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Encyclopedia Britannica



ZALMOXIS, or ZAMOLXIS

This article appears in Volume V28, Page 951 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: YAK-ZYM
ZALMOXIS, or ZAMOLXIS , a semi-mythical social and religious reformer, regarded as the only true God by the Thracian Getae. According to
Herodotus
  (iv. 94), the Getae, who believed in the immortality of the soul, looked upon death merely as going to Zalmoxis. Every five years they selected by lot one of the tribesmen as a messenger to the god. The man was thrown into the air and caught upon the points of spears. If he did not die, he was considered unfit to undertake the mission and another was chosen. By the euhemeristic Hellespontine Greeks Herodotua was told that Zalmoxis was really a man, formerly a slave of
Pythagoras
  at Samos, who, having obtained his freedom and amassed
great
  wealth, returned to Thrace, and instructed his fellow-tribesmen in the doctrines of
Pythagoras
  and the arts of civilization. He taught them that they would pass at death to a certain place, where they would enjoy all possible blessings for all eternity, and to convince them of this he had a subterranean chamber constructed, to which he withdrew for three years.
Herodotus
 , who declines to commit himself as to the existence of Zalmoxis, expresses the
opinion
  that in any
case
  he must have lived
long
  before the time of Pythagoras. It is probable that Zalmoxis is Sabazius, the Thracian Dionysus or Zeus; Mnaseas of Patrae identified him with Cronus. In Plato (Charmides, 158 B) he is mentioned with Abaris as skilled in the arts of
incantation
 . No satisfactory
etymology
  of the name has been suggested.


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