Dacian Gods

The Thracian tribes had many totems, but there was one that was very important for them and which was never given up, even when Thracian religion had reached superior forms. We talk here about the wolf's head totem, which melts with Thracian people, but especially with the Dacians. This totem also became a dragon, it was then used as a flag in the battles and it was rather frightening, because the wind made a strange sound when it passed through its opened mouth. It had some strings attached at his back, their noise was imitating the one made by the wolfs during the tracking of their victims. It gave courage to the warriors, the Thracians being known as fighters who had no fear. We can't pass over the evident relationship between the Dacian wolf and the female wolf that became Rome's symbol.

Their belief in immortality made them very brave, and they were glad to die because they considered that life after death, in a better world, was a reality.

One often make approaches between Sabazios and Sabos, "the creator of the earth and the sky"; the same analogy is made between the Zilmissus hill (the location of the Round temple who had opened roof so that the sun could freely enter) and the mysterious Zalmoxis. This last one was considered to be the prophet of life without ending, and the Thracians thought he was hidden into the Earth and that he would appear again after four years; this idea seems to anticipate the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The Thracian people was known as a religious one. We can ask ourselves in what way the cult of Zalmoxis, the supreme God , could be simultaneous with Gods' plurality. The fact that the Thracians believed in a main God but also in some others, their conviction that life wasn't ending at the moment of death, made the Greeks say that the Thracians had a superior view upon the Universe. We have already mentioned what Herodot said about the Thracian belief in immortality and how they were communicating every five years with Zalmoxis.

Zalmoxis was for many great ancient personalities an important figure: Monaseas from Patras compared Zalmoxis with Kronos, Strabon placed him near Licurg, some people considered him to be a Prophet, Dio Chrysostomos said he was a King, Hellanicos , Lucian, Julian all saw in him the Prophet of the endless life, Clement from Alexandria considered him a bloody hero, imagining a form of ascetism before Christianity.

The historian Pârvan said about the Getaes that they considered the body the wall between man and immortality; it had no price in battles, he should be destroyed without mercy, because this was the only way the soul would reach its peace. The meat, the wine, the women were real dirt for the soul. Especially the wine was blamed for this. In the name of divinity the Great Priest demanded all the wine yards of the country to be destroyed. Saints would be the ascets that would give up all the human weaknesses, all the material pleasures and devoted themselves to the good thoughts about immortality that would begin when the body died; only after death man would be immortal.

Lucian Blaga considered that no other Aryan people had such a mythology. The Getaes' belief in immortality, is not a belief in soul's immortality, but in a passage of the body towards another land. According to him even the words of Platoon should be interpreted as an immortality of the body. Blaga thought that the Getaes also had other Gods. The figure of the Bad Fairy from Romanian legends must have been inspired by the magic creatures that the Thracians and the Getaes thought would live into the woods.

Many Romanian folk songs begin with "green leaf"; these words, Blaga said, are coming from far-far away in time. In fact this is the preservation of the forest's ancient magic and mythology, it's a ritual that brings the Gods who can give life and who protect it. This people who was indeed brave, had a real cult for its heroes, for those courageous fighters who sometimes could be braver than Gods, and who might themselves became Gods. The Thracian hero, the Thracian knight, "the demon hero" was sometimes placed near the great Zeus.

An English version by Nora Parvu