Anatolian Gods

Cybele
Full-faced Hittite rock carving of Cybele in Mount Sipylus

Cybele (Phrygian: Matar Kubileya/Kubeleya "Kubeleyan Mother", perhaps "Mountain Mother";
Greek: Kybele, Kybebe, Kybelis; pronounced /kbli/), was the Phrygian
deification of the Earth Mother. As with Greek Gaia (the "Earth"), or her Minoan equivalent Rhea,
Cybele embodies the fertile Earth, a goddess of caverns and mountains, walls and fortresses, nature,
wild animals (especially lions and bees). Phrygian Cybele is often identified with the Hittite-
Hurrian goddess Hebat, though this latter deity might have been the origin of only Anatolian
Kubaba. The Greeks frequently conflated the two names, the Anatolian "Kubaba" and the Phrygian
"Kybele", to refer to the Phrygian deity.
The goddess was known among the Greeks as (Mtr "Mother") or
("Mountain-Mother"), or, with a particular Anatolian sacred mountain in mind, Idaea, inasmuch as
she was supposed to have been born on Mount Ida in Anatolia, or equally Dindymene or Sipylene,
with her sacred mountains Mount Dindymon (in Mysia and variously located) or Mount Sipylus in
mind. In Roman mythology, her equivalent was Magna Mater or "Great Mother". In most
mythology her story is Phrygian.
Her Ancient Greek title, Potnia Theron, also associated with the Minoan Great Mother, alludes to
her Neolithic roots as the "Mistress of the Animals". Her son and consort Attis is a life-death-rebirth
deity who was resurrected by her. She is associated with her lion throne and her chariot drawn by
lions.
Walter Burkert, who treats Cybele among "foreign gods" in Greek Religion, notes that "The cult of
the Great Mother, Meter, presents a complex picture insofar as indigenous, Minoan-Mycenean
tradition is here intertwined with a cult taken over directly from the Phrygian kingdom of Asia
Minor"
[1][2]
The inscription matar occurs frequently in her Phrygian sites (Burkert). Kubileya is
usually read as a Phrygian adjective "of the mountain", so that the inscription may be read Mother
of the Mountain, and this is supported by Classical sources (Roller 1999, pp. 6768). Another
theory is that her name can be traced to the Luwian Kubaba, the deified queen of the Third Dynasty
of Kish worshiped at Carchemish and Hellenized to Kybebe (Munn 2004, Motz 1997, pp. 105106).
With or without the etymological connection, Kubaba and Matar certainly merged in at least some
aspects, as the genital mutilation later connected with Cybele's cult is associated with Kybebe in
earlier texts, but in general she seems to have been more a collection of similar tutelary goddesses
associated with specific Anatolian mountains or other localities, and called simply "mother" (Motz).
Later, Cybele's most ecstatic followers were males who ritually castrated themselves, after which
they were given women's clothing and assumed female identities, who were referred to by one
third-century commentator, Callimachus, in the feminine as Gallai, but to whom other
contemporary commentators in ancient Greece and Rome referred to as Gallos or Galli.
There is no mention of these followers in Classical references although they related that her
priestesses led the people in orgiastic ceremonies with wild music, drumming, dancing, and
drinking. She was associated with the mystery religion concerning her son, Attis, who was
castrated, died of his wounds, and resurrected by his mother. The dactyls were part of her retinue.
Other followers of Cybele, the Phrygian kurbantes or Corybantes, expressed her ecstatic and
orgiastic cult in music, especially drumming, clashing of shields and spears, dancing, singing, and
shoutingall at night.

Athenian Cybele seated on her throne with a tymbalon,

Cult history

Her cult moved from Phrygia to Greece from the 6th to the 4th century BCE. In 203 BCE, Rome
adopted her cult as well.

Anatolia and Greece Overview

Greek mythographers recalled that Broteas, the son of Tantalus, was the first to carve the Great
Mother's image into a rock-face. At the time of Pausanias (2nd century CE), a sculpture carved into
the rock-face of a spur of Mount Sipylus was still held sacred by the Magnesians.
[3]
At Pessinos in
Phrygia, an archaic image of Cybele had been venerated as well as the cult of Agdistis, in 203 BCE
its aniconic cult object was removed to Rome.


Mount Sipylus statue in an early 20th century French postcard
Her cult had already been adopted in 5th century BCE Greece, where she is often referred to
euphemistically as Meter Theon Idaia ("Mother of the Gods, from Mount Ida") rather than by name.
Mentions of Cybele's worship are found in Pindar and Euripides, among other locations. Classical
Greek writers, however, either did not know of or did not mention the castrated galli, although they
did mention the castration of Attis.
[citation needed]

Cybele's cult in Greece was closely associated with, and apparently resembled, the later cult of
Dionysus, whom Cybele is said to have initiated and cured of Hera's madness. They also identified
Cybele with the Mother of the Gods Rhea.

Anatolian Cybele
Seated Woman of atalhyk

Various aspects of Cybele's Anatolian attributes probably predate the Bronze Age in origin.
The figurine (illustrated) found at atalhyk, (Archaeological Museum, Ankara), dating about
6000 BCE, is generally conceded
[5]
to depict a corpulent and fertile Mother Goddess in the process
of giving birth while seated on her throne, which has two hand rests in the form of feline (leopard or
panther) heads. The similarity to later iconography of the Anatolian Mother Goddess is striking.
[6]

By the 2nd millennium BCE the Kubaba of Bronze Age Carchemish was known to the Hittites and
Hurrians:

"[O]n the basis of inscriptional and iconographical evidence it is possible to trace the
diffusion of her cult in the early Iron Age; the cult reached the Phrygians in inner Anatolia,
where it took on special significance" (Burkert, III.3.4, p. 177).

If the theory on the Luwian origin of Cybele's name is correct, Kubaba must have merged with the
various matar goddesses well before time the Phrygian matar kubileya inscription was made around
the first half of the 6th century BCE (Vassileva 2001).
In Phrygia Rhea-Cybele was venerated as Agdistis, with a temple at the great trading city Pessinos,
mentioned by the geographer Strabo. It was at Pessinos that her lover Attis (son of Nana) was about
to wed the daughter of the king, when Agdistis-Cybele appeared in her awesome glory, and he
castrated himself.
In Archaic Phrygian images of Cybele of the sixth century, already betraying the influence of Greek
style (Burkert), her typical representation is in the figuration of a buildings faade, standing in the
doorway. The faade itself can be related to the rock-cut monuments of the highlands of Phrygia.
She is wearing a belted long dress, a polos (high cylindrical hat), and a veil covering the whole
body. In Phrygia, her usual attributes are the bird of prey and a small vase. Sometimes lions are
related to her in an aggressive, but tamed, manner. Often the lions are shown drawing her chariot,
which may be related as the sun traversing the sky daily.
Later, under Hellenic influence along the coastal lands of Asia Minor, the sculptor Agoracritos, a
pupil of Pheidias, produced a version of Cybele that became the standard one. It showed her still
seated on a throne but now more decorous and matronly, her hand resting on the neck of a perfectly
still lion and the other hand holding the circular frame drum, similar to a tambourine, (tymbalon or
tympanon), which evokes the full moon in its shape and is covered with the hide of the sacred lunar
bull.


Plate depicting Cybele pulled in her chariot
drawn by lions, a votive sacrifice and the Sun
God - Ai Khanoum, Bactria (Afghanistan), 2nd
century BCE

Cybele and Attis

The goddess appears alone, 8th6th centuries BCE. Later she is joined by her son and consort Attis,
who incurred her jealousy. He, in an ecstasy, castrated himself, and subsequently died. Grieving,
Cybele resurrected him. This tale is told by Catullus in carmen 63.
[4]
The evergreen pine and ivy
were sacred to Attis.
Some ecstatic followers of Cybele, known in Rome as galli, willingly castrated themselves in
imitation of Attis. For Roman devotees of Cybele Mater Magna who were not prepared to go so far,
the testicles of a bull, one of the Great Mother's sacred animals, were an acceptable substitute, as
many inscriptions show. An inscription of 160 CE records that a certain Carpus had transported a
bull's testes from Rome to Cybele's shrine at Lyon, France.

Aegean Cybele

The worship of Cybele spread from inland areas of Anatolia and Syria to the Aegean coast, to Crete
and other Aegean islands, and to mainland Greece. She was particularly welcomed at Athens. The
geographer Strabo made some useful observations:

Just as in all other respects the Athenians continue to be hospitable to things foreign, so also
in their worship of the gods; for they welcomed so many of the foreign rites ... the Phrygian
[rites of Rhea-Cybele are mentioned] by Demosthenes, when he casts the reproach upon
Aeschines' mother and Aeschines himself, that he was with her when she conducted
initiations, that he joined her in leading the Dionysiac march, and that many a time he cried
out evoe saboe, and hyes attes, attes hyes; for these words are in the ritual of Sabazios and
the Mother [Rhea]. (Strabo, book X, 3:18)


Marble statuette of Cybele wearing the polos on
her head, from Nicaea in Bithynia (Istanbul
Archaeology Museum)

In Ancient Egypt at Alexandria, Cybele was worshiped by the Greek population as "The Mother of
the Gods, the Savior who Hears our Prayers" and as "The Mother of the Gods, the Accessible One".
Ephesus, one of the major trading centers of the area, was devoted to Cybele as early the
10
th
century BCE, and the city's ecstatic celebration, the Ephesia, honored her.
The goddess was not welcome among the Scythians north of Thrace. From Herodotus (4.76-7) we
learn that the Scythian Anacharsis (6
th
century BCE), after traveling among the Greeks and
acquiring vast knowledge, was put to death by his fellow Scythians for attempting to introduce the
foreign cult of Magna Mater.
Atalanta and Hippomenes were turned into lions by Cybele or Zeus as punishment for having sex in
one of her or his temples because the Greeks believed that lions could not mate with other lions.
Another account says that Aphrodite turned them into lions for forgetting to do her tribute. As lions
they then drew Cybele's chariot, which sometimes numbered to seven.

Roman Cybele

According to Livy in 210 BCE, an archaic version of Cybele, from Pessinos in Phrygia, as
mentioned above, that embodied the Great Mother was ceremoniously and reverently moved to
Rome, marking the official beginning of her cult there. Rome was embroiled in the Second Punic
War at the time (218 to 201 BCE). An inspection had been made of the Sibylline Books and some
oracular verses had been discovered that announced that if a foreign foe should carry war into Italy,
that foe could be driven out and conquered if the Mater Magna were brought from Pessinos to
Rome. The Romans also consulted the Greek oracle at Delphi, which also recommended bringing
the Magna Mater "from her sanctuary in Asia Minor to Rome."
[7]
Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica
was ordered to go to the port of Ostia, accompanied by all the matrons, to meet the goddess. He
was to receive her image as she left the vessel, and when brought to land he was to place her in the
hands of the matrons who were to bear her to her destination, the Temple of Victory on the Palatine
Hill. The day on which this event took place, 12 April, was observed afterwards as a festival, the
Megalesian.
[8]

Plutarch relates that in 103 BCE, Battakes, a high priest of Cybele, journeyed to Rome to announce
a prediction of Gaius Marius's victory over the Cimbri and Teutoni. A. Pompeius, plebeian tribune,
together with a band of ruffians, chased Battakes off of the Rostra. Pompeius supposedly died of a
fever a few days later.
[9]


Cybele with her attributes, (Getty Museum), a
Roman marble,c.50 CE

Under the emperor Augustus, Cybele enjoyed great prominence thanks to her inclusion in Augustan
ideology. Augustus restored Cybele's temple, which was located next to his own palace on the
Palatine Hill. On the cuirass of the Prima Porta of Augustus, the tympanon of Cybele lies at the feet
of the goddess Tellus. Livia, the wife of Augustus, ordered cameo-cutters to portray Cybele with
her likeness.
[10]
The Malibu statue of Cybele bears the visage of Livia.
[11]
. The cult seems to have
been fully accepted under Claudius as the festival of Magna Mater and Attis are included within the
stes religious calendar. At the same time the chief priest of the cult (the archigallus) was permitted
to be a Roman citizen, so long as he was not a eunuch.

1st century BC marble statue of Cybele from
Formia, Campania

Under the Roman Empire the most important festival of Cybele was the Hilaria, taking place
between March 15 and March 28. It symbolically commemorated the death of Attis and his
resurrection by Cybele, involving days of mourning followed by rejoicing. Celebrations also took
place on 4 April with the Megalensia festival, the anniversary of the arrival of the goddess (i.e. the
Black Stone) in Rome. On the 10th April, the anniversary of the consecration of her temple on the
Palatine, a procession of her image was carried to the Circus Maximus where races were held.
These two dates seem to be incorporated within the same festival, though the evidence for what
took place in between is lacking.

Taurobolium

The most famous rite of Magna Mater introduced by the Romans was the taurobolium, the initiation
ceremony in which a candidate took their place in a pit beneath a wooden floor. A bull was
sacrificed on the wooden floor so that the blood would run through gaps in the slats and drench the
initiate in a symbolic shower of blood. This act was thought to cleanse an initiate of sin as well as
signify a 'rebirth' and re-energisation. A cheaper version, known as a criobolium, involved the
sacrifice of a ram. The first recorded taurobolium took place at Puteoli in AD 134 in honour of
Venus Caelestia.
[12]

In Roman mythology, Cybele was given the name Magna Mater deorum Idaea ("great Idaean
mother of the gods"), in recognition of her Phrygian origins (although this title was given to Rhea
also).
Roman devotion to Cybele ran deep. Not coincidentally, when a Christian basilica was built over
the site of a temple to Cybele
[citation needed]
to occupy the site, the sanctuary was rededicated to the
Mother of God, as the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore. However, later, Roman citizens were
forbidden to become priests of Cybele, who were eunuchs like those of their Asiatic Goddess.
The worship of Cybele was exported to the empire, even as far away as Mauretania, where, just
outside Setif, the ceremonial "tree-bearers" and the faithful (religiosi) restored the temple of Cybele
and Attis after a disastrous fire in 288 CE. Lavish new fittings paid for by the private group
included the silver statue of Cybele and the chariot that carried her in procession received a new
canopy with tassels in the form of fir cones. (Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians, p 581.) The
popularity of the Cybele cult in the city of Rome and throughout the empire is thought to have
inspired the author of Book of Revelation to allude to her in his portrayal of the mother of harlots
who rides the Beast. Cybele drew ire from Christians throughout the Empire; famously, St.
Theodore of Amasea is said to have spent the time granted to him to recant his beliefs, burning a
temple of Cybele instead.
[13]

Today, a modern monumental statue of Cybele can be found in one of the principal traffic circles of
Madrid, the Plaza de Cibeles (illustration, lower right).


A fountain in Madrid depicting Cybele in her
chariot drawn by lions, in the Plaza de Cibeles

In Roman poetry

In Rome, her Phrygian origins were recalled by Catullus, whose famous poem (number 63) on the
theme of Attis
[4]
includes a vivid description of Cybele's worship: "Together come and follow to the
Phrygian home of Cybele, to the Phrygian forests of the goddess, where the clash of cymbals ring,
where tambourines resound, where the Phrygian flute-player blows deeply on his curved reed,
where ivy-crowned maenads toss their heads wildly."
In the second book of his De rerum natura, Lucretius appropriately uses the image of Cybele, the
Great Mother, as a metaphor for the Earth. His description of the followers of the goddess is
thought to be based on autopsy of the celebration of her cult in Rome.

Cybele in the Aeneid

In his Aeneid, which was written in the first century BCE (between 29 and 19 BCE), Virgil called
her Berecyntian Cybele, alluding to her place of origin. He described her as the mother of the gods.
In his late version of the legendary story, the Trojans are in Italy and have kept themselves safe in a
walled city, following Aeneas's orders. The leader of the Rutuli, Turnus, then ordered his men to
burn the ships of the Trojans. At this point in the new legend, there is a flashback to Mount
Olympus years before the Trojan War: After Cybele had given her sacred trees to the Trojans so
that they could build their ships, she went to Zeus and begged him to make the ships
indestructible.
[14]
Zeus granted her request by saying that when the ships had finally fulfilled their
purpose (bringing Aeneas and his army to Italy) they would be turned into sea nymphs rather than
be destroyed; so, as Turnus approached with fire, the ships came to life, dove beneath the sea, and
emerged as nymphs.
[15]

Of course, Cybele was a powerful goddess who had existed long before the "birth" of Zeus, and she
would have been worshipped in that area from antiquity, so this new legend may contain elements
of much older myths that have been lost such as the trees that turned into sea nymphs.

Notes
1. ^ Burkert, Greek Religion, 1985, section III.3,4 p. 177). Ancient Greeks considered
"Cybele" to be Greek; however, the traditional derivation of her name, as "she of the hair"
can be ignored, now that the inscription of one of her Phrygian rock-cut monuments has
been read matar kubileya.
2. ^ C.H.E. Haspels, The Highlands of Phrygia, 1971, I 293 no 13, noted in Walter Burkert,
Greek Religion, 1985, III.3.4, notes 17 and 18.
3. ^ Pausanias: "the Magnesians, who live to the north of Spil Mount, have on the rock
Coddinus the most ancient of all the images of the Mother of the gods. The Magnesians say
that it was made by Broteas the son of Tantalus." (Description of Greece)
4. ^
a

b

c
Catullus, Gaius Valerius (ca. 84 BC ca. 54 BC). Attis. Carmina. 63. As translated
and published in: Morford, Mark P.O.; Lenardon, Robert J.; Sham, Michael. "Cybele and
Attis". Classical Mythology. Archived from the original on 2005-01-30.
http://web.archive.org/web/20050130092338/http://www.classicalmythology.org/archive/cla
ssical/catullus_attis.html. Retrieved 2010-05-03.
5. ^ A typical assessment: "A terracotta statuette of a seated (mother) goddess giving birth
with each hand on the head of a leopard or panther from atal Hyk (dated around 6000
B.C.E.)" (Sarolta A. Takcs, "Cybele and Catullus' Attis
[4]
", in Eugene N. Lane, Cybele,
Attis and related cults: essays in memory of M.J. Vermaseren 1996:376.
6. ^ Compare: the lion throne in Anatolian File:Cybele Bithynia Nicaea.jpg, hellenistic Roman
File:CybeleHellenistic.jpg and Roman File:Cybele Getty Villa 57.AA.19.jpg. In case of the
hellenistic Roman one, mind the apparently ancient confusion between Cybele and Cybebe!
7. ^ Boatwright et al., The Romans, from Village to Empire ISBN 978-0-19-511875-9
8. ^ Livy, History of Rome, 29.10-11, .14 (written circa 10 CE).
9. ^ Plutarch, "Life of Marius," 17.
10. ^ P. Lambrechts, "Livie-Cybele," La Nouvelle Clio 4 (1952): 251-60.
11. ^ C. C. Vermeule, "Greek and Roman Portraits in North American Collections Open to the
Public," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 108 (1964): 106, 126, fig. 18.
12. ^ C.I.L. X.1596
13. ^ "St. Theodore of Amasea". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Encyclopedia Press. 1914.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14573a.htm. Retrieved 2007-07-16.
14. ^ Book IX, lines 99109.
15. ^ Book IX, lines 143147.

References
Burkert, Walter, 1982. Greek Religion (Cambridge:Harvard University Press), especially
section III.3.4
Motz, Lotte (1997). The Faces of the Goddess. New York: Oxford University Press US.
ISBN 0195089677.
Mark Munn, "Kybele as Kubaba in a Lydo-Phrygian Context": Emory University cross-
cultural conference "Hittites, Greeks and Their Neighbors in Central Anatolia", 2004
(Abstracts)
Roller, Lynn Emrich (1999). In Search of God the Mother: The Cult of Anatolian Cybele.
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press. ISBN 0520210247.
Vassileva, Maya (2001). "Further considerations on the cult of Kybele". Anatolian Studies
(British Institute at Ankara) 51, 2001: 51. doi:10.2307/3643027.
http://jstor.org/stable/3643027.
Virgil. The Aeneid trans from Latin by West, David (Penguin Putnam Inc. 2003) p. 189-190
ISBN 0-14-044932-9
Emmanuel Laroche, "Koubaba, desse anatolienne, et le problme des origines de Cyble",
Elments orientaux dans la religion grecque ancienne, Paris 1960, p. 113-128.

Further reading
Brixhe, Claude "Le Nom de Cybele", Die Sprache, 25 (1979), 40-45
George E. Bean. Aegean Turkey: An archaeological guide ISBN 978-0-510-03200-5, 1967.
Ernest Benn, London.
Hyde, Walter Woodburn Paganism to Christianity in the Roman Empire (U. of
Pennsylvania Press, 1946)
Knauer, Elfried R. (2006). "The Queen Mother of the West: A Study of the Influence of
Western Prototypes on the Iconography of the Taoist Deity." In: Contact and Exchange in
the Ancient World. Ed. Victor H. Mair. University of Hawai'i Press. Pp. 62115. ISBN 978-
0-8248-2884-4; ISBN 0-8248-2884-4 (An article showing the probable derivation of the
Daoist goddess, Xi Wangmu, from Kybele/Cybele)
Lane, Eugene. Ed. Cybele, Attis, and Related Cults: Essays in Memory of M.J. Vermaseren
(E.J. Brill, 1996)
Showerman, Grant The Great Mother of the Gods (Argonaut, 1969)
Vermaseren, Maarten Jozef. Cybele and Attis: The Myth and the Cult trans. from Dutch by
A. M. H. Lemmers (Thames and Hudson, 1977)
Virgil. The Aeneid trans from Latin by West, David (Penguin Putnam Inc. 2003)
WHEN THE GODDESSES RULED -
CATAL HOYUK
Around 6000 B.C., in Europe and in particular Anatolia, it is purported
that women reigned supreme in religion, law and custom. Female
sovereignity is thought to have ended with the development of using
metals for the making of weapons.
Is this possible? Is it likely that during a period of history that is not
well known that women were once the sovereigns? Lithuanian-
American historian, Marija Gimbutas, says "yes". According to Marija,
prior to today's male dominated society, especially during 6000 B.C., it was likely that a society
where women were the dominant sex existed. That period was perhaps one where Mother
Goddess' ruled. In the world of archeology and ethnology, there is no evidence to suggest that
humankind ever experienced this kind of period. Despite this, Marija Gimbutas is adamant that
period existed. In her 1989 text, Goddess' Language, Marija attempts
to prove this.
During prehistoric times, it is known that the female form was
prefered far more in the making of statues. This is also true of the
Palaeolithic, and later, periods. In archaeology, innumerable Venus
statues have been found while only a handful of Adonis statues have
been found. 30,000 year old cave paintings depict female genitalia.
The primary object of Neolithic art was also the female form. In
Anatolia and Europe - the cradle of civilisation - statues and paintings
of women have been found. Men appear to have been pushed aside,
perhaps planning their dominance over the world.
In an excavation project that Marija Gimbutas participated in, she describes how they
discovered a temple which contained groups of fifteen fired clay statues, from 6000 B.C., of
women. In the west of Ukrania, a temple from 5000 B.C. was found with thirty-two female
statues. Also, in Moldivia, a statue, belonging to 4000 B.C., of a pregnant woman clasping her
belly was discovered. The most important support for Marija Gimbutas' thesis came from a
finding in Catal Hoyuk. On the hills of Catal Hoyuk, an alter and temple from 7000 - 6000 B.C.
were discovered. On the walls are paintings depicting hunting and burial scenes. The paintings
also show large vultures observing a group of headless men. In the alter and temple a number of
statues of overweight women were found. In one of the temples a grain container yielded a 12
cm statue of a large woman sitting on a throne with two leopards on either side of her. The
statue depicts the woman giving birth, with the head of the baby visible. Apart from leopards
and vultures, bulls also are found at the side of the Mother Goddess. On wall paintings only the
heads of bulls are depicted.

Men (god)


Bust of Men. (Museum of Anatolian Civilizations) Relief of Men. (British Museum)

Men (Greek: , Latin: Mensis,
[1]
also known at Antioch in Pisidia as Men Ascanus) was a god
worshipped in the western interior parts of Anatolia. The roots of the Men cult may go back to
Mesopotamia in the fourth millennium BC.
[citation needed]
Ancient writers describe Men as a local god
of the Phrygians.
Lunar symbolism dominates his iconography. The god is usually shown with a crescent like open
horns on his shoulders, and he is described as the god presiding over the months.
[2]
He is depicted
with a Phrygian cap and a belted tunic. He may be accompanied by bulls and lions in religious
artwork. The iconography of Men partly recalls that of Mithras, who also wears a Phrygian cap and
is commonly depicted with a bull and symbols of the sun and moon.
The Augustan History has the Roman emperor Caracalla venerate Lunus at Carrhae; this has been
taken as a Latinized name for Men. The same source records the local opinion that anyone who
believes the deity of the moon to be feminine shall always be subject to women, whereas a man
who believes that he is masculine will dominate his wife. David Magie, however, disputes the
identification of this Lunus with Men, and suggests that Caracalla had actually visited the temple
of Sin.
[3]

Dr Mehmet Talalan, who has studied the remains of Antioch in Pisidia, has remarked that the
people who settled on the acropolis in the Greek colonial era, carried the Men Askaenos cult down
to the plain as Patrios Theos and in the place where the Augusteum was built there are some signs
of this former cult as bucrania on the rock-cut walls. The Imperial Temple also features an unusual
bucranium frieze.
In later times, Men may have been identified with both Attis of Phrygia and Sabazius of Thrace; he
may shared a common origin with the Zoroastrian lunar divinity Mah.
[4]


References
1. ^ Gerald L. Borchert. "The Cities of the First Missionary Journey"
2. ^ Strabo xii. pp. 557, 577; Proclus In Platonis Timaeum commentaria iv.251
3. ^ Augustan History "Caracalla" vii and note 44.
4. ^ "Anatolian Religion: The Phrygians". Encyclopdia Britannica online.

Sabazios

Bronze hand used in the worship of Sabazios
(British Museum). Roman 1st-2nd century CE.
Hands decorated with religious symbols were
designed to stand in sanctuaries or, like this one,
were attached to poles for processional use.
Sabazios (Ancient Greek: ) is the nomadic horseman and sky father god of the Phrygians
and Thracians. In Indo-European languages, such as Phrygian, the -zios element in his name derives
from dyeus, the common precursor of Latin deus ('god') and Greek Zeus. Though the Greeks
interpreted Phrygian Sabazios
[1]
with both Zeus and Dionysus,
[2]
representations of him, even into
Roman times, show him always on horseback, as a nomadic horseman god, wielding his
characteristic staff of power.

Thracian/Phrygian Sabazios

It seems likely that the migrating Phrygians brought Sabazios with them when they settled in
Anatolia in the early first millennium BC, and that the god's origins are to be looked for in
Macedonia and Thrace. The recently discovered ancient sanctuary of Perperikon in eastern Thrace
is believed to be that of Sabazios. The Macedonians were also noted horsemen, horse-breeders and
horse-worshippers up to the time of Philip II, whose name signifies "lover of horses".
Possible early conflict between Sabazios and his followers and the indigenous mother goddess of
Phrygia (Cybele) may be reflected in Homer's brief reference to the youthful feats of Priam, who
aided the Phrygians in their battles with Amazons. An aspect of the compromise religious
settlement, similar to the other such mythic adjustments throughout Aegean culture, can be read in
the later Phrygian King Gordias' adoption "with Cybele"
[3]
of Midas.
One of the native religion's creatures was the Lunar Bull. Sabazios' relations with the goddess may
be surmised in the way that his horse places a hoof on the head of the bull, in a Roman marble relief
at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Though Roman in date, the iconic image appears to be much
earlier.

God on horseback

More "rider god" steles are at the Burdur Museum, in Turkey. Under the Roman Emperor Gordian
III the god on horseback appears on coins minted at Tlos, in neighboring Lycia, and at Istrus, in the
province of Lower Moesia, between Thrace and the Danube. It is generally thought that the young
emperor's grandfather came from an Anatolian family, because of his unusual cognomen,
Gordianus.
[4]
The iconic image of the god or hero on horseback battling the chthonic serpent, on
which his horse tramples, appears on Celtic votive columns, and with the coming of Christianity it
was easily transformed into the image of Saint George and the Dragon, whose earliest known
depictions are from tenth- and eleventh-century Cappadocia and eleventh-century Georgia and
Armenia.
[5]


Sabazios in Athens

The ecstatic Eastern rites practiced largely by women in Athens were thrown together for rhetorical
purposes by Demosthenes in undermining his opponent Aeschines for participating in his mother's
cultic associations:
"On attaining manhood you abetted your mother in her initiations and the other rituals, and read
aloud from the cultic writings ...You rubbed the fat-cheeked snakes and swung them above your
head, crying Euoi saboi and hues attes, attes hues
[6]



Transformation to Sabazius

Transference of Sabazios to the Roman world appears to have been mediated in large part through
Pergamum.
[7]
The naturally syncretic approach of Greek religion blurred distinctions. Later Greek
writers, like Strabo in the first century AD, linked Sabazios with Zagreus, among Phrygian
ministers and attendants of the sacred rites of Rhea and Dionysos.
[8]
Strabo's Sicilian contemporary,
Diodorus Siculus, conflated Sabazios with the secret 'second' Dionysus, born of Zeus and
Persephone,
[9]
a connection that is not borne out by surviving inscriptions, which are entirely to
Zeus Sabazios.
[10]
The Christian Clement of Alexandria had been informed that the secret mysteries
of Sabazius, as practiced among the Romans, involved a serpent, a chthonic creature unconnected
with the mounted skygod of Phrygia: "God in the bosom is a countersign of the mysteries of
Sabazius to the adepts". Clement reports: "This is a snake, passed through the bosom of the
initiates.
[11]

Much later, the Greek encyclopedia, Sudas (10th century?), flatly states
"Sabazios... is the same as Dionysos. He acquired this form of address from the rite pertaining to
him; for the barbarians call the bacchic cry 'sabazein'. Hence some of the Greeks too follow suit and
call the cry 'sabasmos'; thereby Dionysos [becomes] Sabazios. They also used to call 'saboi' those
places that had been dedicated to him and his Bacchantes... Demosthenes [in the speech] 'On Behalf
of Ktesiphon' [mentions them]. Some say that Saboi is the term for those who are dedicated to
Sabazios, that is to Dionysos, just as those [dedicated] to Bakkhos [are] Bakkhoi. They say that
Sabazios and Dionysos are the same. Thus some also say that the Greeks call the Bakkhoi
Saboi."
[12]

In Roman sites, though not a single temple consecrated to Sabazius, the rider god of the open air,
has been located,
[13]
small votive hands, typically made of copper or bronze, are often associated
with the cult of Sabazios. Many of these hands have a small perforation at the base which suggests
they may have been attached to wooden poles and carried in processions. The symbolism of these
objects is not well known.
[14]


Jewish connection

The first Jews who settled in Rome were expelled in 139 BC, along with Chaldaean astrologers by
Cornelius Hispalus under a law which proscribed the propagation of the "corrupting" cult of
"Jupiter Sabazius," according to the epitome of a lost book of Valerius Maximus:
Cnaeus Cornelius Hispalus, praetor peregrinus in the year of the consulate of Marcus Popilius
Laenas and Lucius Calpurnius, ordered the astrologers by an edict to leave Rome and Italy within
ten days, since by a fallacious interpretation of the stars they perturbed fickle and silly minds,
thereby making profit out of their lies. The same praetor compelled the Jews, who attempted to
infect the Roman custom with the cult of Jupiter Sabazius, to return to their homes."
[15]

By this it is conjectured that the Romans identified the Jewish Yahveh Sabaoth ("of the Hosts") as
Sabazius.
This mistaken connection of Sabazios and Sabaoth has often been repeated. In a similar vein,
Plutarch naively maintained that the Jews worshipped Dionysus, and that the day of Sabbath was a
festival of Sabazius.
[16]
No modern reader would confuse Yahweh with Dionysus or Sabazius.
Plutarch also discusses the identification of the Jewish god with the "Egyptian" (actually archaic
Greek) Typhon, an identification which he later rejects, however. The monotheistic Hypsistarians
worshipped the Jewish god under this name.

Modern literature

In Robert Harris' novel Pompeii, a sybil active in the city of Pompeii before its destruction
"sacrifices snakes to Sabazius, skins them for their meaning, and utters prophecies".
Sabassus, a fictional demon in the fifth season of the television show Angel (TV series), may have
been named after Sabazios. Sabazius is the name of a British drone/doom metal band named after
the god Sabazios.

References
1. ^ Variant spellings, like Sawadios in inscriptions, may prove diagnostic in establishing
origins, Ken Dowden suggested in reviewing E.N. Lane, Corpus Cultis Jovis Sabazii 1989
for The Classical Review, 1991:125.
2. ^ See interpretatio Graeca.
3. ^ Later Greek mythographers reduced Cybele's role to "wife" in this context; initially
Gordias will have been ruling in the Goddess's name, as her visible representative.
4. ^ Sabazios on coins, illustrated in M. Halkam collection.
5. ^ See Saint George and the Dragon
6. ^ Demosthenes, De corona 260; Attis, serpent cult, Sabazios, Dionysus (Aeschines is
characterised as "ivy-bearer" and "liknos-carrier"), and "cultic writings", which may have
insinuated Orphic connections as well, are not otherwise linked in cult, save in their
foreignness in fifth-century Athens.
7. ^ Lane 1989.
8. ^ Strabo, Geography, 10.3.15.
9. ^ Diodorus Siculus, 4.4.1.
10. ^ E.N. Lane has taken pains to dismiss this widespread conflation: Lane, "Towards a
definition of the iconography of Sabazios", Numen 27 (1980:9-33), and Corpus Cultis Jovis
Sabazii:, in tudes Prliminaires aux Religions Orientales dans l'Empire Romain:
Conclusions 100.3 (Leiden, etc: Brill) 1989.
11. ^ Clement of Alexandria, Protrepticus, 1, 2, 16.
12. ^ Sudas, under 'Sabazios,' 'saboi'; Sider, David. "Notes on Two Epigrams of Philodemus".
The American Journal of Philology, 103.2 (Summer 1982:208-213) pp209f.
13. ^ Lane, E.N. Corpus Cultis Jovis Sabazii, in tudes Prliminaires aux Religions Orientales
dans l'Empire Romain 100.3 Conclusions (Leiden, etc: Brill) 1989:48.
14. ^ M.J. Vermaseren, Corpus Cultis Jovis Sabazii, in tudes Prliminaires aux Religions
Orientales dans l'Empire Romain 100.1 (Leiden, etc: Brill) 1983 assembles the corpus of
these hands.
15. ^ (Valerius Maximus), epitome of Nine Books of Memorable Deeds and Sayings, i. 3, 2.
16. ^ Plutarch. Symposiacs, iv, 6.

Derzelas

Derzelas (Darzalas) was a Thracian chthonic god of abundance and the underworld, health and
human spirit's vitality, probably related with gods such as Hades, Zalmoxis, Great God Gebeleizis,
Derzis, or the Thracian Knight.
Darzalas was the Great God of Hellenistic Odessos (modern Varna) and was frequently depicted on
its coinage from the 3rd century BCE to the third century CE and portrayed in numerous terra cotta
figurines, as well as in a rare 4th-century BC lead one (photo), found in the city. Darzalas was often
depicted in himation, holding cornucopiae with altars by his side. There was a temple dedicated to
him with a cult statue, and games (Darzaleia) were held in his honor every five years, possibly
attended by Gordian III in 238 AD.
Another temple dedicated to Derzelas was built at Histria (Sinoe)[1] - a Greek colony, on the shore
of the Black Sea in the 3rd century BC.

THE MAP OF DACIA, TODAY'S ROMANIAN TERITORY

Gebeleizis, or Nebeleizis, was the Thracians' Supreme Divinity lightning constituting only one
of the "weapons" that this he was said to have used. He was represented through the shape of a
handsome sculptural male, occasionally wearing a beard. Gebeleizis provoked thunder and
lightning. In some representations, he appears seated on a majestic throne, while in others on
horseback, holding an arch in his left hand. A snake is seen coming down versus the horse's head.
He is also accompanied, at times, by a one horned vulture. The vulture holds a fish in its beak
symbolizing the named Divinity by itself, and also has a rabbit entrapped within its claws. This God
embodies the Absolute Master upon Heaven and Earth, the Patron of military aristocracy. He might
possess, though, some Uranian- Solar attributes. The Supreme God, the Great God Gebeleizis is
also known under the nicknames of Derzelas, Derzis or the Thracian Knight (others consider
"THE THRACIAN KNIGHT" as being a later apparition of some Hero, and not of a God). Other
times, the God shows up in the hypostasis of a warrior horseman, accompanied by a faithful hound.
He holds a spear as an insignia of power, which is ready to be thrown upon a wild boar from the
horse's gallop. When not being shown under a warrior or hunter's appearance, he appears as a
peaceful horseman, carrying either a torch or a cornu copia. Sometimes, he is presented as having
three heads (Tricephalus), alike the accompanying hound, while other times as a blessing God,
having his right hand's first three fingers risen or opened, the rest being tightened towards the upper
palm. He shows up in these ways within all epigraphic and numismatic testimonies found at the
ancient cities of Histria and Odesos (the latter presently called Varna). At Limanu (Constanta
County), Derzelas appears shown on horseback, as he similarly may be seen on the Racatau and
Zimnicea old pottery, or the Bucharest-Herastrau and Surcea (Constanta County again) discovered
hoards.
We shall also encounter him later throughout the
Antique world, at the Macedonians -"Macedonian
Horseman", while Greek Mythology would similarly
carry him under the supreme name of Zeus. From
Thracia, Gebeleizis' cult had spread to penetrate inside
Asia Minor during 7th century B.C., where it was
promptly assimilated by Armenians up to becoming their
National Divinity, namely Vahagn or the God of War,
most famous for his courage in slaying dragons. Vahagn
was associated with lightning and thunder, being
represented like an imposing man with hair and beard
carved out of flames, while "his eyes were scintillating like two Suns". Ultimately, Gebeleizis or
"the Thracian Knight", who is to be found in other people's Mythologies as Zeus or Vahagn, has
been logically assimilated by Christian nations to become... Saint George (or Gheorghe) killing the
Dragon!
The Supreme male Divinity of Geto-Dacians Gebeleizis, later referred to, at the Lower Danube
area Thracians under the likely Greekenized name of Zbelsurdos, also goes by having a feminine
alter ego, a double named BENDIS, the Great Goddess. Ancient representations, recently
discovered, show her to our eyes through the face of a full figured woman, with prominent cheek
bones and curly hair either plaited into two tresses or spliced into two big curls surrounding her
lovely looks. Is it really possible that the Goddess Bendis, with her two very long blond tresses
gently resting on her back, might actually be a predecessor of the fairy Ileana Cosanzeana, from the
later born popular tales of Romanians? In certain situations, the Goddess appears standing between
two sacred animals, which are either deer like, or between a buck and a snake. The Great Goddess
Bendis was mostly adored by Thracian women, for she was embodying the Goddess of Moon,
Forests and... Magical charms. A head of the Goddess was discovered at Costesti, while
archaeological digging around ruins of the old Sarmisegetuza fortress has brought to light a burned
clay made medallion (measuring 10 cm in diameter and 1.5 cm thickness) showing a Goddess bust
with a quiver on shoulder. One of her bronze made busts was discovered at Piatra Rosie, measuring
14.7 cm in height and 13 cm width.
Besides the Supreme God Gebeleizis and the Great Goddess Bendis, Thracians have also had a
Divinity of Flames and Fireplace and Guardian of the House, respectively the Goddess VESTA (or
Hestia, Histia), to the veneration of whom Thracian houses were built strictly in a rectangular form
with stoned or wooden walls. The floor was of trodden soil and had a "two angle" roof. Not far
away from Tartaria region, inside the triangular area of the three "Crish" rivers, astounding remains
of the first surface dwellings dating from as early as fifth millennium B.C. have been recently
uncovered, meaning they were no less than 7000 years old! These types of dwellings, which would
spread afterwards through the entire world, indeed seemed to have been the result of a cult
dedicated to this Goddess. The walls were initially meant to protect the sacred space within, and in
the middle, flames were lit in a fireplace which were
constantly taken care of to keep alight.
The fourth millennium B.C. wasn't exactly a lucky
one for the future to be Romanian people, stated the
experts referring themselves to the crumbling period of
the legendary continental bridge which was linking
Europe with Asia Minor. This bridge collapsed under
the waters of the Mediterranean Sea, thus leaving
plenty of room for the formation of a brand new sea,
named the Aegean Sea. This generated as well a
multitude of larger and smaller islands. Due to the very
existence of this terrestrial linking bridge, both ancient and modern Greek historians were entitled
to acknowledge the possibility of a migration for the Thracian population from the Pontic Danubian
region to the South of the Balkan Peninsula, and from there, towards Asia Minor itself, reaching to
some lands around the Eastern Mediterranean such as Bytinia, Missia, Phrygia, Throada, Lydia etc.
As it is known today, the fate of each of these civilizations evolved quite differently. Some "lost
themselves" among more numerous tribes and completely "vanished" as national identity inside
History's immense pit called "forgetfulness"-the Hititians, for instance. Others disappeared at vast
distances, as is the Trojans' case, about whom a legend (Homer's "Aeneida") tells how Aeneas, the
Thracian, guided the survivors of Trojan fortress' doomsday up to the Tybrus River's narrow valley
on the Italic Peninsula, where they took over Seven "eternal" Hills and afterwards, gave them
Thracian "Latin" names. Still, another legend states that within the Carpathian Space, an extremely
wise shepherd, Zamolxis, showed up who was to take over "the Noble Laws" (that is, the
"Beleagin's Code") from the Goddess Hestia (or Vesta).

ZAMOLXIS A PROPHETICAL GOD OR A WORSHIPPED PROPHET

Here are Herodotus' testimonies on Zamolxis: "According to what I have found out from the
(ancient) Greeks living on the shores of Helespontus and Pontus Euxinus (which is today known as
the Black Sea), the ZAMOLXI S whom I'm talking about, being just a mortal, was actually a former
slave on Samos Island, specifically belonging to Phytagoras, son of Menesarcos. Being granted,
afterwards, free man's status from his grateful master, he would skillfully amass large riches and
would return to his homeland after accumulating enough wealth, where he would build a large
mansion meant to host important gatherings and personally receiving these people and summoning
the Thracian land's leaders to party. Meanwhile, preaching everybody that none of them, or their
descendants would ever die for real, but everybody was to go to a certain place instead, where they
would indeed live forever and enjoy all the finest meals and pleasures which they would only dream
of. As he was accomplishing all the already mentioned deeds and was saying such things to the
crowds, he secretly ordered an underground residence to be constructed for himself. When it was
ready, Zamolxis disappeared from the nucleus of Thracian social life and descended to his
underground "bunker". He lived there for about three or four years. The Thracians thought he had
vanished and wanted him back dearly, lamenting his loss as if he were really dead. At the end of his
4th year, Zamolxis appeared once more to their eyes, thus managing to make his teachings
believable through some kind of "personal example". Regarding Zamolxis' background itself and
his underground hiding shelter, I personally don't fully reject everything that is said, but don't
believe too much in it either. It seems to me, though, that he might have actually lived many years
before Phytagoras' time. So let Zamolxis be well, whatever he represents, either a human being or
some Demon of the Getae (namely Thracian) people" (Herodotus, "Histories", volume IV, pages
94-95). As we can see, the naive identification of God Zamolxis with one of Pythagoras' slaves,
who became afterwards free and wealthy, is being disputed even by Herodotus himself. Why should
WE believe it then?...
Similar accounts are also made by Hellanicos from
Mithilenes, by the Great Plato, Mnasea (this last one was
even considering Zamolxis as the Eternity God
Chronos!), Diodorus from Sicily, Strabon mostly,
Apulleius, Lucianus from Samosatas, Orygenes,
Porphyrius (232-304) and Julian the Apostle, Aeneas
from Gaza, and Hesychios from Alexandria. All of them
heard and discussed about Zamolxis who remained
within people's memories as a God of the so called
"Underworld Kingdom", as being otherwise suggestively
described by the Romanian National Poet, Mihai
Eminescu, in his poem "The Phantoms":

"On a huge Throne carved in rock, sits rigidly, pale, yet straight,
With his hand holding the Staff, the Pagan and righteous Priest..."

Lithuanians, at their turn, are going to take over "our" Zamolxis as God Zemeuks, the name
signifying "Land" or "Country". He still represents the God of the Earth's depths, but nevertheless
the God of vegetation and fertility, the God of ploughmen and shepherds. But, if Gebeleizis was
promising them only the immortality of spirit (for the ritual of cremating dead ones on funeral pyres
is associated to his cult), Zamolxis was yet over granting to his faithfuls COMPLETE
IMMORTALITY, both for the soul and body (the funeral procedure being, in this case, burial),
while the believers' spirits would keep on living inside the Kingdom of the Underworld God (just
alike Harald's, the teen-ager King, next to Maria's, the Danubian Queen, from the same poem
"Phantoms" of our Great Eminescu).
The concept of Zamolxian immortality was representing the very Ethics' concept among all
young warriors of the "the Dacian (Thracian) Wolves", who were enjoying the imminent Death's
perspective and were even laughing at it, precisely in order to show their indifference towards such
an event and their looking forward to faster reaching God's underground meadows. These
youngsters were fighting and dying joyfully under the "Wolf's Head" Dacian banner, which we
would also encounter at the Macedonians, as well as at the so-called "Roman " legions later, that
had actually been formed from Thracians living within boundaries of the Roman occupied
territories.
Human sacrifices for religious purposes had proven to be quite singular in Europe, and one can
find them strictly among Thracians. With this perspective in mind, most interesting appears to be a
certain similarity with the Aztec civilization's religious traditions, about whose civilization Edgar
Cayce was surely stating that they would be direct descendants of the "Atlantis" people (namely,
inhabitants of former ancient continent Atlantis, from which the very last portion of land went down
in the middle of Atlantic Ocean, through a huge disaster, some 12,600 years ago). Should this
peculiar resemblance provide a clue, with respect to a very close friend's suggestion in supporting
the presumed joint origin between Central America's Indians and Thracians?... Once every five
years, Zamolxis was sent a kind of "messenger" who was to inform the God on the people's wishes.
The chosen one, some young warrior of great physical beauty, unparalleled courage in battles and
untainted morality, was thrown into three sharpened spears belonging to his fellow warriors. Should
he have had the bad luck not to die instantly, he would be insulted and mocked while another
"herald" was prepared and immediately "sent" to personally deliver his message to the Underworld
God.
While Zamolxis represented a God of the "Underworld", Gebeleizis was the "Heavenly" God.
The discoveries in Orastie Mountains, as well as of the Great Circular Sanctuary within the
Sarmisegetuza (Dacians' main fortress), with its pillars' regular disposal, lead us to assume that
some celestial examination was also carried out. Archaeological excavations done under the Cluj
native historian Constantin Daicoviciu's supervision have brought to light, within the Gradistea
Muscelului area (Orastie Mountains), not only an entire complex of Sanctuaries but also a likely
original Dacian calendar, and also the remains of a staircase
which was, probably, leading towards an underground place
of religious cult.
From a wise man such as Socrates, the Great Greek
philosopher quoted by one of his peers, namely Plato, we
learn about Zamolxis to have been, besides a brilliant
psychotherapist, also a... magician. Overall, a person to
whom our forefathers owe their spiritual status through one
of the most righteous and human social order Antiquity has
ever had. For we have been indeed a kind of "spiritual
State", ambivalent creation of the ones initiated by
Zamolxis and of the Great Priests from Kogaion, the Holy
Mountain, a reason for which our boundaries lasted always
virtually unchanged, even if, at times, either some civilization overlapping or brief artificial
territorial divisions might have occurred. As Alexandru Strachina has said, in his book "Trailing the
Forgotten Ancestors": "Water flows by, yet ... WE remain". And it is merely odd how most of our
modern historians are still able to justify their naked indifference towards all these blatant facts.
In order to better outline the existence of a SOLAR CULT among Thraco-Geta-Dacians, along
her book, "Romanian Archaic Linguistic References", Dr. Mariana Marcu mentions "the Thracian
Horseman" HEROS, also cited in some Egyptian epigraphic documents (as HEROUS, son of the
Solar God Amon Ra himself), while several other researchers have argued that this Divinity would
represent nothing else but a newer hypostasis of Horus!... The Thracian Knight's Myth appears
difficult to understand. Sometimes, his head is shown surrounded by a Solar halo, a four leaves
rosette. It was assimilated by the Greek population at once with their arrival within the Balkan
Peninsula, between 1900-1400 B.C., as Zeus (Helios), the Supreme Divinity, also known under
other names like Nefelegeretes (actually, the Greek version of Nebeleizis) -meaning "the One who
Gathers Clouds", Ombryos -"the Rain Maker", Keraunos -"the One who Lightens" and some more.
Within the entire Romanian tradition (that includes Dacian Romanian, Aromanian, Macedonian),
the Thracian Knight's Myth makes an almost canonical scenario of the old Christmas Carols in
winter.
An astonished Mr. C. Cinodaru was noticing that Thracians used to hold so-called "PAGAN
CELEBRATIONS" during entire APRIL, precisely organized in order to honor THE
THRACIAN HERO. Simultaneously with Christianity's consolidation within the Thraco Dacian
zone, this celebration has been replaced with "Saint George's" ("Saint Gheorghe's"), a holiness
whose iconography was apparently inspired by that of the "Thracian Knight". Though, in certain
Christmas Carols, Saint Gheorghe and Jesus' names mysteriously interchange, creating in this way a
total discrepancy between the Carol's greeting verses and their supposedly singing time,
respectively the Winter season:

"Along the Sun's river meadows
Grow white bluish apple flowers.
I t's God's flower garden essence,
Whitish flowers, apple flowers,
Apple essence, whitish flowers."
Or:
"...His black spurry little horse
Glistening like some raven,
Still his arrow style cut bonnet,
Bent upon the eyes
Or his mighty spear,
Summer everlasting,
Evening flash of lightning..."

Anybody can see that nothing is mentioned within this so-called "Christmas Carol", which might
suggest the Winter period. Yet, summertime appears to be explicitly recollected, as well as an extra
quotation of "the Evening Flash of Lightning", namely what was the Thracian God Gebeleizis'
symbol. Do you still have any doubts left about it? Within other Romanian Christmas Carol cycles,
besides a personification of the Sun itself, the Sun's elder "sister", Salomina, shows up also.
Nevertheless, the bride of the Hero coming back from hunting was named Ileana Daliana, or
sometimes Lina Melina. We should remember here the Spring time for the Solar God's Celebration
at the Thraco Dacian tribes, just like its environmental background appears clearly pointed out
along these "Christmas Carols" narrating, in fact, the time of Nature's rebirth and flourishing of "the
apple whitish flowers".
And if within this mythological Romanian Pelasgian, Thracian or Geta Dacian puzzle, you
choose to name it, we have been successful in discovering, together, our forgotten Faith in the Great
God Gebeleizis, the Great Goddess Bendis or Histia, the Goddess of Flames and Fireplace, you still
wouldn't have been told the essential unless we also mentioned a Great God of War's existence,
namely ARES. The famous Black Sea exiled Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso (43 B.C.-17 A.D.)
speaks in his writings about the "Getae individual" next door who was worshipping Ares (an
equivalent to the Roman War God Mars), while another Roman, Vegetius, comes to proclaim, no
more or less, that "the God Mars has been born from within Thracian Land". And, should we also
pay respect to Jordan's' declarations, who was stating that "the Getae people have always adored
Mars through an extremely savage cult, killing war prisoners as sacrifices dedicated to His glory...",
why should WE wonder then how VLAD THE IMPELLER, whom Americans love to call
"DRACULA" through Bram Stoker's work of factual History distortion, used to punish the Turkish
invaders on Romanian soil by "practicing" his gruesome, Middle Age habit on around 40,000 living
prisoners daily?!... On the other hand, on the Roman Emperor Trajan's bas relief sculpted Column
in Rome is presented, probably, the most ancient Warrior God ever, looking grim and ferocious,
constantly soliciting a great number of human sacrifices to His glorifying pleasure. Here also
appears the barbarian scene of Roman war prisoners being tortured by... Dacian women!
At the South of Danube River, Thracian civilization living around the area used to celebrate as
well DIONYSUS, the Grape-Vine Divinity, Patron of the well known dizzying liquor, whose cult
has again been taken over "en passant" by the Greeks who, by this time, were fair spirited enough in
reminding the World that, shortly before Dionysus' coming back home in Thracia, he had initiated
himself on Phrygian mysteries at the insistences of His grandmother! Besides the grape-vine, the
ivy counted as well among this God's favorite plants. Leaves of the latter, chewed by His extremely
"hot" worshippers in combination with large wine quantities, were inducing within those not only
drunkenness but even a temporary stage of madness, a mania. Thus, the fact that by far the
Thracians' most popular celebration was dedicated precisely to THIS God shouldn't look so
surprising. It was annually held in the Autumn, once the grape-vine harvest and grape squeezing
were in full progress (some researchers argue, though, it might have taken place once every three
years). The night when wine was finally boiling was actually the party's proper night, at the torches'
light, and everyone would drink merrily, keeping the party on going this way well into dawn.
Maybe this is why Thracians were widely said to be polygamous men. Herodotus, the Greek
historian, describes each of them as supportively keeping several wives. Should a "Head of
Household" have died, his surviving women were also to face an essential challenge, respectively
one mostly beloved by the deceased had to be on the spot identified, so that the closest relative
could strangle her in order to be buried along with the late husband. Yet, all other remaining women
were simultaneously experiencing genuine pain and great shame not to have been selected as the
chosen one (Herodotus "Histories", fifth volume, pages 5, 8).
Opposite to the Grape-Vine God's wanton celebration, lasting through centuries was the cult of
THE THRACIAN PRIEST, a relevant symbol for the beautiful, future life's acceptation, which was
to be dedicated as well to human beings as to all other creatures' welfare. Thus, "THE SPHINX", a
giant megalithic rock standing alone on the Bucegi Mountains' upper platform and having this
peculiar shape, was representing, to all Getae people, no less than the solaced "NIGHT MASTER",
an entity later acquired by the same ancient Greeks as ORPHEUS. On another hand, every ancient
author has written that "the Orphical Mysteries" were indeed celebrated during night time.
However, due to their esotherism, Getae Thracian Religion's elevated concepts were only
acquainted to the Great Priests surrounded by a few initiated elite members. The Greek and Roman
writers couldn't have left too much information about it, while being totally denied access within
the Zamolxian mysteries.
Now, let us return to the "Night Master's" credo, a highly civilizing belief in Music able to tame
not only humans, but nevertheless animals, by either cooling down their violent impulses or just
soothing the evil instincts inside. Strabon, the already mentioned reputed historian, was also
familiar with the last detail on such Pelasgian Priests, or "Prophets", namely telling us that these
ones were omniscient men, truly skilled upon the dreams, Oracle prophecies and Divine signs'
interpretation, who used to live in specially carved Underground Sanctuaries (called "katagoian", or
"kagoian"). Regarding ORPHEUS' origins themselves, several Greek and Roman legends state that
he WAS too a Thracian, "Prince of the Kyconian people" (which makes a perfect ethnical
correspondent to the "Kogoian" term). ORPHEUS' native fortress is said to be Dion, and thus his
descent comes from the legendary "Kogoian", Zamolxis' Sanctuary.

THRACIAN SANCTUARIES

The whole mythical "PANGAION", or "PANGEUL" MOUNTAIN was said to be a sacred place
to all Southern Danube area's living Thracian population. On this holy location there supposedly
existed a multitude of Sanctuaries, particularly because the mountain also contained plenty of
richness, such as Gold and Silver lodes. It is assumed to have been situated somewhere within the
Dragojon Massif, located in the Oriental Rodophes (a native place, also, for... Spartacus, the
Pelasgian gladiator who was to fight and die hard for shaking the very foundations of Roman
Empire). Other Sanctuaries were also discovered at Kilicine. Still, logically speaking, similar
worshipping places must have existed and been dedicated to the glory of Great Goddess Bendis... if
Thracians living in Athens, that is far away from their homeland, were nevertheless able to build a
"Bendideion" for their Goddess. For the legendary Pangaion, as a main Thracian worshipping
premise, seems to have been exclusively dedicated to Gebeleizis, whose Uranian- Solar Priests, the
otherwise called "Wanderers through Clouds", were arguing the human body to be nothing else but
the "spirit's prison", the only salvation for the soul being its liberation from the "reclusive" corpse.
Should we quote Adrian Bucurescu in accordance with his work, "The Secret Dacia", the
LEGENDARY KOGAION was represented exactly by that mountain which was sheltering a cave
where the Pelasgian Great Priest sought at times, refuge and confinement. Strabon writes inside his
"Geography" (volume VII, pages 3-5) the following: "...In the same way, this Mountain has also
been acknowledged as Sacred, and its very Getae name properly reflects the fact already mentioned:
its name, Kogaion, is just alike the River's flowing near by. "KOG-A-ION" signifies "THE
MAGNIFICENT'S HEAD", defining also the Bucegi Mountains' Platform where a mammoth
sculpted mysterious stone head, covered with some kind of holy cap and locally known as "the
Romanian Sphinx", is still to be found". Now, the river flowing "near by", at the mountain's
proximity and which Strabon was depicting, couldn't have been another one but the Ialomitza, also
called by Getae people through the name "Naparis", meaning "the Heavenly One" or "the Divine
One". Yet, the one and only Getae Thracian inscription explicitly referring to the name of Kogaion
appears today to be a single text, made of Orphical verses, on a brick discovered at Romula (Resca,
Dobrosloveni, inside the Olt County), sounding as follows: "Great is the God, always and
everywhere! Thus should the Heros say, while looking towards Kogaion! Let the Disciples (namely,
new recruits) sing: Holy is the Night Master!"
When Strabon used to carefully remind his readers about Dacian Priests living in underground
shelters, he was actually referring to THE PRIESTS OF ZAMOLXIS, the same UNDERWORLD
GOD who, from within KOGAION, was offering to his followers a THOROUGH
IMMORTALITY, extending itself over body and soul as well. And should THE SPHINX from
Bucegi have represented, for the ancient Getae people, ORPHEUS' Head, either sculpted by human
hands or molded through some natural phenomena, at any rate it WAS, and WILL EXIST there
FOREVER, within the Land of legendary Kogaion, always creating mysteries and spreading a
majestic quietness.
Ultimately, I sincerely hope to have succeeded in sketching a complete Mythological Pantheon of
our Forgotten Forefathers, either Pelasgians, Thracians or Getae Dacians, as you choose to name
them. Any so-called "Trajanic", "Latin" and "Slavonic" topics don't really belong to US, yet they
were subsequently added within time by:

1). any of those willing to generate delusion and minimize the Carpatho Danubian area
population's essential role to the later development of European Civilization, by suggesting that
Romania's present corresponding geographical region was not at all the very starting point, the
civilization's cradle, but only an obscure province of the now fallen Roman Empire;
2). the ones to have always wanted some territorial revendication upon Romania's various
regions, claims that were to be, somehow, vindicated, the only arguments capable of winning
ignorants and fools' confidence being the ones related to "origins", "language", "religion" and
"history", last one most easily in being mystified;
3). any of those affiliated to special groups of interest, regarding another World's geopolitical
division and, as a result, being directly concerned in undermining both the importance and influence
which the Romanian people's millenary civilization and culture still own among the Great Family of
Nations around the Globe.
There exists, nevertheless, a so-called "FATE OF TRUTH", and, just as THOREAU has once
cleverly pointed out, this one "needs only two groups of people to surface: some to EXPRESS IT
and... others to HEAR IT".
Gebeleizis

Gebeleizis (or Gebeleixis, Nebeleizis) was a god worshiped by the Getae, probably related to the
Thracian god of storm and lightning, Zibelthiurdos.
[1]
He was represented as a handsome man,
sometimes wearing a beard. The lightning and thunder were his manifestations. According to
Herodotus, some Getae equated Gebeleizis with Zalmoxis as the same god.

Zalmoxis

Zalmoxis (Greek , also known as Salmoxis, , Zamolxis, , or Samolxis
) was a legendary social and religious reformer, regarded as the only true god by the
Thracian Dacians (also known in the Greek records as Getae ). According to Herodotus,
[1]
the
Getae, who believed in the immortality of the soul, looked upon death merely as going to Zalmoxis
(who is also called Gebeleizis by some among them
[citation needed]
) as they knew the way to become
immortals.

Life
Herodotus was told by the Euhemeristic Pontic Greeks that Zalmoxis was really a man, formerly a
disciple of Pythagoras
[2]
, who taught him the "sciences of the skies" at Samos. Zalmoxis was
manumitted and amassed great wealth, returned to his country and instructed his people, the Getae,
about the immortality of the soul. Zenon reiterates the idea that Zalmoxis was Pythagoras' slave.
However, Herodotus, who declines to commit himself as to the existence of Zalmoxis, expresses the
opinion that in any case Zalmoxis must have lived long before the time of Pythagoras
Pythagoras died around 495 BC. Today, it is believed that Zalmoxis traveled around the world and
mostly to Egypt between 1,800 BC and no later than 1,200 BC. The archaism of Zalmoxis's
doctrine points out to a heritage from before the times of Indo-Europeans
[3]

According to Herodotus, at one point Zalmoxis traveled to Egypt and brought the people mystic
knowledge about the immortality of the soul, teaching them that they would pass at death to a
certain place where they would enjoy all possible blessings for all eternity.
Zalmoxis then had a subterranean chamber constructed (other accounts say that it was a natural
cave) on the holy mountain of Kogaion, to which he withdrew for three years (some other accounts
considered he actually lived in Hades for these three years).
After his disappearance, he was considered dead and mourned by his people, but after three years he
showed himself once more to the Getae, who were thus convinced about his teachings: an episode
that some considered to be a resurrection (Thus he can be seen a life-death-rebirth deity, parallel to
Tammuz or Jesus.)
Plato says in the Charmides dialogue that Zalmoxis was also a great physician who took a holistic
approach to healing body and mind; not just the body, as was the Greek practice.
"Zalmoxis had a tattoo-mark on his forehead which Greek writers, unaware of its religious
significance, explained by saying that he had been captured by pirates, who branded him for the
slave-market" (Herodotus: 5.6.2) The tattoing was as mark of dedication to a god. Tattooing was
likewise practiced by Dacians (Pliny)
[4]


Cult
After the death of Zalmoxis, his cult grew into a popular religion. During the rule of Burebista, the
traditional year of his birth, 713 BC, was to be considered the first year of the Dacian calendar.
During the rule of Burebista between 82 BC and 44 BC, the priest Deceneus imposes a series of
reforms in Dacian cult, one of them being the restriction of wine consumption.
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
[5]
Aristotle equates
Zalmoxis with Phoenician Okhon and Libyan Atlas. It is possible that Zalmoxis is Sabazius, the
Thracian Dionysus or Zeus. Mnaseas of Patrae identified him with Cronos (Hesychius also has
).
In Plato, he is mentioned as skilled in the arts of incantation. Zalmoxis gave his name to a particular
type of singing and dancing (Hesych)
[4]
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.
Lactantius (early Christian author 240 320 AD) about the Getae-Dacians belief in Zalmoxis
provide an approximate translation of Julian the Apostate writing, that he put this word in [emperor]
Traian mouth
We have conquered even these Getai ( Dacians ), the most warlike of all people that have ever
existed, not only because of the strength in their bodies, but, also due to the teachings of Zalmoxis
who is among their most hailed. He has told them that in their hearts they do not die, but change
their location and, due to this, they go to their deaths happier than on any other journey."

Zalmoxian Religion

Not all the ancient sources consider that Zalmoxis was a god.
[6]
Herodotus is the only source to
suggest that the Getae were monotheistic: "...and they do not believe that there is any god but their
own" (Herodotus)
[7]
. According to some, ancient sources dont present any other God of Getae-
Dacians than Zalmoxis
[3]
. Among others, Vasile Prvan, Jean Coman, R.Pettazzon, E.Rohde and S.
Paliaga consider that Getae -Dacians religion is monotheistic. Others consider it henotheistic. But
Diodorus Siculus states that the Getae worship Hestia, following the teachings of Zalmoxis.
[8]

Immortality

"They think that they do not really die, but that when they depart this life they go to
Zalmoxis"
[7]

The ritual of sending a messenger to Zalmoxis (every five years) is explained by this belief.
"The messages are given while the man is still alive"
[7]

Music and dance
Music and dance were an important part of Zalmoxis teachings and this corresponds to the
special importance given by Getae-Dacians to the music.
Zalmoxis gave his name to a particular type of singing and dancing (Hesychius)

Etymology

A number of etymologies have been given for the name. Diogenes Laertius (3rd century-4th century
AD) claimed that Zalmoxis meant "bear skin". In his Vita Pythagorae, Porphyrius (3rd century)
says that zalmon is the Thracian word for "hide" ( ).
Hesychius (ca. 5th century) has zemelen () as a 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 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, the Phrygian
goddess of the earth, and with the Lithuanian chthonic god Zjameluks. However, this etymology is
probably incorrect.
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 zalmon, 'hide', and zelmis, 'hide' (PIE *kel-, 'to cover'; cf. English helm).
The other name for Zalmoxis, Gebeleizis, is also spelled Belaizis and Belaixis in Herodotus
manuscripts
Since Getae-Dacae religious system was monotheism aniconism centered around the God Zalmoxis,
it is less likely the believers in his resurrection would use a name meaning "hide" / "foreign slave",
as the hostile ancient Greek non-believers related about him

Popular culture

Romanian rock band Sfinx worked from around 1975 through 1978 on what became one of the
most appreciated Romanian progressive rock LPs, Zalmoxe. It was based on lyrics by poet
Alexandru Basarab (actually a pen name for Adrian Hoaj), which retold the story of Zalmoxis's
existence. However, the album was banned on being released for about three years and was
eventually shortened drastically by political censorship with the Communist regime.

Notes
1. ^ Herodotus. Histories, IV. 95 sq.
2. ^ his possible connection with Pythagoras: Hdt. 4.95, Hdt. 4.96
3. ^
a

b
Dialogues dhistoire ancienne (Persee revue) La divinit suprme des Thraco-Daces by
Ph D Historian Sorin Paliga
4. ^
a

b
Shamanism By Andrei A. Znamenski
5. ^ The Complete Pythagoras Edited by Patrick Rousell for the World Wide Web, A full-text,
public domain edition for the generalist & specialist http://www.completepythagoras.net
6. ^ E.g. Hippolytus, Refutation of all heresies, c.2, 24; Porphyry, Life of Pythagoras,
Jordanes. Iamblichus, Life of Pythagoras,c.30 says he was a man who became a god.
7. ^
a

b

c
The History of Herodotus By Herodotus Written 440 B.C.E Translated by George
Rawlinson
8. ^ 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;..."

References
Primary sources
Herodotus. Histories, Book IV. 93-96
Jordanes. Getica. V.39
Strabo. Geographica, VII. 3. 5
Plato. Charmides, 156-158
Apuleius. Pro Se De Magia (Apologia), 2.26
Diodorus Siculus. Bibliotheca historica, 94.2
Porphyry, Life of Pythagoras, 14
Secondary sources
Eliade, Mircea. "Zalmoxis, the vanishing God"
Kernbach, Victor. Miturile Eseniale, Editura tiinific i Enciclopedic, 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
Attis
Attis (Ancient Greek: or ) was the consort of Cybele in Phrygian and Greek
mythology.
[1]
His priests were eunuchs, as explained by origin myths pertaining to Attis and
castration. The 19th-century identification with the name Atys encountered in Herodotus (i.34-45)
as the historical name of the son of Croesus, as "Atys the sun god, slain by the boar's tusk of
winter",
[2]
and as a life-death-rebirth deity as described by James Frazer, are mistaken.
[3]

Origins and mythos

An Attis cult began around 1200 BCE in Dindymon (today's Murat Da of Gediz, Ktahya). He
was originally a local semi-deity of Phrygia, associated with the great Phrygian trading city of
Pessinos, which lay under the lee of Mount Agdistis. The mountain was personified as a daemon,
whom foreigners associated with the Great Mother Cybele.
In the late fourth century a cult of Attis became a feature of the Greek world. The story of his
origins at Agdistis, recorded by the traveler Pausanias, have some distinctly non-Greek elements:
Pausanias was told that the daemon Agdistis initially bore both male and female attributes. But the
Olympian gods, fearing Agdistis, cut off the male organ and cast it away. There grew up from it an
almond-tree, and when its fruit was ripe, Nana who was a daughter of the river-god Sangarius
picked an almond and laid it in her bosom. The almond disappeared, and she became pregnant.
Nana abandoned the baby (Attis). The infant was tended by a he-goat. As Attis grew, his long-
haired beauty was godlike, and Agdistis as Cybele, then fell in love with him. But the foster parents
of Attis sent him to Pessinos, where he was to wed the king's daughter. According to some versions
the King of Pessinos was Midas. Just as the marriage-song was being sung, Agdistis/Cybele
appeared in her transcendent power, and Attis went mad and cut off his genitals. Attis' father-in-
law-to-be, the king who was giving his daughter in marriage, followed suit, prefiguring the self-
castrating corybantes who devoted themselves to Cybele. But Agdistis repented and saw to it that
the body of Attis should neither rot at all nor decay.
[4]



Attis wearing the Phrygian cap. Terracotta
thymiaterion from Tarsus, second or first
century BCE (Louvre)

Attis was reborn as an evergreen pine tree. This rebirth was celebrated on 25 March - the festival of
Hilaria.
[5]

At the temple of Cybele in Pessinus, the mother of the gods was still called Agdistis, the geographer
Strabo recounted.
[6]
As neighboring Lydia came to control Phrygia, the cult of Attis was given a Lydian context too.
Attis is said to have introduced to Lydia the cult of the Mother Goddess Cybele, incurring the
jealousy of Zeus, who sent a boar to destroy the Lydian crops. Then certain Lydians, with Attis
himself, were killed by the boar. Pausanias adds, to corroborate this story, that the Gauls who
inhabited Pessinos abstained from pork. This myth element may have been invented solely to
explain the unusual dietary laws of the Lydian Gauls. In Rome, the eunuch followers of Cybele
were known as Galli ("Gauls").


Sculpture of Attis. Museum of Ephesus, Efes,
Turkey.

Julian the Apostate gives an account of the spread of the orgiastic cult of Cybele in his Oratio 5. It
spread from Anatolia to Greece and eventually to Rome in Republican times, and the cult of Attis,
her reborn eunuch consort, accompanied her.
The first literary reference to Attis is the subject of one of the most famous poems by Catullus
[7]
but
it appears that the cult of Attis at Rome was not attached to the earlier-established cult of Cybele
until the early Empire.
[8]


Archaeological finds

A marble bas-relief of Cybele in her chariot and Attis, from Magna Graecia, is in the archaeological
museum, Venice. A finely executed silvery brass Attis that had been ritually consigned to the Mosel
was recovered during construction in 1963 and is kept at the Rheinisches Landesmuseum of Trier. It
shows the typically Anatolian costume of the god: trousers fastened together down the front of the
legs with toggles and the Phrygian cap.
[9]
. In 2007, in the ruins of Herculaneum a wooden throne
was discovered adorned with a relief of Attis beneath a sacred pine tree, gathering cones. Various
finds suggest that the cult of Attis was popular in Herculaneum at the time of the eruption of
Vesuvius in 79 AD.
[10]