VIII

THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT THRACE *)

Herodotos states (v, 7) that the Thracians adored but three deities, Ares, Artemis and Dionysos, adding that a fourth, Hermes, was wor• shipped by the "kings" only. Clearly we have not to do here with the Greek deities known by these names, but with national divinities of Thrace represented by the names of the Greek dei ti es who, accord• ing to a more or less well-founded interpretation, corresponded respect• ively to them. Analogously, when Herodotos speaks of Egyptian religion, he says "Zeus", "Demeter", "Dionysos", meaning Amun, Isis and Osiris (ii, 42, 59 and 144) and so on. In like manner, when describing the religion of Persia, he uses the name "Zeus" for the supreme skygod of the Iranian peoples, worshipped on the mountain• tops (i, 131). Possibly the Thracian "Ares" himself, who is named first, is really the Thracian equivalent of the Persian "Zeus", the Greek Zeus, the Latin Iuppiter (Father Jove) and so on, in other words the god who in Thracian religion itself appears later with thc native name of (Zeus) Zbelsourdos, or Zbelthourdos, or Zbelthiour• dos, and with the Greek appellation of Zeus Keraunios, the thunder• god 1 ), i.e., the god of the weather-sky, adored like the Persian "Zeus" in high places 2), as we find also among the Macedonians (Livy xl, 22), the Illyrians (ßemli't'upoc;, Hesychios s.u.), the Scy-

*) The Italian original, La religione deli' antica Trocia, appeared in a volume of essays in honour of GAVRIL 1. KAZAROV, Serta Ka:::aroviana (Ephemeridis In• stituti Arehaeologiei Bulgariei Vol. xvi, Serdicae 1950), pp. 291-99. I) PERDRIZET, Le dieu throee Zbelthiourdos, in Rev. et. ane., I 899, 23 foH.; SEURE, Les images throees de Zeus Keraunos, in Rev. h. greeques, I9I3, 225 foH.; KAZAROW, N ouvelles inseriptions relatives au dieu thraee Zbelsourdos, in Rev. arcJteologique I9I3-i, 340 foll.; DANOW, Eine neue Weihung an Zeus Keraunios, in AR.W. xxxiii (1936), I66. 2) Cf. Zeus Hypsistos; KALINKA, Antike Denkmäler in Bulgarien (Vienna I 906) , No. I66, also Iuppiter Aepilofius (Le., 'EmA6cpw~), CIL. iii, 14565·

PETTAZZONI, ESSAYS 6 THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT THRACE thians (Zeus Papaios, Hdt. iv, 59), and the Bithynians (Zeus Papas) 3). It is weIl known that such translations of divine names can be no more than approximate, not so much, or not only, owing to insuf• ficient knowledge or inadequate understanding on the part of the translator as, or also, because of the real difference between the divine figures thus interpreted, which never agree exactly in all their aspects, but only in part and in some of them, precisely those which give rise to the differing interpretations. Thus it is not surprising that the chief deity, a thunder-god, of so warlike a people as the Thracians could be interpreted as Ares, exactly as the Germanic *Tiwaz was rendered by Mars 4) and reciprocally M artis dies by Dienstag 5). Correspondingly, the Thracian "Artemis" mentioned in Herodotos v,7 along with "Ares" might be the Thracian goddess Bendis 6), that is, probably, their great earth-goddess 7), as wife of the great skygod, since it is natural that in a wooded country, among a people much given to hunting, as the Thracians were, the earth-goddess should be feit to be an "Artemis" 8), owing to the peculiarly numinous quality inherent in forests, and no less probable that the Thracians adored that supreme pair, Sky and Earth, which we find also among the Phrygians 9), the Scythians 10) and other peoples of antiquity. Consequently, the Thracian "Dionysos" of Herodotos v, 7 must be understood as anational Thracian god interpreted and named by the Greek appellation 11), quite apart from the problem of the actual origin of the Greek god 12) and of his name 13). This god probably

3) Arrian fgt. 23 Roos (Vol. ii, p. 205). Cf.IIomtocßd in e.l.G. 3817 (horn Dorylaion). Both Papas and Papaios mean "father", cf. ße:L1t&TUpO~, Iuppiter, etc. 4) Praecipuo deo rum Marti, TACITUS, Hist. iv, 64. 5) From Diestag (*Tiwesdag, English Tuesday) , see J. DE VRIES, Altgerma- nische Religiongeschichte i (Berlin 1935), 173. 6) Be:v8r~· ~ "APTe:fl~~, 0pq()W1Tt, Hesychios s.u. 7) Bendis is the fle:Y&A7) ee:o~ in ARISTOPHANES, sec HESYCHIOS and PHOTIOS s.u. 8) Cf. WrssowA in AR.W. xix (1916-19), 25. 9) 8~CJ)~ ~e:fle:ACJ), ~e:fle:ACJ) xe: 8e:o~, 8e:o~ xe: ~"fle:ACJ), in neo-Phrygian inscriptions; CALDER in I.H.S. 19", 207; ]. FRIEDRrCH, Kleinasiatische Sprachdenkmäler (Berlin 1932), 129. 10) HERODOTOS iv, 59. 11) Cf. NILSSON, Geschichte der griechischen Religion i (Munich 1941), 533 foll. 12) Cf. W. F. ÜTTO, Dionysos (Frank fort alM 1933), 59· 13) The origin of thc name is Thracian. according to KRETSCHMER, Aus der