View source for Zalmoxis

{{short description|Thracian god}}
{{About||the arachnid with this name|Zalmoxis (harvestman)|the assassin bug with this name|Zamolxis (bug)|the dinosaur|Zalmoxes}}
{{Primary sources|date=May 2011}}
[[File:Zalmoxis Aleksandrovo.jpg|thumb|A [[Thracian]] tomb painting at the Aleksandrovska Grobnitsa ([[Bulgaria]]), which possibly depicts Zalmoxis<ref>{{cite journal |last=Wagner |first=Hans |title=Die Thraker |journal=Eurasisches Magazin |date=5 August 2004 |url=http://www.eurasischesmagazin.de/artikel/Thrakien-und-die-Thraker-alles-was-man-wissen-muss/20040805 |language=de |access-date=19 January 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |first=Kalin |last=Dimitrov |title=Thracian tomb of Aleksandrovo |website=Chain |url=http://chain.eu/?m3=16347 |access-date=19 January 2020 | date=12 September 2008}}</ref>]]
'''Zalmoxis'''{{efn|
* {{langx|grc|Ζάλμοξις}}
* also known as '''Salmoxis''' ({{lang|grc|Σάλμοξις}}), '''Zalmoxes''' ({{lang|grc|Ζάλμοξες}}), '''Zamolxis''' ({{lang|grc|Ζάμολξις}}), '''Samolxis''' ({{lang|grc|Σάμολξις}}), '''Zamolxes''' ({{lang|grc|Ζάμολξες}}), or '''Zamolxe''' ({{lang|grc|Ζάμολξε)}}}} is a [[Deity|divinity]] of the [[Getae]] and [[Dacians]] (a people of the lower [[Danube]]), mentioned by [[Herodotus]] in his [[Histories (Herodotus)#Book IV (Melpomene)|''Histories'' Book IV, 93–96]], written before 425&nbsp;BC.<ref name="classics.mit.edu">{{cite web |url=http://classics.mit.edu/Herodotus/history.mb.txt |title=The History of Herodotus By Herodotus |access-date=2023-08-26}}</ref>

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.<ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0062:entry=zalmoxis-harpers perseus.tufts.edu]; Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898), Zalmoxis</ref>

According to [[Jordanes]]' ''[[Getica]]'', he was a learned philosopher, before whom two other learned men existed, by the names of Zeuta and [[Deceneus]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://people.ucalgary.ca/~vandersp/Courses/texts/jordgeti.html |title=The Origin and Deeds of the Goths |website=people.ucalgary.ca}}</ref>

==Herodotus==
[[Herodotus]] writes about Zalmoxis in book 4 of his ''Histories'':<ref name="classics.mit.edu"/>
<blockquote>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 being [[Gebeleizis]]. 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.</blockquote>	

Herodotus asserts that Zalmoxis was originally a human being, a slave who converted the [[Thracians]] to his beliefs.<ref name=Herodotus-1920/> The Greeks of the Hellespont and the Black Sea tell that Zalmoxis was a slave of [[Pythagoras]], son of Mnesarchos, on the island of [[Samos]]. 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 the [[Eleusinian 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.<ref name="magic">{{cite book |first=Daniel |last=Odgen |title=Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds |year=2009 |page=11 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-538520-5}}</ref>

Zalmoxis may have lived much earlier than Pythagoras and was rumored either to be a divine being or from the country of the Getae.
<blockquote>
"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]]<ref name=Herodotus-1920>{{cite book |author=[[Herodotus]] |volume=book&nbsp;4 |title=Histories |year=1920 |translator=Godley, A.D. |place=Cambridge, MA |publisher=Harvard University Press}}</ref>{{rp|at=IV&nbsp;96}}
</blockquote>
Scholars have several different theories about this account by Herodotus the disappearance and return of Zalmoxis:
* Herodotus is mocking the barbarian beliefs of the Getae.
* Zalmoxis created a ritual of passage. This theory is mainly supported by [[Mircea Eliade]], who wrote the first coherent interpretation of the myth about Zalmoxis.
* Zalmoxis is related to Pythagoras, stating that he founded a mystical cult. This theory may be found in Eliade's work.
* Zalmoxis is a Christ-like figure who dies and is resurrected. This position was defended by Jean (Ioan) Coman, a professor of [[patristics]] and [[Eastern Orthodox Church|Orthodox priest]], who was a friend of Mircea Eliade and published in Eliade's journal ''Zalmoxis'', which appeared in the 1930s.{{citation needed |date=August 2016}}

{{original research span|date=October 2024|This last theory precisely parallels the legend of the universal king [[Fróði|Frode]]}}, given in both ''Ynglingsaga'' and ''[[Gesta Danorum]]'' of [[Saxo Grammaticus]], particularly ''Ynglingsaga'' 12 and ''Gesta Danorum'',<ref name=Saxo-Gesta-D>{{cite book |author=[[Saxo Grammaticus]] |title=[[Gesta Danorum]] |at=5.16.3}}</ref> in which Frode disappears into the earth for three years after his death.{{primary source inline|date=October 2024}}

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 the [[5th 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.<ref name="name67">{{cite book |first=Sorin |last=Paliga |author-link=Sorin Paliga |article=La divinité suprême des Thraco-Daces |title=Dialogues d'histoire ancienne |publisher=Persée revue |language=fr}}</ref>

[[Plato]] claims<ref>{{cite book |author=[[Plato]] |title=[[Charmides (dialogue)|Charmides]] |type=dialogue |at=lines 156 D – 157 B}}</ref> that Zalmoxis was also a great physician who took a [[holistic health|holistic]] approach to healing body and soul (psyche), being thus used by Plato for his own philosophical conceptions.

==Religion of the Getae==
[[Strabo]] in his ''Geography'' mentions a certain [[Deceneus]] (Dékainéos) whom he calls a {{lang|grc|γόητα}} "magician".<ref>Strabo, ''Geography'', book 7, 3, 1–11</ref> According to Strabo, king [[Burebista]] (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 historian [[Jordanes]], 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|date=May 2023}}

According to [[Iamblichus]] (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."<ref>Rousell, Patrick (ed.) {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20070322152710/http://www.completepythagoras.net/volume1/iamblichus/30.html The Complete Pythagoras]}}</ref>

[[Aristotle]] is said, in the brief epitome of his ''Magicus'' given by Diogenes Laertes, to have compared Zalmoxis with the [[Phoenicia]]n Okhon and [[Ancient Libya|Libya]]n [[Atlas (mythology)|Atlas]]. Some authors{{who|date=November 2015}} assume Zalmoxis was another name of [[Sabazius]], the Thracian [[Dionysus]], or [[Zeus]]. Sabazius appears in Jordanes as Gebelezis.  Leaving aside the suffixes ''-zius/-zis'', the root ''Saba-'' = ''Gebele-'',{{citation needed|date=June 2018}} suggesting a relationship of the name of the goddess Cybele, as "Cybele's Zeus". [[Mnaseas|Mnaseas of Patrae]] identified Zalmoxis with [[Cronus|Cronos]], as does [[Hesychius of Alexandria|Hesychius]], who has "{{lang|grc|Σάλμοξις ὁ Κρόνος}}".{{citation needed|date=June 2018}}

In [[Plato]]'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).<ref name="Znamenski">Znamenski, Andrei A. ''Shamanism''</ref> 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|date=March 2017}}

==Zalmoxian religion==
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 and [[Sorin Paliga]], since ancient sources do not mention any god of the Getae other than Zalmoxis, the Getae were [[monotheistic]].<ref name="name67"/> 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 a [[Sky deity|sky god]], but his journey into a cavern has led others to suggest that he was a [[chthonic]] divinity.<ref>Lurker, Manfred. ''The Routledge Dictionary Of Gods Goddesses Devils And Demons''. [[Routledge]]. 2004. p. 207. {{ISBN|978-04-15340-18-2}}</ref>

A third group of scholars believe that the Getae, like other Indo-European peoples, were [[polytheistic]]. They draw on ancient authors such as [[Diodorus Siculus]], who states that the Getae worshipped [[Hestia]] as well as Zalmoxis.<ref>Diodorus Siculus, Book 1, c. 94: "...among the people known as the Getae who represent themselves to be immortal, Zalmoxis asserted the same of their common goddess Hestia..."</ref>

==Etymology==
A number of etymologies have been given for the name. In his ''Vita Pythagorae'', [[Porphyry (philosopher)|Porphyrius]] (3rd century) says that he was so named because he had been wrapped in a bearskin at birth, and ''zalmon'' is the Thracian word for "hide" ({{lang|grc|τὴν γὰρ δορὰν οἱ Θρᾷκες ζαλμὸν καλοῦσιν}}). [[Hesychius of Alexandria|Hesychius]] (c. 5th century) has {{Transliteration|grc|zemelen}} ({{lang|grc|ζέμελεν}}) as a [[Phrygian language|Phrygian]] 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 favouring ''Salmoxis''. Later authors show a preference for ''Zamolxis''. Hesychius quotes Herodotus, using ''Zalmoxis''.

The ''-m-l-'' variant (''Zamolxis'') is favoured by those wishing to derive the name from a conjectured Thracian word for "earth", {{Transliteration|txh|*zamol}}. Comparisons have also been made with the name of Zemelo and [[Žemyna|Žemelė]], the [[Phrygia]]n and [[Lithuania]]n goddess of the earth, and with the Lithuanian [[chthonic]] god [[Žemėpatis|Žemeliūkštis]].<ref>Alexandrescu, Petre. "La nature de Zalmoxis selon Hérodote". In: ''Dialogues d'histoire ancienne'', vol. 6, 1980. pp. 119-120 (footnote nr. 1). DOI: https://doi.org/10.3406/dha.1980.1403; www.persee.fr/doc/dha_0755-7256_1980_num_6_1_1403</ref> The Lithuanian word ''Žalmuo'' 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 in ''Zalmodegikos'', the name of a Getic King; and in Thracian {{Transliteration|txh|zalmon}}, 'hide', and {{Transliteration|txh|zelmis}}, 'hide' (PIE ''*kel-'', 'to cover'; cf. English ''helm'').

The other name for Zalmoxis, Gebeleizis, is also spelled Belaizis and Belaixis in Herodotus manuscripts.

According to Mircea Eliade:
{{blockquote|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.<ref>Eliade, Mircea. ''Istoria credințelor și ideilor religioase'', Editura Științifică, Bucuresti, 1992, p. 163.</ref>}}

==See also==
* [[Orpheus]]
* [[Zāl]]
* [[Zalmoxianism]]

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

===Primary sources===
*[[Herodotus]]. ''[[Histories (Herodotus)|Histories]]'', [[wikisource:History of Herodotus/Book 4|Book IV. 93-96]]
*[[Herodotus]]. ''[[Histories (Herodotus)|Histories]]'', History of Herodotus, Book IV. 94
*[[Jordanes]]. ''[[Getica]]''. [https://www.ucalgary.ca/~vandersp/Courses/texts/jordgeti.html#V V.39]
*[[Strabo]]. ''[[Geographica]]'', [http://old.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0198;query=chapter%3D%237;layout=;loc=7.2.1#anch25 VII. 3. 5] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091002081358/http://old.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0198#anch25 |date=2009-10-02 }}
*[[Plato]]. ''[[Charmides (dialogue)|Charmides]]'', [http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/charmides.html 156-158]
*[[Apuleius]]. ''Pro Se De Magia (Apologia)'', [http://classics.mit.edu/Apuleius/apol.2.2.html 2.26]
*[[Diodorus Siculus]]. ''[[Bibliotheca historica]]'', [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/1D*.html#ref45 94.2]
*[[Porphyry (philosopher)|Porphyry]], ''Life of Pythagoras'', [http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/porphyry_life_of_pythagoras_02_text.htm 14]

===Secondary sources===
* Dana, Dan. ''Zalmoxis de la Herodot la Mircea Eliade. Istorii despre un zeu al pretextului'', Polirom, Iași, 2008
* [[Mircea Eliade|Eliade, Mircea]]. ''Zalmoxis, the Vanishing God'', Univ of Chicago Press, 1972, 1986
* Hansen, Christopher M., “A Thracian Resurrection: Is Zalmoxis a Dying-Rising God who Parallels Jesus?” ''Journal of Higher Criticism'' 14.4 (2019), pp.&nbsp;70–98.
* Kernbach, Victor. ''Miturile Esenţiale'', Editura Ştiinţifică şi Enciclopedică, Bucharest, 1978
* Popov, Dimitar. ''Bogat s mnogoto imena'' (''The God with Multiple Names''), Sofia, 1995
* Venedikov, Ivan. ''Mitove na bulgarskata zemya: Mednoto Gumno'' (''Myths of the Bulgarian Land: The Copper Threshing Floor''), Sofia, 1982

==Further reading==
* Drugaş, Şerban George Paul. "The Name of Zalmoxis and Its Significance in the Dacian Language and Religion". In: ''Hiperboreea'' 3, no. 2 (2016): 5-66. [https://www.persee.fr/doc/hiper_2284-5666_2016_num_3_2_914 Online version].
* Eliade, Mircea, and Willard R. Trask. "Zalmoxis". In: ''History of Religions'' 11, no. 3 (1972): 257–302. {{JSTOR|1061899}}.
* [[Sorin Paliga|Paliga, Sorin]]. "La divinité suprême des Thraco-Daces". In: ''Dialogues d'histoire ancienne'', vol. 20, n°2, 1994. pp.&nbsp;137–150. {{doi|10.3406/dha.1994.2182}}.
* Pandrea, Andrei. "Quelques observations concernant l'étymologie et la genèse d'un ancien nom de dieu: Zalmoxis”. In: ''Balkan Studies'' 22  (1981). pp.&nbsp;229–245.

==External links==
{{EB1911 poster|Zalmoxis}}
* {{Commons category-inline|Zalmoxis}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20071017120334/http://www.mircea-eliade.com/from-primitives-to-zen/036.html "History" by Herodotus, about Zalmoxis]
* [http://www.losttrails.com/pages/Hproject/ThracoGetae/ThracoGetae01-00.html Journey to the Land of the Cloud Rovers] - slideshow of Dacian fortresses and the Getae - Requires [[Shockwave Player]].

{{Dacia topics}}

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[[Category:Ancient Greek shamans]]
[[Category:Dacian gods]]
[[Category:Life-death-rebirth gods]]
[[Category:Paleo-Balkan mythology]]
[[Category:European people whose existence is disputed]]
[[Category:Thracian gods]]
[[Category:Year of death unknown]]