Who is Zalmoxis?

Zalmoxis (Greek: Ζάλμοξις) is a divinity of the Getae and Dacians (a people of the lower Danube), mentioned by Herodotus in his Histories Book IV, 93–96, written before 425 BC. According to Jordanes’s Getica, he was a learned philosopher, before whom two other learned men existed, by the names of Zeuta and Deceneus.

What did Dacians believe?

The set of religious ideas whose origin is attributed to Zalmoxis indeed presents resemblances with Pythagoreanism. Besides immortality, Zalmoxis is said to have also taught a highly praised form of psychosomatic medicine based on charms, whose purpose was to heal the soul together with the body.

What was Zalmoxis the god of?

God of Life and Death, Healing, Life, Death, Knowledge Zamolxis (or Zamolxe) was the supreme deity of the Dacians, god of life and death.

Who was Zalmoxis and what did he do?

ZALMOXIS was the founder, possibly legendary, of a priestly line of succession closely linked with kingship of the Getae and the Dacians, the northernmost Thracian peoples of the ancient world. Whether he is a figure of legend or of history is moot, as are questions of his religious functions.

What does the name Zalmoxis mean in Greek?

Dimiter Detschew (1957, p. 175) has proved that Indo-European correspondents of zalmos also mean “shield, protection,” which is perfectly fitting to both a god and the highest priest. But Porphyry also gives another explanation of the meaning of the name: “foreigner” (Gr., xenos aner ).

Where did the religion Zalmoxianism get its name?

The religion takes its name from Zalmoxis or Zamolxe, at the same time the name of the primordial god and the archetype of the enlightened man in Paleo-Balkan mythology. Scholars Bakó and Hubbes (2011) have defined Zalmoxianism, like the other ethnic religious revivals of Europe, as a reconstructionist ethno-paganism.

How is Herodotus related to the myth 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.