phot. Suid., EM. Ζάμολξις. The Krobyzoi are a well-known Thracian stock. The Terizoi are not elsewhere mentioned; perhaps they may be placed in the neighbourhood of Τίριστις, Τίριξις ἄκρα = C. Kaliakra (cf. C. Müller on Arrian, P. Eux. 35); there we also hear of a Τίριστις πόλις, Ptolem. With this Tomaschek also agrees (D. alten Thraker, Ber. Wien. Ak.> 128, iv, p. 97). In this case they would be neighbours of the Krobyzoi. 279
66 οὐκ ἀποθνῄσκειν ἀλλὰ μετοικίζεσθαι νομίζοντες is what we hear of the Getai in Julian, Caes. 327 D. animas (putant) non extingui sed ad beatiora transire, Mela, ii, 18.
67 . . . τοὺς ἀποθανόντας ὡς Ζάλμοξίν φασιν οἴχεσθαι, ἥξειν δὲ αὖθις. καὶ ταῦτα ἀεὶ νομίζουσιν ἀληθεύειν. θύουσι δὲ καὶ εὐωχοῦνται ὡς αὔθις ἥξοντος τοῦ ἀποθανόντος, Phot. Suid., EM. Ζάμολξις. Mela, ii, 18: alii (among the Thracians) redituras putant animas obeuntium.
68 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—280 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.
69 Hermip. ap. Jos., Ap. i, 22.
70 In E., Hec. (1265 ff.) the Thracian Polymestor prophecies to Hekabe that she shall become a dog after her death, πύρσ’ ἔχουσα δέργματα. Hekabe asks πῶς δ’ οἶσθα μορφῆς τῆς ἐμῆς μετάστασιν; Pol.: ὁ Θρῃξὶ μάντις εἶπε Διόνυσος τάδε. It looks as if Eur. in this allusion to a belief in metempsychosis was intending to give a realistic touch of Thracian national character. He was well informed in such matters.
71 The connexion between Thracian Dionysos-worship and the belief in immortality and cult of the dead is vouched for, acc. to Rapp, Dionysosc. 15 ff., by the insc. found by Heuzey in Thracian districts. An epitaph found at Doxato (near Philippi) says of one who has died young (ll. 12 ff.): reparatus vivis in Elysiis. Sic placitum est divis aeterna vivere forma qui bene de supero lumine sit meritus.—nunc seu te Bromio signatae (see Anrich, Antike Mysterienwesen, 123 f.) mystides ad se florigero in prato congregem uti Satyrum, sive canistriferae poscunt sibi Naïdes aeque, qui ducibus taedis agmina festa trahas . . . (CIL. iii, 686). It is true that this remarkable fantasy contains nothing directly alluding to specifically Thracian worship. On the other hand this is certainly suggested and both the Thracian god and his connexion with a cult of the dead is implied in the use of the local cult-title of Dionysos in an offering made by Bythos and Rufus to the thiasi Liberi patris Tasibasteni of 300 denarii ex quorum reditu annuo rosalibus (and so at the yearly festival of the dead) ad monimentum eorum vescentur. CIL. iii, 703; cf. 704. Even the conjunction by E., Hec. 1265 ff., of the belief in palingenesia with the oracle of the Thracian Dionysos seems to imply a connexion between that belief and the cult of Dionysos.
72 πολλοὶ μὲν ναρθηκοφόροι, παῦροι δέ τε Βάκχοι ap. Pl., Phd. 69 C. The strict meaning of this Orphic verse (Lob., Agl. 813 ff.) is that out of the multitudes who take part in the Bacchic festival only a few have any real right to call themselves by the name of the god—as having become one with him through their ecstasy and exaltation. A special morbid state was necessary for that: the same state which in other circumstances made the real shamans, Piajes, etc.
73 Even when their ἔκστασις had ceased the ecstatic worshippers still regarded as real the visions which they had enjoyed in that condition: οἷον συνέβη Ἀντιφέροντι τῷ Ὠρείτῃ καὶ ἄλλοις ἐξισταμένοις. τὰ γὰρ φαντάσματα ἔλεγον ὡς γενόμενα καὶ ὡς μνημονεύοντες, Arist. π. μνήμης, 1, p. 451a, 8. “Magicians who had subsequently been converted to Christianity were still convinced of the reality of their earlier visions: they thought they had seen something perfectly real.” 281 Müller, Amerik. Urrelig. 80. Add: Tylor, ii, 131; Cranz, Greenland, p. 197.
75 Hdt. v, 4 (speaking of the Τραυσοί. Hsch. has the same, s.v. Τραυσός). The story was then added to the regular list of νόμιμα βαρβαρικά used for illustrating the variability of νόμος. It was soon after told of the Κρόβυζοι: Isig., Mir. 27 (they were also regarded as strong adherents of a belief in immortality; see above, n. 65); then of the Καυσιανοί: Nic. Dam., Mir. 18 West. Zenob., Prov. v, 25, p. 128, 5 L.-Schn. (Καύσιοι, Καυσιανοί). It occurs again in a fragment of some collection of νόμιμα βαρβαρικά written before the third century (there is no reason to ascribe it to Aristotle) given by Mahaffy, On the Flinders Petrie Papyri, Transcript., p. 29: Καυσιανοῖς δὲ νόμιμον τοὺς μὲν γιγνομένους θρηνεῖν τοὺς δὲ τελευτῶντας εὐδαιμονίζειν ὡς πολλῶν κακῶν ἀναπεπαυμένους (κακῶν as above or πόνῶν must be supplied to fill the gap; cf. the well-known fragment of Eur. Cresph.: ἐχρῆν γὰρ ἡμᾶς . . . fr. 449, which perhaps alludes to Hdt.’s account). It is told of Thracians in general, or of some tribe not particularly named, by S. E., P. iii, 232; Val. Max. 2, 6, 12 (both clearly drawing on collections of νόμιμα βαρβαρικά); Mela, ii, 18; AP. ix, 111 (Archias). There were thus three sources of the story: Besides Hdt.’s, two in which either the Krobyzoi or the Kausianoi were named as the Thracian tribe instead of Hdt.’s Trausoi.