The dual goddess

Bendis had a dual aspect: she was a virgin, as well as a matron, which were the archetypal representations of the principal roles of women in archaic societies such as ancient Thrace.^[5]

Iconography

The goddess Bendis appeared in Thracian art depicted as a frontal facing isolated head in architectural decorations, often as part of an alternating motif with lotuses or palmettes, or in the centre of a symmetrically branching floral ornament. These depictions represent her role as a goddess of autochthonism, as well as a patron deity of vegetation, which is confirmed by the alternation with palmettes and floral ornaments, which meant that the goddess's head symbolically represented the Tree of Life. These connections to vegetation find parallels among Indo-Iranian peoples, such as the dream of the Median king Astyages in which a large vine that grew out of his daughter's womb covered all of Asia, and the Scythian representation of the goddess Artimpasa seated on a throne out of which a tree grows out.^[5]

The goddess Bendis was also depicted in animal motifs, such as on a belt from Lovets and a jug from Rogozen, on which, respectively, palmettes standing for the goddess, and the motif of the goddess's isolated head, alternate with the figures of boars. On a skyphos from Strelcha, fifteen frontal depictions of the goddess's face are represented over a frieze where ram heads in profile and lion faces in frontal position form an alternating motif; while the goddess represented vegetation, the ram and the lion are opponents of each other in animal style art, and this motif was connected to that of two ram heads in profile on each side of a frontal lion face on horse harness appliqués from Mezek, as well as to that of two lions dismembering a dead ram above the figure of the goddess from the handle of a Thracian bronze mirror. This imagery was connected to fertility, and might have been influenced by that of the Phrygian goddess Cybele.^[5]

In her form as the virgin-huntress, Bendis was represented with short hair, de-emphasised breasts, and armed with a bow and arrow, with this imagery being inspired by that of the Greek Artemis. As the hearth-goddess, Bendis was represented by the snake: depictions of snakes decorated the hearth of the city of Seuthopolis, thus identifying the hearth-goddess with the serpent.^[5]

The virgin Bendis was usually represented chasing prey while holding her bow in one hand and reaching towards her quiver with the other hand. In southwestern Thrace, especially around Philippi, Bendis was usually represented holding a spear and a twig, and on Lemnos she was depicted with two spears in the 7th century BCE. In Greece, where her cult was adopted by Athens, Bendis is depicted wearing a chiton, over which is an animal skin, with a Phrygian cap on her head and two spears in her hands. In Hellenistic times, Bendis is represented holding a sword on a coin of the king Nicomedes I of Bithynia.^[2]

In her matron form, Bendis was represented as a woman having experienced marriage and motherhood, and was depicted with large and rounded breasts, which represented her birth-giving and infant-nurturing role, and with long hair styled into a marital braid, and wearing a long chiton and carrying a vase and a blossoming twig symbolizing fullness and fertility.^[5]

On a Triballi jug from the Rogozen Treasure, the virgin and matron forms of Bendis are combined: she is depicted wearing a chiton, which is worn by both men and women, and has shoulder-length hair and large breasts, symbolic of a matron, but is also armed with a bow and arrow, thus also designating her as a virgin. In this representation, Bendis is mounted on a lioness, implying that this imagery was influenced by that of the Phrygian goddess Cybele from Asia Minor, whose iconography was in turn of Mesopotamian and Elamite origin. The attributes of the goddess's combined virgin and matron depiction reflect her premarital status: due to her position as being on the threshold of a changed social position, she is therefore represented as having a dual nature, which is emphasised by her being represented again twice in mirror images on both sides of the combined virgin-matron goddess image. This representation of Bendis thus was a transitional figure whose "in-betweenness" was represented by her combined virgin-matron attributes, and by the doubling of her figure on each side.^[5]

On another jug from the Rogozen Treasure, Bendis is represented on the upper frieze frontally, wearing a long tight-fitting chiton, her breasts are de-emphasised while her hair is short, and she grasps a dog in each hand: this imagery is derived from that of the pótnia thērôn, and represents Bendis as a virgin goddess of the wilderness. The goddess was flanked on each side by a pair of winged centaurs running towards her: these beings represented the natural world who rejected and even violated human cultural institutions like marriage, manners, the home, and individuation, and represented opposition to civilised life. Below the goddess, in the lower frieze, is depicted a bull, fallen on one knee to symbolise its acceptance to be sacrificed, and attacked by four lions or dogs. The upper and lower frieze respectively represented the female principle, depicted as the goddess, and the male principle, represented by the bull. The overall scene represents the forces of Chaos represented by the centaurs, who are creatures existing on the border between nature and culture, as having invaded the Cosmos at the end of the year, when the powers of order are depleted, and attempted to violate the virgin goddess, and by extension any potential bride. The bull is then defeated by the animal helpers of the goddess and sacrificed to save the world from Chaos. The two friezes on this jug thus depicted the mythology of the Thracian rituals of the new year and represented mythical and ritual moments of transition such as from the natural to the civilised, from the old to the new calendar cycle, and from the virginal to the matronly goddess.^[5]

Iconography

Thracian interpretations of the Scythian Snake-Legged Goddess include her carrying a twig on a jug from the Rogozen Treasure, the caryatids of the Sveshtari tomb, a motif where her legs grow into floral volutes, and in the Thracian Tomb of Sveshtari as caryatids with feminine bodies wearing calathus hats and chiton whose skirts are shaped like lotus blossoms or acanthus leaves and with pleats shaped like floral volutes which have an acanthus between them. Their disproportionally large raised hands, which either hold the volutes or are raised to appear as supporting the entablure, are similar to the goddess with her hands raised to her face depicted on a series of Thracian votive plaques. Above the caryatids, a wall painting depicts a goddess holding a crown and reaching out to an approaching horseman. The overall scene represents a Thracian nobleman's posthumous heroisation and depicts the same elements of the Great Goddess-minor goddess complex found in the relation between the Scythian Great Goddess Artimpasa and the Snake-Legged Goddess. These various depictions represent her role as a goddess of autochthonism, as well as a patron deity of vegetation.^[5][7]

Caryatids of the Sveshtari tomb with skirts shaped like lotus flowers or acanthus leaves

Thracian greaves from Vratsa and Agighiol were decorated with a female mask at the knee and with three pairs of dragons in a way that recalls the image of the Scythian Snake-Legged goddess, who also presided over the hearth. The image of the Gorgon Medusa was also used in the stead of the female mask on Thracian greaves, which not only identified Medusa with the Snake-Goddess, but also demonstrated her connection with vegetation: this imagery is present on pectorals from Mezek, Varbitsa, and Shipka, on an acroterium from Strelcha, and a greave from Vratsa, on which she wears an wreath of ivy, a plant symbolising the "Dionysian" aspect of the god Zis (that this greave marks only the left leg of the warrior linked him to the underworld, which was also the realm of the goddess).^[5]

The Thracian equivalent of the Snake-Legged Goddess might also appear in the series of horse bridle plaques from Letnitsa. One of the plaques depicts a seated male figure (the god Zis in his role as an ancestral hero, who was Thracian equivalent of the "Scythian Heracles") with a female figure (the Thracian Great Goddess Bendis) straddling him from above, both of them explicitly engaging in sexual intercourse, and symbolising the king's acquirement of royal power through intercourse with the Great Goddess similarly to the Scythian king's obtaining of royal power through his union with Artimpasa. Behind the Great Goddess is another woman, holding a vessel in one hand and in the other one a branch which obscures the view of the hero; this figure is a vegetation goddess with an ectatic aspect, which is symbolised by the vessel she holds, which contains a sacred beverage, and whose connection to the Great Goddess is analogous to that of the Snake-Legged Goddess with Artimpasa.^[7]

The "Apollonian" Zis

The celestial and solar aspect of Zis, initially a separate god called Sabazios, was identified with the Greek god Apollo.^[1] Various Thracian epithets of the solar or "Apollonian" form of Zis included Aulariokos (Αυλαριοκος),^[11] Aularkēnos (Αυλαρκηνος),^[11] Souregethēs (Σουρεγεθης),^[12] Sitalkas (Σιταλκας), and Derainos (Δεραινος). An epithet of the god from the Roman period is Spintheēnē (Σπινθεηνη).^[5]

The solar Zis was personified as a rock,^[1] and to whom horses were sacred.^[2] The worship of Zis's solar aspect who was identified with the Greek Apollo is attested in literary, epigraphic and iconographic records. According to Sophocles, the Sun was the celestial body which was most worshipped by the Thracians, and the cult of the solar deity was already well-developed in Thrace by the late Bronze Age.^[5]

Zis's "Apollonian" form was seen as standing in opposition to the chthonic deities of death and the underworld in Thrace and in Asia Minor, and in both regions he was revered under the Greek epithet of Smintheús (Σμινθεύς), the "god of mice," not only due to the mouse's role in Thracian religion as the symbol of indigeneity to Thrace, but also because the mouse was also considered to incarnate the antagonist, and therefore Zis was its natural adversary.^[5]

The "Dionysian" Zis

The chthonic and Fire aspects of Zis were initially a separate god named Zagreus who was later subsumed into the figure of Zis^[1] - in his form as Zagreus, Zis was a god of fertility, of the rejuvenation of nature and the flowering of life, and he was personified as a bull, that is the ritual incarnation of the male principle, being the Thracian reflex of the same deity known to the Greeks as Dionysos. Therefore, the Greeks identified Zagreus, and later the chthonic aspect of Zis, with their Dionysus,^[5] and they held that Dionysus originated in Thrace because the Thracians were unrestrained drinkers.^[2] The "Dionysian" Zis was the personification of wine, which in the Thracian religion was the sacred drink which brought secret knowledge and immortality, and of the plant from which wine was made, the grape, similarly to the role of the soma among Indo-Aryan peoples, the haoma among Iranian peoples, and the mead among Germanic and Slavic peoples.^[5] The chthonic, or "Dionysian," Zis's personification of the sacred drink represented an ancient Indo-European mythological and ritual theme, and he therefore belonged to a type of deity whose various iterations among a number of cultures were nevertheless very similar, such as being associated with the constellation Orion, the bull, and the autumn season. The god's myth and cult reflected the making of wine from the grape, and therefore depicted his killing, dismemberment, and crushing to death, similarly to how the Indo-Aryan deity Soma, the embodiment of the sacred soma drink, was killed by the Asuras. The making of the wine itself was seen as transcending the essential opposition between the raw and the cooked: the wine initially belonged to wild nature and was brought into human culture by cutting and cultivating it, and its fruits were collected, crushed and allowed to ferment until refined into wine, the sacred drink. Thus, the "sufferings" of the plant were seen as reflecting those of Zis himself, and, like the wine itself, this god had a fiery nature according to which he was born and died from lightning, that is celestial Fire. The "Dionysian" Zis was seen as a "stranger" not only because he turned the world upside down and destroyed established social norms, especially through him making women leave their homes to go into the wild, but also because he was conceptualised as coming from the outside to reach inside man and inspire him with his cult's ecstatic frenzy.^[5]

Since deities of vegetation are always connected to the underworld, this was also the case of the "Dionysian" Zis as well. Among the Greeks, Dionysus was sometimes believed to be the son of queen of the underworld Persephone, or identified with her husband, the king of the underworld, Hades, and the Thracians under Roman rule represented Dionysys as the one abducting Persephone, and they would pay respects to the dead during the Rosalia festival held in the honour of Dionysus.^[2]

Roman era Thracian Horseman stele

Unlike the Greek Dionysys, however, the Thracian chthonic Zis was a god of divination, and all the famous oracles in Thrace belonged to him and all prophesising was made under the god's divine influence.^[2]

The combined Zis

The arrival of the cult of Zagreus-Dionysus in Thrace and its initial struggle with the solar cult is preserved in the Greek myth of Dionysus and Lycurgus, where Lycurgus represented the brilliance of the Sun, and his death at the hands of Zagreus-Dionysus represented the triumph of the god.^[2] The myth of Orpheus attests that there was a counter-movement to the implantation of the cult of Zagreus-Dionysus in Thrace in the form of a return to the early solar cults, and Orpheus made peace between "Apollo" and "Dionysus", after which they combined into a single god in the Thracian religion.^[2] Due to the identification of the solar aspect of Zis with Apollo and his chthonic aspect with Dionysus, the Roman Macrobius wrote that the Sun and Liber (Dionysus) were one and the same in Thrace.^[2]

In Graeco-Roman times, the solar aspect of Zis was emphasised and he was called Apollo Geikethiēnos (Γεικεθιηνος) and depicted with long hair, a lyre, and a long mantle, all attributes of the Graeco-Roman light-god Apollo, at the sanctuary of Lozen. In north-eastern Thrace, it was the Hero's chthonic aspects which were emphasised, and he was represented with a beard, a long robe and a cornucopia, which were attributes of Pluto, the Graeco-Roman king of the netherworld.^[2]

The "Arean" Zis

Thracian Horseman with an eagle holding a snake in its beak above him, symbolising his victory over the Chaos-dragon

As a divine warrior, Zis was equated by Herodotus with the Greek Ares.,^[5] of whom the Greeks considered the Thracians to be the obvious embodiments because of their warlike culture, and as early as the 7th century BCE, the Greek poet Archilochus called the Thracians the "gods of battle".^[2]

In accordance to the Indo-European conceptualisation of the war-god as having a lupine character, the "Arean" aspect of Zis had a wolfish aspect.^[1] The god's epithets, which referred to his lupine character, therefore included Zērúnthios (Ζηρύνθιος), meaning "bestial" or "rich in game". Among the Thracians' Crestonian neighbours, this god was named Kandáōn (Κανδάων), meaning "dog-strangler". According to the Greek poet Lycophron, the Thracian "Ares" had a wolf-like appearance.^[5]

Similarly to how the Scythians worshipped their god of war in the form of a short akinakes sword on which they poured the blood of men and horses sacrificed to the god, the Thracians might also have ritually represented the "Arean" Zis in the form of a sword. A short akinakes-type bronze sword found in Medgidia, on whose haft was engraved the image of an eagle holding a snake in its beak, might have been such a ritual sword.^[2]

The Hero Zis

This "Arean" aspect of Zis himself had a "Heroic" aspect, now known as the Thracian Hero or the Thracian Horseman,^[5] who was always represented a horseback hunter.^[2]

This association between the god and the horse had multiple facets: since the horse was sacred to the Sun-god and was also a symbol of the underworld among many ancient peoples including the Thracians, it was therefore the permanent companion of the solar-chthonic god Zis, who was always represented on horseback. Zis was also associated with the horse in this capacity as a god of the aristocracy and royalty since the horse was the symbol of the tribal aristocracy's political, economic, and military power; Thracian aristocrats and their retinue were usually mounted while ordinary warriors were not; and the Odrysae recruited cavalry only from their own tribe and infantry from other tribes.^[2] It is therefore not a coincidence that the heroes such as Rhesus, Olynthus, and Brangas in the myths derived from the mythology of the Hero are always princes.^[6] The hunt, which in Thrace was customarily carried out on horseback, was a royal privilege among the Mycenaeans, the Thracians, and the peoples of Western Asia and was therefore part of the iconography of heroes: heroes were represented fighting real animals or mythical creatures in Hittite, Assyrian, and Achaemenian art.^[2]

The boar hunt

Representations of the Hero Zis aiming a spear at a boar in front of a tree, and following a motif attested from as early as the 4th century BCE on a silver belt from Lovets, had an analogous meaning as the god's struggle with the Chaos-dragon and similarly represented the Hero's role in the preservation of humanity and of the natural order of the world through rebirth and reproduction:^[2]

• the tree, always depicted in leaf, symbolised the rebirth of Nature, and was a Thracian version of the Tree of Life
• the wild boar, on the contrary, was associated with life and death in ancient times in Asia Minor and the Balkans:^[13]
  • in Greek myth, a boar dismembered the Cretan Zeus
  • Heracles earned immortality by killing the boar of Erymanthus
  • Meleager died because he gave up the head of the boar of Calydon he had killed)
• the boar was also an enemy of fertility in ancient religions:
  • the boars of Calydon, Erymanthus and Mysia destroyed crops in the fields
  • in Gaulish religion, the boar dug up the roots of the apple tree, which was the northern version of the Tree of Life

The boar also held a special symbolic status by representing the Indo-European god of war since, like the wild warrior initiate, it was an undifferentiated animal, being both herbivorous and predatory, land-dwelling but preferring marshes and swamps, and therefore a borderline creature existing at the threshold of the wild and the domesticated. These qualities meant the wild boar was a symbol of death, as well as of Chaos where all attributes and qualities are undifferentiated, making it a fitting main rival of the Hero, and analogously, of a Thracian prince aspiring to be king^[5] (the theme of a mythical hero-king fighting a boar is also present among Iranian and Indo-Aryan peoples).^[6]

The role of the boar hunt as an initiatory trial also had genealogical implications: succeeding in the hunt assured the continuation of the royal dynasty, and failing it led to the end of the dynasty:^[6]

• in Greek myth, the dynasty of Calydon ended with the death of Meleager
• in Greek myth again, it was to prevent Zeus from founding a new dynasty that the boar, which was a symbol of Cronus, dismembered him
• historically, it was after the Lydian king Croesus's son Atys died in a boar hunt that his kingdom was conquered by the Persian Cyrus

Thus, the struggle between the animal and the Hero represented the struggle to protect life itself, that is the life of the people, the prince, and the royal line: the hunt was therefore, for Thracian princes, not only a trial of initiation, but also one of consecration, and if they failed it they would die and never become king, and their dynasty would end.^[5] Therefore, by slaying the boar in front of the Tree of Life, Zis protected the continuation of the cycle of life, and was therefore the god of renascent nature and the guardian of the worldly order. In some versions of the iconography of the Hero's boar hunt, an altar stands between the god and the boar, and a snake is always coiled on the Tree of Life:^[2]

• since snakes wake up from hibernation in spring, and sleep symbolised death while awakening symbolised rebirth, the snake represented the awakening of nature in spring
• the shedding of skins by snakes in Spring was also a symbol of rebirth, and therefore of immortality

Therefore, in these scenes it was by destroying the boar, that is the enemy of life, and saving the Tree of Life, that the Hero won immortality. The doubling of the Hero and the boar on each side of the Tree of Life on some of the depictions of the boar hunt represented the dual essence of the god, but was also connected to the myth of the twin horsemen.^[2]

Since the Thracians did not perceive the world in terms of linear time, and therefore conceptualised their religion and myths not as histories of ancient pasts, but as occurring in the present, and there was no difference between the mythical and heroic past and the present in Thracian religion, the Hero Zis was believed to still be performing his valorous deeds in the present on another plane of existence in heaven which was not necessarily separate from the world of the living necessarily in an abrupt way.^[2]

The Ancestor Zis

Zis was a divine ancestor of humanity, not unlike Iranian heroic progenitors such as the Scythian Targī̆tavah and Scythes, and the Zoroastrian Yima and Haošiiaŋha, and like them he was the first king.^[6][2] Zis's role as a progenitor is attested in Roman-era epithets such as pátrios (πάτριος, meaning "of one's father"), genikós (γενικός, meaning "of the clan"), and progonikós (προγονικός, meaning "of the inheritance").^[2] As the tribal ancestor, Zis was therefore an ancestral hero, and was given a local name by each tribe, such as Treres was his name as the ancestor of the Treri, Dolonkós in his role as the ancestor of the Dolonci, Strymon as the ancestor of the Strymonians, and Odrus as the ancestor of the Odrysians. This ancestral Hero aspect of Zis was believed to protect nature's fruitfulness, thus being a protector deity to whom the tribe demanded help.^[2][6]

The Thracians' genealogical myth was related to the Hero Zis's victory over the Chaos-dragon, and paralleled that of their Scythian neighbours. This Thracian genealogical myth was itself recorded in several Greek myths:^[6]

The "Hermesian" Zis

The ancestral aspect of Zis, who was the first man and the founder of the tribe, himself had a royal aspect in his role as the first king and the founder of the dynasty, and this royal aspect of ^[6] was equated by Herodotus with the Greek Hermes.^[6] This Thracian "Hermes" therefore was not a separate god of the aristocracy, but was in fact a royal aspect of Zis to whom the Thracian nobility saw themselves as being more closely related compared to the rest of the people. This "Hermesian" or royal Zis was worshipped only by the Thracian aristocracy and royalty, who worshipped him most prominently among all the aspects of Zis, swore oaths only by him, and claimed specifically him as their ancestor, not unlike how the Scythian god Thagimasadas was worshipped only by the Royal Scythians, thus setting the Thracian nobility and royalty apart from the common people by a cult specific to this royal form of the god.^[6] The identification of this god with the Greek Hermes likely resulted from the latter's role as the god of vows, but also from his function as a mediator, especially between Heaven and Earth, which was an important aspect of kingship, since the role of the ruler within Thracian society was to mediate between various groups and individuals, between his people and outsiders, and between human community and the gods, hence why the king also had to be a priest.^[5][6]

Representations of the "Hermesian" Zis as driving cattle are related to the use of cattle as a form of currency among archaic peoples such as the Thracians, and to the transferring of their ownership being used to symbolised the society's social dynamics, with whoever possessed more cattle being richer and powerful. Hence, the "Hermesian" Zis was a god associated with cattle as a form of mobile wealth, as opposed to the hearth-goddess Bendis, who was the goddess of inanimate wealth associated with the home.^[5]

Among the Odrysae, the local form of the "Hermesian" Zis was the Hero Tereus, a legendary king of Daulis to whom the historical founder of the Odrysae kingdom and dynasty, Teres I, had become assimilated as part of the traditional identification of the king with the Hero Zis, especially in the latter's "Hermesian" aspect. This is why, referring to the mythological marriage between Tereus and Procne, the daughter of the king Pandion of Athens, the Odrysian king Seuthes II declared to Xenophon that he considered the Athenians as his kinsmen when they were about to enter the king's tower to participate in a feast.^[6]

Further associations of Zis with kingship are present in his "Dionysian" aspect, who was the founder-deity of a royal dynasty and was depicted on royal insignia.^[5] The role of the "Dionysian" aspect of Zis as a deity of kings is visible in the myth of Dionysus and Lycurgus: out of the political and religious conflict between Dionysus and Lycurgus, the old Thracian dynasty was destroyed. And by the god's installation of Charops as king, both the religious character and the dynastic line of the country was changed, with the secret knowledge of the mystery cult handed down patrilineally being necessary for holding power. This myth therefore codified the divine origin of kingship, and the secret rites of the mystery cults were attributes of investiture. The connection of the "Dionysian" Zis with kingship is also visible in the myth of Maron where the latter is a king-high priest who is a son of Dionysus, and in the myth of Orpheus, where the latter is a reformer of the cult of "Dionysus" who counselled the king Midas; hence, the Odrysian kings Amadocus II and Teres II were depicting the "Dionysian" Zis on their coins. The "Dionysian" Zis, as a god of kingship, was also a higher form of his son and substitute, the demigod and king-high priest Orpheus/Zalmoxis.^[6]

Due to the "Dionysian" Zis role as a deity of kingship, one of the main cults of the Thracian city of Seuthopolis was dedicated to this god. This role of the god is why his symbol, the ivy, was a symbol of political and religious power, and was the main motif used to decorate the many sacrificial altars in the royal palace and the aristocrats' homes in Seuthopolis.^[6]

According to Herodotus, the Greek Perdiccas I, after having fled Argos, was able to become king of Macedonia with the help of Dionysus, hence this god was also a dynastic deity among the Thracians' Macedonian neighbours, which is why Alexander the Great was considered a "new Dionysus" and all Hellenistic rulers devoted a special cult in his honour.^[6]

Stylised griffin on a Thracian vessel

Associations with kingship were also present in the "Apollonian" aspect of Zis, from whom the Thracian kings also claimed divine descent, which they attested through their paternal ancestry or their names containing a theophoric element and ending in -kenthos (-κενθος), meaning "child of," referring to patrilineal descent from a deity.^[5] Furthermore, the Thracian kings were assimilated to the Hero Zis, who in Thracian mythology was usually the son of a deity, and the hence kings claimed divine ancestry, and the mythological origin of royal dynasties was based on the attribution of a divine origin to royal power.^[5] Zis in his "Apollonian" aspect was thus a god of kingship due to his multiple associations with gold, such as his symbolic animal the griffin, his homeland in the legendary Hyperborea, his many epithets derived from the Thracian word for gold, *saldas,^[14] and the source of treasures being the inside of the earth. Another epithet of Zis reflecting this connection with treasures is Pituaēnós (Πιτυαηνός), derived from the Thracian word for treasure, pitúē.^[15][5] The etymology of royal names and the practice of ritual union with the Mother Goddess are thus evidence that the Thracian kings took over the functions of the Hero Zis in the human realm, and the kings therefore patterned their actions on the divine Hero.^[6]

The Initiator Zis

Zis's "Apollonian" aspect was also a deity of the initiation of the young, and his epithet Sītálkās, meaning "illustrious wheat," is connected to the name of Apollo in Asia Minor, Erusíbios (Ἐρυσίβιος), meaning "wheat rust," and which was connected to the Germanic concept of the Roggenwolf, meaning "rye wolf," which is the name of a rye-infecting fungus.^[5] These functions of the solar Zis as a deity of transition are whence arise his role as an initiation "father," a function which is attested in an inscription on a silver jug from the Rogozen Treasure reading Κοτυς Απολλωνος παις ("Cotys the son of Apollo"), as well as in Thracian names containing a theophoric element and ending in -kenthos (-κενθος, meaning "child of",) which referred to patrilineal descent from a deity, and was also connected to the Thracian custom of the kings claiming divine ancestry.^[5]

Zis's warrior aspect was also connected to initiation, since he fitted the motif of the Indo-European war-god's struggle with a monstrous wolf or dog as his principal deed, with this struggle also being the theme of an initiation ritual associated with that myth.^[5]

Iconography

Earrings from Mesembria in the form of winged figures with solar discs over their heads likely represented the solar Zis, and similar and likely connected representations of the solar deity are found among the Thracians' Paeonians neighbours, who worshipped the Sun in the form of a disc at the top of a wooden pole.^[5]

The solar Zis represented as a winged chariot

On a jug from Vratsa, the solar Zis is represented as two winged chariots depicted symmetrically around a large palmette representing the Tree of Life. The doubling of the chariot represents the rotation of the Sun between the night and the day, as well as the dual essence of the god.^[2]

Zis's "Apollonian" and "Dionysian" forms were both represented on many votive tablets in the form of the Greek gods Apollo and Dionysus depicted as horsemen. Neither Apollo nor Dionysus were represented as horsemen anywhere except in Thrace, where the horse was the sacred animal of the Sun-god and every deity was assigned the attributes of a mounted hunter.^[2]

The earliest depictions of Zis's "Dionysian" form in Thrace provided him with attributes showing both his foreign and wild nature, such as his wearing of a nebris fawn skin cloak, and him being accompanied by drunken companions including satyrs and sileni and maenads, who were his frenzied followers, all depicted moving in an ecstatic dance. Many Thracian vessels were decorated with Dionysiac attributes, such as images of the god himself, his characteristic plants, the ivy and grape wine, and other of his symbols.^[5]

A Thracian rhyton-jug from Borovo depicted themes of the cult of Zis opposing "nature" (represented by blood, wild plants, frenzied dancing, erotic play, and intoxication) to "culture" (depicted by wine diluted with water, the careful dancing of Eros accompanied by music, and the marriage ritual).^[5]

A Thracian image of a winged centaur on whose shoulders lie a strangled wolf might be an early representation Zis's warrior-god role.^[5]

As the warrior god, Zis is depicted in the Letnitsa Treasure as a mounted hero preparing to fight a bear after having already defeated a wolf, lying dead and upside down beneath the horse's hooves, with both the wolf and the bear being symbols of warriors. Zis was also represented fighting a boar, and on one jug from the Rogozen Treasure, the god is doubled on each side of a boar, throwing at the boar one spear, which is a magical spear given by the goddess Bendis, and the only one that could kill the animal under her protection, and still holding the second spear in the other hand.^[5] This imagery is derived from ancient Iranian seals.^[6]

As the Thracian Hero, Zis was usually represented on votive reliefs as horseman:^[2]

• most often, the Hero accompanied by a lion or a dog, and aiming a spear at a boar hiding behind an altar, next to which is a snake coiled around a tree, and with one, two, or three women standing nearby
• on other reliefs, the Hero is returning from hunting, and his dogs or lions are leaping up trying to get a bite of his quarry, which is held high
• on yet other reliefs, the Hero is represented holding a bowl in his hand and riding to the altar in triumph

On a 4th-century BCE belt from Lovets, the image of the Hero aiming his spear and the boar are repeated and mirrored around the Tree of Life to symbolise the dual essence of both. The duplication might also have been connected to the myth of the twin-Cabeiri.^[2]

The Hero Zis was often depicted with three heads, with the multiplication of the face, body or limbs being an archaic form of representing omnipotence, similarly to the three-faced gods of the Indus Valley civilisation from around 2000 BCE and the Luristan bronzes of around 1000 BCE. In Roman times, the Roman Sun-god Sol and Moon-goddess Luna were sometimes depicted above the Hero to represent his connection to the solar and chthonian cults. In the sanctuary of Lozen, he was called Apollo Geikethiēnos (Γεικεθιηνος) and depicted with long hair, a lyre, and a long mantle, all attributes of the Graeco-Roman light-god Apollo. In north-eastern Thrace, it was the Hero's chthonic aspects which were emphasised, and he was represented with a beard, a long robe and a cornucopia, which were attributes of Pluto, the Graeco-Roman king of the netherworld. In his warrior role, the Hero was given the attributes of Ares on reliefs dedicated to Thracian warriors.^[2]

In his warrior role, the Hero was represented with a helmet and a shield, and in rock reliefs from around Philippi, he is represented swooping down on an enemy. Plaques from the Letnitsa Treasure depicting the Hero with men's and horse's heads behind the mounted Hero allude to the warrior function of Zis, and were symbols of a pledge by which a chieftain sought the protection of the war-god. In the Roman period, the Hero was given attributes of Ares in reliefs dedicated to Thracian warriors.^[2]

In his role as a protective ancestor, the Hero was represented on votive tablets with a shield on his left arm.^[2]

The struggle of Zis, as the Thracian Hero, against the Chaos-dragon was often represented in the form of a mounted hero fighting a snake-like creature, and his victory is often shown as an eagle holding a snake in its beak. The enemies of Zis in his Hero form usually have a snake element. Imagery borrowed from the Greeks, such as Bellerophon fighting the Chimaera to represent the fight between Zis and the Chaos-dragon, and Perseus freeing Andromeda for Zis's rescuing of the women from the dragon, were used in Thrace. A series of metal appliqués from the Letnitsa Treasure fully depict the struggle of Zis against the Chaos-dragon:^[2][5]

• on one piece is a depiction of the three-headed Chaos-dragon
• on another piece, a sea-nymph riding a hippocampus represents the freeing of the waters from the Chaos-dragon
• another piece is decorated with the image of a maiden holding in her hand a mirror, which was a symbol of marriage
• on another piece is a representation of the Hero receiving a bow, which was a royal insignia
• the last piece depicted the Hero marrying the Great Goddess Bendis herself

The "Hermesian" Zis was represented on the coins of the Derrones tribe as driving cattle, using imagery similar to Greek depictions of Hermes stealing the cattle of Apollo, and following a common motif in Indo-European religions.^[5]

On some coins of the Derrones, the "Hermesian" Zis was depicted bearded and wearing a wide-brimmed hat, and driving an ox cart. Above the ox is a rosette, a solar symbol, and below it is a palmette, a chthonian symbol.^[2]

The Greek myth of Dionysus and Orpheus

After defeating and executing Lycurgus, Dionysus installed Charops as the king of Thrace and initiated him into the secret rites of the mystery cult, thus making him the founder of the Dionysian dynasty in Thrace^[2][5] and a priest-king, with both secular and religious power being henceforth handed down patrilineally.^[6] After Charops, his son Oeagrus (Οἴαγρος, Oíagros) inherited the kingdom and the knowledge of the mystery cult, which he passed on to his own son Orpheus (Ὀρφεύς, Orpheús), whom he conceived with the Muse Calliope in a cave (the cave was a chthonic symbol connected to the "Dionysian" aspect of Zis in Thracian religion).^[2]

The myth of the Greek Orpheus recorded of the struggle between the native Thracian solar-cult and the newly arrived Dionysian cult and their eventual merger into a single cult: Orpheus, who had inherited the mysteries of Dionysus from his father, reverted along with his tribesmen to the old solar-worship of the time of Lycurgus by holding the Sun-god as the supreme deity and calling him Apollo, and every day Orpheus would wake up and climb Mount Pangaeum to wait for sunrise so that the first being he saw was the Sun, that is to say Orpheus had reformed the mysteries of Dionysus by combining them with the old Thracian solar-cult. Orpheus in this myth was also similar to Apollo, being a musician who could enchant the beasts, birds of prey, trees and stones with his songs, similarly to the god Apollo. Since ancient peoples believed musical and divinatory skills to be connected, in addition to being a singer, Orpheus was also a diviner and a sorcerer, which again attested of his Apollonian quality. The Argonauts asked Orpheus join on their journey because he knew the secrets of sorcery, and he initiated the Argonauts into the mysteries, interpreted omens, and told the story of the creation of the world and the gods. Another Apollonian attribute of Orpheus was his skill as a healer who had found renown because he discovered cures against diseases, to which was connected his music's ability to calm the passions of enemies and making people forget everything.^[2]

A more direct Greek record of the connection of Orpheus with the underworld and his similarity to Dionysus rests in his role as one of the initiators of the Eleusinian Mysteries, themselves founded by the Thracian Eumolpus and dedicated to the chthonic deities Demeter, Persephone, and Hades, to whom was later added Dionysus as the son of Persephone because of his association in Anatolia with the Mother of Gods, who in the Eleusinian Mysteries were personified by Demeter and her daughter Persephone. Orpheus thus founded the Eleusinian Mysteries, that is the mysteries of Demeter and Persephone, and introduced the mystery cult of Dionysus, which arrived into Greece from Thrace, with that of the Eleusinian Mysteries of Demeter, that is of the Great Mother of the Gods, whose cult arrived from Crete or Phoenicia to Greece via Thrace.^[2] Orpheus's wife Eurydice soon died of a snake-bite: Dionysus's Meanads fastened their animal skins and their wreaths with snakes and allowed them to lick their faces without being bitten since they were under the protection of the god; however, Eurydice's protection was removed by Dionysus and therefore died from interacting with snakes as a warning of the god to Orpheus before his final punishment. Unconsolable at the death of Eurydice, Orpheus calmed down Cerberus and pleased Hades and Persephone with his music and they allowed him to take Eurydice back from the underworld on condition that he should not look at her before the Sun-god he worshipped had seen her, only for him to lose her again because he looked at her before the Sun could. This myth of Orpheus's descent into the underworld is another record of the chthonic association of Orpheus, and it also paralleled the Greek myth of Dionysus's own descent into the underworld, from where he was successfully able to free his mother Semele.^[2]

Dionysus finally sent the Maenads to punish Orpheus: the women of the Cicones, whom Orpheus had forbidden to participate in the orgiastic rites of Dionysus although the god's retinue was composed of only women, and who resented that Orpheus had deprived them of their men by convincing them to accompany him on his wanderings, decided to kill Orpheus. Initially afraid to act out of fear of their husbands, the women found the courage they needed when they drank wine: it was by the direct intervention of Dionysus, who roused them through the wine, that they became Maenads, dismembered Orpheus and scattered the pieces of his body. The death of Orpheus was exactly like that of Pentheus and was typically Dionysiac.^[2]

However, in one version of the Greek myth of Orpheus, he committed suicide out of despair from Eurydice's death so he could join her in the afterlife, which paralleled the myth of Dionysus persuading Artemis to kill Ariadne, with whom he had fallen in love, so he could bring her with him into the underworld, itself a repetition of the myth of the abduction of Persephone by Hades; the common theme of these parallel myths of Orpheus and Dionysus is that they had to live in the underworld to enjoy love and happiness, and the legend of Eurydice itself might have originated as an explanation of Orpheus's recurrent descents into the underworld, thus attesting of his nature as an early deity of plant life who was subsumed into the Dionysiac cult.^[2]

Orpheus was buried at Leibethra and Dionysus predicted that the city would be destroyed by the waters of the river when the Sun would see the bones of Orpheus.^[2][6] The burial mound of Orpheus became a shrine, and his ashes were held in a stone urn at the top of a column located on the road from Dion to Mount Piereia, thus being placed between Heaven and Earth and exposed to the Sun.^[6] On Lesbos, the lyre of Orpheus was buried under the sanctuary of Apollo while his head was buried under that of Dionysus, where it continued to make prophecies until the god Apollo destroyed these prophecies' force since he saw these as a violation of his own authority.^[2]

After his death, Orpheus became a member of the court of the underworld's rulers and played his lyre near their palace, having earned this position due to being the founder of the mysteries of Demeter and Persephone.^[2]

Orpheus, as both a member of the "Dionysian dynasty" and an oracle who knew the secret rites of the mysteries and the way to immortality, and could guide the souls of men, was a representation of the priest-king function of the Thracian rulers.^[6]

Orpheus's son Musaeus inherited the Eleusinian Mysteries from his father and led them when Heracles went to Athens and participated in the rites.^[2]

Musaeus himself later challenged the Muses to a competition, with the conditions being that his eyes would be put out if he lost, but would be allowed to marry each of them, and therefore become the king of the land of music, if he won. This story preserved the story of the Hero Zis's hierogamy with the great goddess Bendis.^[6]

Orpheus in Thracian Orphism

Orpheus's appearance in the Thracian Orphic myth (which is preserved in the Greek myth of Dionysus and Orpheus^[2]) is characterised by his reformation of the religion of Zis which makes the knowledge of the mysteries of the god available to men only. In revenge for not allowing them to see or participate in the mysteries reserved for men, the women of the Cicones tribe drink wine and take up the weapons of their men left at the entrance of the chamber where they were celebrating the Orphic mysteries, thus becoming Maenads possessed by divine fury, and dismember Orpheus and throw his dismembered parts in the Hebrus river. The dismemberment of Orpheus, the first teacher of the mysteries of Bendis and Zis, replicated the dismemberment of Zis himself. The gods turned his head into a sacred snake and his lyre into a constellation, and from his blood the cithara plant grew on the Mount Pangaeum, which was one of the places considered to be the most sacred to Bendis. Henceforth, legend claimed that whenever Zis's chthonic aspect (Dionysus-Zagreus) was worshipped on this mountain, the cithara plant would resound like a lyre or cithara.^[5][1] After killing Orpheus, the Cicones women are marked with tattoos and their husbands returned to them, and they become the mothers of their clans.^[5] Orpheus thus existed as a substitute for the "Dionysian" aspect of Zis, as is demonstrated by both their deaths by dismemberment, the sites of their respective graves being sanctuaries, and humanity being born of the "Dionysian" Zis's ashes and the Earth becoming barren after Orpheus's death until his head had been found and buried.^[2]

As substitute for Zis, Orpheus was also a hero in his own right, with his characteristics following the same general pattern of Thracian heroes: he was the son of the Great Goddess, and he fought against the forces of evil to protect the Tree of Life and maintain order in the world. Since the Thracians did not perceive the world in terms of linear time, and therefore conceptualised their religion and myths not as histories of ancient pasts, but as occurring in the present, and there was no difference between the mythical and heroic past and the present in Thracian religion, the hero Orpheus/Zalmoxis was believed to still be performing his valorous deeds in the present on another plane of existence in heaven which was not necessarily separate from the world of the living necessarily in an abrupt way.^[2]

Since knowledge was associated with light, which was itself seen as a sign of divine mission, the role of Orpheus/Zalmoxis as the bringer of the secret knowledge of immortality was connected to the myth of Orpheus as the first person to worship "Apollo" (the solar Zis) as a god of the Sun, where he would climb Mount Pangaeum every morning to be the first to greet the Sun.^[5]

Although Orpheus was a member of the according to myth, his cult was practised on Mount Pangaeum and Mount Piereia, as well as by the Black Sea and elsewhere, meaning that every Thracian tribe worshipped a similar hero.^[2]

Iconography

Unlike for other Thracian deities, there are no known Thracian depictions of Orpheus.^[5]

Iconography

On one classical relief, the nymphs are depicted together with the goddess Bendis, and on Roman-era votive tablets, they are portrayed alongside the goddess Hera when Bendis was assimilated to her.^[2]

Nymphs are represented engaging in love affairs with centaurs on Thracian coins, which is a motif that is also present in Greek mythology, and in Hindu mythology in the form of the betrothal of the Apsaras to the Gandharvas.^[5]

Iconography

In Thracian art, the centaur was depicted as winged, or with human arms and standing on the hind legs of a horse, or with a horse body but with no arms.^[5]

Iconography

The Thracian Chaos-dragon was depicted in various ways, though the most common representation of it was a three-headed or three-bodied snake, sometimes possessing wings or rudimentary legs, thus unifying the elements and spatial zones of the cosmos. The dragon's three heads personified the triple form of the monstrous opponent of Dyḗus ph₂tḗr in Indo-European mythology.^[5]

The appearance of the Chaos-dragon was fluid, and across retellings its size could change, it had no fixed colour, and it could be either a snake or a lion (in Moesian folklore, it was a white bear). The dragon itself attacked fiercely and with deceit, caused ulcerous wounds, coiled around its victim and drank its blood, and moved by twisting and turning unlike any normal living creature, and this changeability was represented on Thracian gold objects by images of snakes mottled with scales. Other depictions of the Chaos-dragon showed it as a fish with a boar's head, as a sphinx, a chimaera, or a harpy. The depiction of the Chaos-dragon as a spotted snake with a bird's head combines spatial opposites (the bird representing "above" and the snake representing "below") also has parallels in ancient Indo-Aryan and modern Balkans folklore.^[5]

Thracian Orphism

The myths and doctrines constituting the Thracian religion are collectively called by modern-day scholars as "Thracian Orphism," to distinguish it from the Greek Orphism, which was a later derivation from the Thracian religion from the late 6th century BCE.^[1]

In the mythology of "Thracian Orphism," Bendis represented the initial state of the world, which was at rest. The goddess self-fertilised herself and gave birth to a first son, Zis, who represented the male principle and had a dual nature, being both a sky-god identified with the Sun, and an underworld-god identified with Fire.^[1] This process constituted the four phases of the goddess's life, in which are present the four elements, and which consist consecutively of:^[1]

1. rest, representing Earth.
2. self-fertilisation, representing Air.
3. pregnancy, representing Water.
4. giving birth to her first son, Zis, representing Fire.

These four phases were themselves succeeded by four more phases representing the life cycle of Zis:^[1]

• In the fifth phase, Zis illuminated the world with his light.
• In the sixth phase, Zis reaches his zenith.
• In the seventh phase, Zis enters into a sacred marriage with Bendis. Then, as Zagreus and in accordance to the ritual of him being sacrificed, Zis is dismembered into seven pieces: a head, a torso, two legs, two arms, and a phallus. The seven ram skins that Zagreus wears are scattered to the four cardinal points in this phase.
• In the eighth cosmic phase, the son of Bendis and Zis, the priest-king Orpheus, is born. In this phase, Zis is also reborn and he protects Orpheus.

Through the sacred marriage of Bendis and Zis, another son, Orpheus, was born. Orpheus personified the energies of creation and set them free: thus, from the union of Bendis and her first son, all the potent elements of the world were fertilised, ensuring the continuation of life in the world.^[1] Orpheus was the first initiate into the mystery cult of the sacred marriage of Bendis, and thus was the first priest-king, carrying the teachings of his own origins, was both a prophet and preacher of the mystery cult of Bendis, and was therefore predestined to bring order to the world. Only through Orpheus's coming did the Cosmos start to function, and both the creation of the physical world and the beginning of human society were brought into existence.^[1]

This cosmic cycle was a tenfold one, with the number ten believed to represent the Cosmos because it contained four phases (in Thracian religion, the tetrad was the basis of the Cosmos) consisting of the numbers four, three, two and one, and expressed in the formula 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 = 10. There were therefore final two phases of the cosmic cycle:^[1]

• in the ninth phase, Orpheus attains enlightenment.
• in the tenth phase, Orpheus is allowed to also unite with the goddess in sacred marriage.

Orpheus's appearance in the myth is characterised by his reformation of the religion of Zis which makes the knowledge of the mysteries of the god available to men only. In revenge for not allowing them to see or participate in the mysteries reserved for men, the women of the Cicones tribe drink wine and take up the weapons of their men left at the entrance of the chamber where they were celebrating the Orphic mysteries, thus becoming Maenads possessed by divine fury, and dismember Orpheus and throw his dismembered parts in the Hebrus river. The dismemberment of Orpheus, the first teacher of the mysteries of Bendis and Zis, replicated the dismemberment of Zis himself. The gods turned his head into a sacred snake and his lyre into a constellation, and from his blood the cithara plant grew on the Mount Pangaeum, which was one of the places considered to be the most sacred to Bendis. Henceforth, legend claimed that whenever Zis's chthonic aspect (Dionysus-Zagreus) was worshipped on this mountain, the cithara plant would resound like a lyre or cithara.^[5][1] After killing Orpheus, the Cicones women are marked with tattoos and their husbands returned to them, and they become the ancestresses of their clans.^[5]

The Orphic myth was a myth of sacrificial crisis and of renewal of the cosmos as well as of human creation and procreation and of the social order, characterising Zis's appearances to humanity in moments of social disturbance, with the social order being restored through sacrifice.^[5]

Fitting the nature of the Orphic myth as a myth of sacrificial crisis and of crisis and renewal of the cosmos as well as of human creation and procreation and of the social order, the reversion of the social order is represented by the Cicones women leaving their homes, drinking wine and taking up the weapons of men, therefore acting according to the archetype of the "Amazon". This represented a division of society into male and female halves, and might have had its origin in a ritual meant to designate the state of Chaos, that is the primordial world from before the emergence of social structures and cultural standards, where the women remained "Amazons" forever and the men disappear and become socially unnecessary because the women had taken over their functions: this represented the archaic conceptualisation of society as requiring sexual bipolarity and the constitutive power of marriage as its basis, without which it would perish. The restoring of order through sacrifice happens when the women are marked with tattoos and become their clans' ancestresses.^[5]

Zis and the Titans

In one myth, the Titan enemies of the infant Zis smeared their faces with white clay and offered him a mirror, an essentially visual object. When Zis saw his image in the mirror, he followed it, and thus was dismembered. The Titans were then punished by being turned into ashes from which humanity was born.^[5]

The attributes of the Titans, the mirror and the mask, provided them with a common mythic space where they can meet the infant Zis and kill him. The role of the mirror in this myth is to confuse Zis and make him lose the sense of the boundary between the here and the beyond, and therefore to make him fall asleep, that is to be transported to the world beyond. Thus, the mirror reflects the dual nature of Zis himself, who, like the mirror, reverses everything. The role of the white clay the Titans masked their faces in the myth is to reveal their inner nature as "other," that is representatives of death: white clay itself was associated with death in Thrace, reflecting an Indo-European conceptualisation of the afterlife as a clay house. The identification of the Titans with clay, a primal matter, also reflected their nature as the world's first people. The Titans' clay masks therefore also performed the function as the mirror, that of reversing the world, and marked the mythical and ritual state of death.^[5]

The dismemberment of Zis, the personification of the sacred drink, wine, by the Titans in this myth is paralleled by how the Indo-Aryan deity Soma, the embodiment of the sacred soma drink, was killed by the Asuras. This myth reflected the making of wine from the grape, and therefore depicted the killing, dismemberment, and crushing to death of the god personifying both the grape and the wine.^[5]

The Dragon-slaying myth

The Hero Zis ensured the preservation of the wordly order and the normal course of life by fighting the forces of evil,^[2] and therefore in myth he underwent an epic journey on a mythical road filled with danger, and where he encountered unexpected opponents which personified Chaos, destruction, evil, and death.^[5]

At the beginning of his journey, just like Dyḗus ph₂tḗr, Zis fought a three-headed snake-like dragon personifying Chaos, and was therefore in this role given the epithet of Zumludrēnos (Ζυμλυδρηνος), meaning "water dragon". This mythical combat against the monster (which was similar to the Anatolian, Iranian, and Indo-Aryan myths of the fight against the Chaos-dragon) followed the motif of the ritual fight between heroes and monsters being a test of valour, and its goal was to force the Chaos-dragon to free the waters it had stopped, to return the cattle stolen by it (representations of two dragons on each side of a bull's head on a Thracian helmet from Băiceni show that the Hero's Chaos-dragon enemy was a stealer of bulls), and to free women abducted by it, that is to ensure nature's fertility, and the continuation of humanity.^[6] This journey also represented the transition of the Thracian young Thracian warrior, from adolescence to manhood, and the transition of the Thracian prince into kingship.^[5][6] A series of metal appliqués from the Letnitsa Treasure fully depict the struggle of Zis against the Chaos-dragon:^[2][5][7]

• on one piece is a depiction of the three-headed Chaos-dragon
• on another piece, a sea-nymph riding a hippocampus represents the freeing of the waters from the Chaos-dragon
• another piece is decorated with the image of a maiden holding in her hand a mirror, which was a symbol of marriage
• on another piece is a representation of the Hero receiving a bow, which was a royal insignia
• the last piece depicted the Hero entering in hierogamy with the Great Goddess Bendis herself while the vegetation goddess blesses the union

The royal investiture scenes depicting the goddess, such as the goddess Bendis about to give a rhyton to a horseman riding towards her on the plate of the Brezovo gold ring, and the goddess walking leftwards and is followed by a horseman holding a rhyton she has just given him on the Rosovets ring, represent the Hero Zis's union with the Mother Goddess, an act which ensured the plentifulness of the country, but was also indispensable for him to obtain royal power. The hierogamy scene of the Letnitsa Treasure thus represented the Hero Zis (with whom the king was identified and an earthly substitute for) explicitly entering in a hierogamy with the Great Goddess.^[6] This has its origin in the role of Bendis as the goddess of the hearth, who therefore presided over the centre of things, the home, the proper, the familiar, and wealth. In this role, Bendis possessed the attributes common to the hearth goddess throughout various Indo-European religions: she was bound to the circle of the hearth and never left the home, thus always being a maid but never a wife, and was associated to the snake, and, since the snake was the representation of the "below," therefore to the earth itself. The hearth-goddess also symbolised the continuity of the clan, which, by guaranteeing the legitimacy of the royal line and he continuity of power, was an important part of the Thracian royal customs. These various attributes together made of Bendis the goddess of the "autochthonic principle," that is the concept of a ruler's right to rule the land he inhabited deriving from him originating from that place, which held a very important place in archaic societies such as in Thrace, was attested there by the presence of snake-shaped hearth decorations in ancient Thrace.^[5] This importance of the hearth-goddess as the embodiment of the "autochthonic principle" is reflected across various Indo-European religions in the emphasis on the hearth-goddess in the rituals through which kings would take over new territory:^[5]

• according to legend, the Argive Perdiccas I used his knife to cut a circle on the floor around the hearth of the king of Lebaea before becoming king of Macedonia
• among the Scythians, a substitute ritual king would ride around a group of sacred objects believed to be gifts from Tāpayantī (the Scythian hearth-goddess) to mark the boundaries of his kingdom
• whenever the Macedonian king Philip II conquered or sought to conquer a new country, he would marry its princess, that is he would ritually unite with its local personification of Hestia (the Greek hearth-goddess).

This concept of the Thracian Hero (and the Thracian king who was his substitute on Earth) obtaining royal power through uniting with the great goddess was closely similar to the Scythian custom whereby the Scythian ancestral hero Targī̆tavah (and, by extension, his descendant the Scythian king) was believed to acquire royal power by uniting with the Scythian goddess Artimpasa, who was herself equivalent to the Thracian Great Goddess Bendis.^[7]

Therefore, another goal of the fight against the Chaos-dragon was the elevation of the Hero himself to the status of ruler, which was symbolised by the bow, which was similarly a symbol of kingship in Achaemenid Persia,^[6] and this insignia of power was given to the Hero Zis by the Great Goddess herself as part of his investiture.^[5]

Ram sacrifice scene from the Thracian myth of the Golden Fleece on the Helmet of Coțofenești

The Golden Fleece

An important myth was that of the Golden Fleece, according to which a golden ram appears among the king's sheep as a divine favour, and is then sacrificed, after which its skin is guarded as a royal talisman: this myth symbolised the domestication of the mobile wealth, its transfer from the domain of "Hermes" to that of the hearth-goddess Bendis, and its transformation from a living being into an object. The ram itself was an animal closely associated with "Hermes", similarly to whom it was a mediator, and occupied the middle part of the Cosmos in many myths and rituals. According to ancient Greek sources, the Greek myth of the Golden Fleece likely originated in this Thracian myth.^[5]

A representation of this myth of the golden fleece is visible on the Helmet of Coțofenești, where a warrior is depicted pressing with his knee down on a fallen ram whose head he has twisted upwards with one hand, while in the other hand he holds a short sword with which the ram is to be stabbed.^[5]

The Thracian Orphic mysteries

The religious doctrine of the Thracians, that is "Thracian Orphism," was accessible only to the royalty and nobility.^[1] Therefore, the mystery cult of "Thracian Orphism," which was most often practised in the Thracian mountains, was one of the main secrets of the royal family. This mysterial knowledge was believed to be transmitted through the consumption of the sacred drink, wine, which in Thracian culture had a similar role to the role of the soma among Indo-Aryan peoples, the haoma among Iranian peoples, and the mead among Germanic and Slavic peoples. Metal phialae were used during these rites.^[5]

Since the ancient Thracians were a highly patriarchal society,^[6] the Orphic mystery cult was held in a place where only men from the warrior-aristocracy would gather, and women not only were not allowed to participate in the rites,^[5] but the very sanctuary of Orpheus was forbidden to women. The participants of the rites had to leave their weapons at the entrance before entering the hall where the Orphic mysteries were conducted, and there they were instructed into the tenets of the teachings of Orpheus. Since the mysteries were carried out in secret, little is known about the precise rituals involved during these religious ceremonies, although it is known that their essential doctrine was that of immortality and followed the myth of Orpheus, which itself was an example of the passage of man into the afterlife through the threshold of death.^[6]

According to the Orphic tradition, the king, representing the priest-king Orpheus, through his gradual self-improvement reflecting the ten-fold cosmic cycle of the Orphic myth, would enter a second union with Bendis, and thus become a demigod.^[1]

The initiates of the Orphic cult, however, were almost complete opposites of the Orphic king, and it was by disciplining their bodies through abstinence and striving for spiritual self-knowledge that they sought to achieve immortality, which the Thracians believed could be attained only by a select few initiates who would rise in body and spirit to join Orpheus and remain with him eternally.^[1] The initiates of the Orphic cult believed they could pass through the phases of self-improvement as well, and accordingly the men of the Thracian nobility, completely unarmed and wearing only white linen and gold pins in their hair, climbed rock-steps of the sacred mountain from the cave-womb of Bendis to the summit to praise the rising Zis.^[1]

The mysteries of the Cabeiri

The mysteries of the Cabeiri, which were a variant of the Orphic mystery cult adopted by the Greeks, took the form of a hieros gamos between the god (Zis) and the goddess (Bendis), or the priest and the priestess, out of which was born a mysterial child (Orpheus). This sacred marriage is represented in a jug-rhyton from the Borovo Treasure:^[5]

• on its upper frieze the domination of wild Nature is depicted in the form of sileni drinking wine or swinging on boughs, and satyrs pursuing maenads who are themselves intoxicated by the smell of the blood of killed animals and dancing in trance
• the lower frieze instead represents civilisation and order in the form of measured dancing to the music of the flute, figures of the child Eros mixing wine with water, and the union of the god and goddess in marriage, thus subsuming their instincts in culturally-appropriate decency

The mysteries of the Cabeiri on the island of Lemnos were performed in the dialect of the Thracian language spoken by the Sintians tribe. A sanctuary to the Cabeiri was built in palace of the Odrysian king Seuthes III in his capital city of Seuthopolis.^[5]

The mysteries of Zalmoxis

The initiates to the mysteries of Zalmoxis were covered with a bear skin during their initiation.^[5]

The mysterial rites re-enacting the birth of Zalmoxis were represented in myth by his building of a cave dwelling at the same time as he was preaching to the Thracian aristocrats the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, after which suddenly disappeared from the Thracians, and hid from his tribe in this cave for three years. The Thracians were grieved at Zalmoxis's loss and mourned him as if he were dead, but on the fourth year he gathered his tribe in this cave and appeared to them in a mythical equivalent of a mysterial rite re-enacting his own birth.^[5][1][2]

Similarly to the Orphic mysteries, the participants of the cult of Zalmoxis gathered in a special house where only men gathered. Since the ancient Thracians were a highly patriarchal society,^[6] women were not allowed to participate in these rituals,^[5] and the very sanctuary of Zalmoxis was forbidden to women.^[6] Since the mysteries were carried out in secret, little is known about the precise rituals involved during these religious ceremonies, although it is known that their essential doctrine was that of immortality and followed the myth of Zalmoxis, which itself was an example of the passage of man into the afterlife through the threshold of death.^[6]

Cultic personnel

Among the Thracians, the Ctistae and the Kapnobatai were ascetic sects whose members were dedicated to the gods and lived celibate lives without women. These ascetics lived peacefully and were vegetarians who subsisted only on honey, milk and cheese. The Ctistae's and Capnobatae's abstention from eating any living being, not even the animals in their flocks was derived from their belief in the transmigration of souls.^[6]

The Ctistae and the Capnobatae were highly respected and lived carefree lives without any fear because they had been initiated in the secrets of the mystery cult and were the ones who organised the male-only rituals.^[6]

The sacrifice of Zagreus

In an annual ritual held every February, a bull representing Zagreus was sacrificed and torn to pieces, and its bloody flesh, standing for Zagreus's own flesh (in his form of Zagreus, Zis was believed to have to suffer since he represented fertility, the rejuvenation of nature and the flowering of life), was consumed by the participants. After rituals of sacred ploughing and sowing were enacted, Bendis was summoned through a prayer, and she was believed to bring her son back to life in the form of a ram, a he-goat, or a male black lamb, as the incarnation of the male principle renewed, and the reborn Zagreus was represented as a male youth wearing seven ram skins.^[1]

The Bendideia

The Bandideia was a festival held in honour of the goddess Bendis and was associated with warriors and the goddess in her huntress form.^[5]

The Bendideia was also an initiation rite for young Thracian men, who during the festival showed their skills in mounted torch races. During this rite, the youth were "born" as men and warriors through the passing of burning torches from one to another. A similar custom was practised by the ancient Greeks of Athens, where horse races were held in honour of the city's patron goddess Athena during the Panathenaic Games.^[5]

During the festival, a procession marched till a sanctuary to the Nymphs, where a sow, the sacrificial animal of Bendis, was sacrificed to the goddess as a fertility-stimulation ritual.^[2]

The Bithynian spring festival

The Bithyni honoured the goddess Bendis in Spring, when she was conceptualised as a huge woman spinning thread and nurturing pigs, likely because of the goddess's multi-faceted nature.^[2]

Warrior initiation

In Thracian society, the boy's duty was that he was to become a warrior, and accordingly this transition from boyhood to manhood was marked by an initiation process during which determining events of the utmost importance would take place. The incidents of the mystical initiation rite, at the end of which the young man acquired the status of a mature member of society, were not linear and gradual, and instead each life stage was believed to correspond to a stage of the cycle of the year, whose end was denoted by ritual death. Thus, these events were dramatic and followed an accelerated rhythm during which the young man's life might have been in danger.^[5]

Thracian warrior with curly hair

Getae warrior with braided hair

The warrior and the wolf

Due to the association of the wolf with the warrior-god, wolves and dogs were symbols of war in ancient Thrace, and Thracians performed rituals associated with those animals during war, with the wolf representing the outsider enemies. The wolf was therefore often represented in Thracian art as a symbol of warriors.^[5]

An early mention by the Thracians' Greek neighbours of the connection with between the Thracian warrior and the wolf is featured in the Iliad, where the Thracian scout Dolon (Δόλων, Dólōn) disguised himself as a wolf before to spy the Achaeans. Due to this connection with the wolf, the Greeks ascribed to the country of the Thracians a number of heroes whose names were derived from the word lúkos (λύκος), meaning "wolf," such as Lycurgus and Harpalyce (Ἁρπαλύκη, Harpalúkē; Latin: Harpalyce). Just like Harpalyce, who represented a wolf, another Thracian heroine, Polyphonte, was represented as a bear, which was another symbolic animal of the warrior.^[5]

Hairstyle

Similarly to the wolf's mane, distinctive hairstyles and beards were attributes of warriors in Thrace, with Homer recording that the Thracian Abantes wore their hair piled high on their heads, and Plutarch ascribing this custom to the Thracians' warlike nature. This hairstyle is attested in Thracian art in the form of the topknot of the hero depicted in the Letnitsa Treasure. Hairstyle had further significance among the Thracian aristocracy, that is the warrior class, whom Athenaeus described as "uncombed," and several pieces of Thracian artwork depict heroes as having curly hair. This reflects the role of hair braiding as a form of initiation among Indo-European military societies which was so important that their members were sometimes named after these hairstyles, which is attested among Indo-Iranian peoples in the form of the Iranian gaēsu (𐬔𐬀𐬉𐬯𐬎‎) and the Indian keśava (केशव).^[5]

The warrior and light

Since the Thracian aristocracy, that is the warrior class, were the only ones to have been initiated into the secret knowledge of immortality by Orpheus/Zalmoxis, and knowledge was associated with light, which was itself seen as a sign of divine mission, the Thracian heroic kings were defined as light or described as "bright and luminous," and the Thracian aristocrats were called zibythides (ζιβυθιδες zibuthídes), meaning "bright".^[5]

Gendered punishments

The punishment the Dacians king Oroles imposed on his warriors who had shown cowardice in battle against the Bastarnae was connected to the gender transformation of the warriors: he ordered them to reverse their sleeping position by sleeping with their heads placed where they normally put their feet on their beds, and to perform for their wives the chores their wives had previously carried out for them, thus showing them that they had behaved "like women" in battle by subordinating them to the lower status of their women. This punishment remained in place until the Dacian warriors had wiped out this humiliation by valour in battle. Thus, after having failed the duties of manhood in war, each warrior had to undergo the social inversion of the roles of man and woman, and therefore assume the place and functions of a woman.^[5]

The royal oracle

The royal oracle of the temple of Zilmisos was especially renowned and had a reputation for giving reliable answers on dynastic issues, and it was believed that high flames would blaze when someone predestined to be king would pour libations on the altar: the approval or rejection of a person as a ruler were believed to have been given by the "Dionysian" Zis himself and was in itself a form of investiture. This happened when the flames rose high over the roof of the sanctuary each time during Alexander the Great's and the father of the Roman emperor Augustus's respective visits to this temple (the latter was told by the priests that his son would become "lord of the world").^[5][1][6]

The importance of the royal oracle of the temple of Zilmisos was why who controlled the temple was of paramount importance to the Thracians. The temple itself initially did not belong to any single tribe, but it later became the object of inter-tribal disputes, and when the Romans took it away from the Satrae and gave it to the Odrysians, its Bessi high priest, Vologases, started a rebellion.^[6]

The royal initiation

Since the kings in archaic Indo-European societies such as the Thracians were from the warrior class, the royal customs originated from the customs of military initiation. However, kingship in Indo-European societies also united the functions of the threefold Indo-European class system: the priestly, military, and agricultural classes. Therefore, in addition to being military leaders, the Thracian kings were also landowners and priest-kings,^[5] with the supremacy of the Thracian rulers being based on the dual principle of the priest-king.^[6]

Therefore, the warrior initiation an important part of the Thracian royal customs, most especially the trial of the hunt, and both Thracian and Macedonian art depicted hunters on horseback, denoting the hunt as an aristocratic tradition. Hence, the Thracian Hero was commonly depicted as a mounted hunter whose opponents included the lion, the bear, the wolf, and the panther, all animals considered to be "royal" and whose hunting skills the initiates could learn from; thus, their defeat by the hunter brought him glory and the animal's powers passed on to him. The main rival of a Thracian prince aspiring to be king was the wild boar, who held a special symbolic status and represented the Indo-European god of war since, like the wild warrior initiate, it was an undifferentiated animal, being both herbivorous and predatory, land-dwelling but preferring marshes and swamps, and therefore a borderline creature existing at the threshold of the wild and the domesticated, which made it a fitting symbol of Chaos, where all attributes and qualities are undifferentiated. The boar was also a symbol of death, and therefore the struggle between the animal and the Hero represented the struggle to protect life itself, that is the life of the people, the prince, and the royal line. The hunt was therefore, for Thracian princes, not only a trial of initiation, but also one of consecration, and if they failed it they would die and never become king. and their dynasty would end.^[5]

The royal investiture

Once the Thracian king had completed his initiation and trials, he was given insignia of power visible on depictions of royal investiture,^[5] which were themselves derived from Near Eastern artistic motifs depicting the investiture of kings. All these investiture scenes have the same common theme: the prince becomes a king only by the god's will:^[6]

• a representation of the royal investiture is visible on the plate of the Brezovo gold ring, where the goddess Bendis is represented about to give a rhyton to a horseman towards her
• on the Rosovets ring, the goddess is walking leftwards and is followed by a horseman holding a rhyton she has just given him
• on a greave from Agighiol, a warrior is represented offering a rhyton and an eagle to a horseman who has already received a bow
• the shamanistic imagery of the eagle holding a hare in its talons and a fish in its beak and offering them to another eagle is a zoomorphic repreentation of the investiture, with the hare and the fish being symbols of kingship, corresponding to the Iranian political practice of a defeated king having to offer earth and water to his victor
• the depiction of an eagle with a snake in its beak has a similar meaning

During these scenes of royal investiture, the king usually undergoes apotheosis: the king is represented seated on a throne, and holding the royal insignias, which include a bow, a phiale and a rhyton. The throne itself was an attribute of power, and ascending to it contained a motif of conflict: similarly to how the Hittites identified the royal throne with their own Chaos-dragon, the Thracians identified the defeat of the Chaos-dragon with the act of ascending the throne. Representations of this identification are present in Thracian art, such as on a Thracian helmet from Băiceni, where, on one cheekpiece, a snake is depicted coiled under the throne upon which is seated the Hero, who holds a cup and a rhyton in his raised hands and a bow hangs behind his back; and on the other cheekpiece, two dragons are represented on each side of a bull's head, meaning that the Hero's Chaos-dragon enemy was a stealer of bulls. As part of the royal insignia, the bow or the spear represented the warrior function: in Thrace, the bow was the typical weapon of the young warrior and part of the royal insignia given to the prince after he defeated his opponent in the re-enactment of the struggle between the Hero (to whom the king was assimilated) and the Chaos-monster (in myth, the gods' enemies could only be defeated once the hero had joined the fight wielding his bow). The use of the bow as royal insignia was also present among the Iranian peoples, such as the Scythians and the Persians, who hunted using the bow, while it rarely figured on Thracian depictions of hunting scenes. Among the Thracians, the mastery of the bow was necessary for kingship, and the king Cotys I displayed this skill of his to his servants during his symbolic marriage to the goddess Athena. The libation cup, that is the rhyton and the phiale which were used in the royal cult, represented the king's priestly function, and hence held a mediating function (the libation cup was also a symbol held by the king among the Greeks), but were also signifiers of social status. Thus, in Thrace as well as Scythia and the Near East, the royal insignia included the cup and the bow, the possession of which had a symbolic meaning.^[5][6]

Additional attributes of kingship included pieces of armour, especially the belt, which was given to Indo-European warriors a marker of their completed initiation, and was therefore called "wolf-like" and hence Thracian belt-buckles were decorated with images showing their ritual function: they were sometimes designed in the shape of a wolf figure, or modelled in an openwork technique to look like an animal figure, or feature scenes representing the royal customs. Another insignia of the Thracian kings' priestly function was the pointed pileus hat, which marked their membership in the priestly caste, the pilophóroi (πιλοφόροι) or pileati, and therefore depictions of heroes sometimes showed them wearing a pileus hat.^[5][6]

The royal divine marriage

The royal investiture scenes depicting the goddess, such as the goddess Bendis about to give a rhyton to a horseman riding towards her on the plate of the Brezovo gold ring, and the goddess walking leftwards and is followed by a horseman holding a rhyton she has just given him on the Rosovets ring, represent the Hero Zis's (assimilated in these with the king) union with the Mother Goddess, an act which ensured the plentifulness of the country, but was also indispensable for him to obtain royal power. This ritual union between the king and the Goddess thus paralleled the hierogamy scene of the Letnitsa Treasure representing the Hero Zis (with whom the king was identified and an earthly substitute for) explicitly entering in a hierogamy with the Great Goddess.^[6] This has its origin in the role of Bendis as the goddess of the hearth, who therefore presided over the centre of things, the home, the proper, the familiar, and wealth. In this role, Bendis possessed the attributes common to the hearth goddess throughout various Indo-European religions: she was bound to the circle of the hearth and never left the home, thus always being a maid but never a wife, and was associated to the snake, and, since the snake was the representation of the "below," therefore to the earth itself. The hearth-goddess also symbolised the continuity of the clan, which, by guaranteeing the legitimacy of the royal line and he continuity of power, was an important part of the Thracian royal customs. These various attributes together made of Bendis the goddess of the "autochthonic principle," that is the concept of a ruler's right to rule the land he inhabited deriving from him originating from that place, which held a very important place in archaic societies such as in Thrace, was attested there by the presence of snake-shaped hearth decorations in ancient Thrace.^[5] This importance of the hearth-goddess as the embodiment of the "autochthonic principle" is reflected across various Indo-European religions in the emphasis on the hearth-goddess in the rituals through which kings would take over new territory:^[5]

• according to legend, the Argive Perdiccas I used his knife to cut a circle on the floor around the hearth of the king of Lebaea before becoming king of Macedonia
• among the Scythians, a substitute ritual king would ride around a group of sacred objects believed to be gifts from Tāpayantī (the Scythian hearth-goddess) to mark the boundaries of his kingdom
• whenever the Macedonian king Philip II conquered or sought to conquer a new country, he would marry its princess, that is he would ritually unite with its local personification of Hestia (the Greek hearth-goddess).

Fresco from the Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak representing a ritual divine marriage between a king and his queen, both deceased and deified. The tall woman to their left is the Great Goddess Bendis.

A depiction of the ritual divine marriage is the mural of the Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak, in which the deceased chieftain, having already been deified and become an anthropodaemon, is seated at a table with food on it and holds a phiale in one hand while his other hand is tenderly placed under that of his wife, who is seated on a throne next to him. To the left of the chieftain is a tall woman wearing a long peplos and carrying a tray of fruit who approaches the couple, who is the Snake-Goddess foremother, who in the Letnitsa Treasure holds a twig over Bendis and Zis during their hierogamy. The chieftain's gesture is similar to that of Zeus drawing Hera to him from a metope from Selinus, and represents the royal rank of the chieftain which he acquired by his union with his deified wife who is assimilated to Bendis in the presence of the ancestral Snake-Goddess. The phiale he holds in his hand was a symbol of investiture, and which therefore linked the hierogamy with the royal investiture.^[6]

By standing for the Hero Zis in the divine hierogamy, the king also took over the role of the tribal progenitor, as demonstrated by how, after Lysimachus had been captured by the king of the Getae, Dromichaetes, the latter arranged a feast for him and placed before him sumptuous vessels on silver tables, and called Lysimachus "father" in a speech to him.^[6]

Another example of the Thracian belief in the rite of the sacred marriage with the goddess was in how the Odrysian king Cotys I believed that Athena accepted to be a substitute for the Great Goddess as his spouse.^[7] This most unusual ritual union with the goddess happened when the Odrysian king Cotys I believed the Greek goddess Athena had agreed to marry him, and therefore he arranged a wedding feast and prepared a bridal chamber where he waited for his divine bride after getting drunk. During this ritual marriage between the king and the goddess, Cotys was the earthly substitute for the Hero Zis, making him the lover of the goddess, who in this case was the Mother Goddess of Athens: the ritual echoed the myth of the marriage of the hero Tereus with the Athenian princesses Procne and Philomela to express his desire to possess Athena, but in Cotys's case it was the goddess herself who replaced the two princesses. This ceremony was a reflection of Cotys's policy of expelling the Athenians from Aegean Thrace, of which further evidence exists in his declaration to the Athenians who had granted him honorary citizenship to their city that he too would grant them his tribe's rights, so he could this way put the Odrysian kingdom and Athens on an equal footing. Cotys's ritual marriage to Athena in her role as the Athenian form of the Great Goddess is paralleled by the many diplomatic and likely ritual marriages of the Macedonian king Philip II, which he always contracted during war time with the daughter of a king whose lands he had conquered or was planning to conquer:^[6]

• Philip first married the Illyrian princess Audata and with her had a daughter named Cynane
• then wedded Phila of Elimeia, the sister of the Archon Derdas III of Elimiotis
• Philip then fathered children with two Thessalian women to attract the Thessalians' support
• from his marriage to Olympias, he obtained the kingdom of the Molossians in dowry
• when he conquered Thrace, the king Cothelas went to meet him bearing gifts, including his daughter Meda, whom Philip married
• finally, he fell in love with Cleopatra Eurydice niece of Attalus

These many marriages were analogous to that of Pallene and Cleitus, and were contracted out of the belief that ritual union with the Mother Goddess, that is the daughter of a royal family, was necessary to validate the new king's rule over her land.^[6]

The priest-king

The institution of the high priest-king, within whom both religious and political power had been merged, was present throughout all the Thracian peoples and tribes:^[6]

• The chieftains of the Scaeii and the Cebrenii were priests of "Hera" (that is the goddess Bendis)
• The Orysian king Cotys I was similarly a king-high priest
• The Odrysuab king Seuthes II's feast as described by Xenophon had all the trappings of a sacrificial ritual carried out in a hall built specifically for such a purpose, thus attesting to Seuthes's position as a king-high priest
• The king of the Caeni tribe, Diegylis, while going to celebrate a wedding, once captured two young Greeks from the kingdom of Attalus II, garlanded them like sacrificial animals, led them to his royal palace, declared that his sacrifice could not be the same as that of the common people, and sacrificed them in his royal palace. while the attendees praised his skill and sang a paean
• At Seuthopolis, the Odrysian king Seuthes III, the sanctuary of the Cabeiri was an important part of the royal palace and it contained one of the largest cult fireplaces of the city. This sanctuary is the material evidence of the function of the king-high priest which is mentioned in both mythological and historical literary sources
• At the time of the Dacians king Burebista, one Deceneus visited Egypt and learned about magic there. When Deceneus returned to the Dacians, he began to consider himself as a god, just like Zalmoxis. In Dacia, Burebista received Deceneus and invested him with quasi-total royal power. When Deceneus died, the respect the Dacians held for him passed on to Comosicus, who was Deceneus's equal in title and was respected by the Dacians because he was both high priest and king. And when Comosicus died, Scorilo succeeded him. This order of historical events paralleled the myth of Zalmoxis going to Egypt to learn wisdom and being made co-ruler or high priest by the king when he returned to the Getae. Deceneus himself was part of an institution of dual kingship of the Dacians, and after him the dual power was transferred to Comosicus alone, and after Comosicus to Scorilo alone. Thus, the mythological and historical aspects of royalty had become one and the same among the Dacians too, and the king-high priest and god-king Zalmoxis became a model of royal power

The functions of Thracian kingship

The role of the Thracian kingship as a tripartite structure uniting the synthesis of the military, priestly and agriculturalist functions is reflected in Greek myths referring to Thrace. In one Greek myth, Charops founded the Dionysian dynasty of Thrace through war, representing the military function; Charops's successor, Oeagrus, was a lonely hunter, representing the agricultural function; Oeagrus's successor, Orpheus, was a poet who founded mystery cults and was a religious reformer, therefore personifying the priestly function. In another Greek myth, the first Edoni king, Rhesus, who possessed magical weapons and was killed during the Trojan War, represented the warrior-king; his brother Olynthus died during a lion hunting trial (which in the myth stood for a sacrificial rite) and his death sanctified the place where a city was to be built, and therefore represented the priestly function; the third brother, Brangas, founded a prosperous city, and represented the agriculturalist role. The first two brothers, Rhesus and Olynthus, respectively represented the opposites of "nature" and "culture," which was reflected in how a river in the Troad was named after Rhesus while the city built by Brangas was named after Olynthus. Rhesus himself represented the ideal Thracian king, and his attributes and traits such as his magical weapons and him being loved by women defined him as a typical warrior-hero, hence why he was the first king of his dynasty; Rhesus's hunting moreover represented the act of sacrifice, and wild animals would willingly offer themselves as a sacrifice at his heroum; his possession of many herds of white horses, which were symbols of royalty, was a defining attribute of rulers in their role of animal agriculturists; after his death, Rhesus's declared that he would not go into the dark earth, but that Persephone would give her back his soul and he would "live as the diviner of Dionysus", meaning he would continue to be a priest^[6] isolated in the "silver-rich mountains" similarly to Orpheus on Mount Pangaeum or Mount Piereia, or Zalmoxis in the cave in Mount Kogaion.^[5]

Helmet decorated with images of wide open eyes

A material representation of the tripartite function of Thracian kingship was the dowry that the Odrysian king Cotys I gave his daughter, and which consisted of a gold shield (representing the military function, with its symbolic role being accentuated by the precious metal it was made of), two precious cups and two herds of white horses (representing the priestly function), and a bushel of millet and an underground storeroom filled with onions and a flock of goats (representing the agricultural function), and a "multi-legged hecatomb".^[5]

Royal brightness

Since the Thracian aristocracy, that is the warrior class, were the only ones to have been initiated into the secret knowledge of immortality by Orpheus/Zalmoxis, and knowledge was associated with light, which was itself seen as a sign of divine mission, the Thracian heroic kings were defined as light or described as "bright and luminous". Therefore, the rightful king was chosen in a rite called the "fiery investiture," which was linked to the Indo-European conceptualisation of the lighting of fire as signalling the ruler's social "birth," and which finds parallels among the Indo-Iranian peoples, such as the Iranian khvarenah, and the Scythian royal insignia (the hestiai of Tāpayantī) which fell from the sky. Hence, Thracian helmets of precious metals were associated to the concept of a glowing light around the head of the sacred ruler, similarly to how the khvarenah was believed to take the form of a golden helmet among Iranian peoples. Since Fire was considered a solar element by the Thracians, it was therefore religiously associated with the Sun. Sunrise was also identified with the lighting of fire, and therefore the sacred king was believed to be "born" with the sunrise. This solar association had parallels among other Indo-European culture: among Celtic peoples, there was a rule dictating that the king had to wake up before sunrise; and the contests of the pretenders to the throne of the Persian Achaemenid Empire were held at sunrise. The "fiery investiture," also called the "solar investiture," was another iteration of this solar-royal association, and Thracian kings were considered to be all-seeing as the Sun, and therefore gazing at the ruler-Sun was taboo and was believed to cause blindness. Thracian royal properties were also usually marked using fire, gold and light. The wide open eyes depicted on Thracian helmets represented the conceptualisation of the ruler as all-seeing like the Sun, but were also symbols of inner sight which was attainable only through secret knowledge acquired by shamanistic initiation into the mysteries given to men by Orpheus/Zalmoxis.^[5]

Divine ancestry

Since the Thracian kings were assimilated to the divine Hero, who in Thracian mythology was the son of a deity, they therefore claimed divine ancestry: in the myth of the Hero Zis, once he had defeated the Chaos-dragon, he entered in hierogamy with the goddess Bendis, through which the god and the goddess the divine granters of royal power to the kings. Therefore, not only was Bendis the granter of the royal power of the kings, but so was Zis, who in this aspect was the first king, not unlike Iranian heroes such as the Scythian Targī̆tavah and Scythes, and the Zoroastrian Yima and Haošiiaŋha.^[6][2] Hence, the mythological origin of royal dynasties was based on the attribution of a divine origin to royal power, and was the basis on which members of the royal dynasty were named:

• the founder of the kingdom of the Odrysians, Teres I, was named after the nymph or goddess Tereine, who was connected to the goddess Tereia, that is a local reflex of the Great Goddess Bendis who was worshipped in a mountain near Lampsacus
• the name of Teres's son, Sitalces, was related to one of the epithets of Zis
• numerous Thracian kings' names such as Amatokos, Medokos, Medosades, and Maesades contained the terms Ama-, Me-, and Mae-, meaning "mother," referring to the mother role of Bendis
• the royal names such as Kotus, Kotulas, and Kotuson were connected to another name of the Great Goddess, Kottyto
• the king Cotys, whose own name was derived from that of the goddess Kottyto, was called "son of Apollo" in an inscription

This conceptualisation of the divine origin of royal power was represented in Thracian art, such as in the Letnitsa Treasure, where the daughter of the Great Goddess is represented holding a bough over a couple, consisting of Bendis and the Hero Zis, united in sexual intercourse. Zis's son, in turn, would rule the land conquered by his father, being thus a representation of the idea of the divine origin of the ruler.^[5][6] Further associations of Zis with kingship are present in his "Dionysian" aspect, who was the founder-deity of a royal dynasty and was depicted on royal insignia, as well as in his "Apollonian" aspect, from whom the Thracian kings also claimed divine descent, which they attested through their paternal ancestry or their names containing a theophoric element and ending in -kenthos (-κενθος), meaning "child of," referring to patrilineal descent from a deity.^[5] And from the claim of divine descent from the Great Mother Goddess was derived numerous Thracian kings' names containing the terms Ama-, Me-, and Mae-, meaning "mother," referring to the mother role of Bendis.^[6] The etymology of royal names, the ritual nature of the royal hunt, and the practice of ritual union with the Mother Goddess are thus evidence that the Thracian kings took over the functions of the Hero Zis in the human realm, and the kings therefore patterned their actions on the divine Hero.^[6]

The royal feast

The Thracian kings exhibited their power through royal feasts to which only notables were invited, and every Thracian royal ceremony included a sumptuous feast, which was an important ritual of Thracian social life.^[5]

The guests of the royal feasts were members of a limited circle, and being invited to a royal feast was considered a special privilege: participating in the royal feast was considered a privilege among Thracians, and, just as among the Persians, Scythians, and Macedonians, an institution of "table companions" existed in Thrace whose members consisted of Thracian and foreign nobility, close relatives of the royal family, particularly brave warriors, and other distinguished individuals; Cotys I invited only high officials to his banqueting halls; and Seuthes II summoned only the most eminent of his people and promised to Xenophon that he would make the Greeks his brothers and boon companions if they were to help him. Important political, military, social, diplomatic, and administrative issues were discussed during the feasts, whose participants were entertained by clowns and musicians, and which usually ended with a dance by the king himself (Seuthes was the first to get up to dance at his feasts). The Thracian royal feasts were splendid and lavish events. For example, during the wedding of Cotys I's daughter to Iphicrates, the city square was carpeted with purple, the feast was attended by dishevelled "fat-gobbling" men, and there were copper cauldrons larger than a room for twelve beds. Cotys himself served the food and wine, ladling soup out of a gold vessel, and he had become inebriated before his guests from tasting the wine in the mixing bowls, reflecting the role of the king as the dispenser of food to his subjects. Similarly, Seuthes II in this role used to take the bread and meat laid out before him, break them, and then throw the pieces to his guests as he deemed fit, and during his feasts, his guests sat in a circle while he distributed the food and wine. This role of the king is also attested in the myth of Maron, who jealously guarded his wine and himself offered it to his guests.^[6][5]

According to Xenophon, during Seuthes's banquet, a Thracian arrived leading a white horse, took a full horn and drank to Seuthes, and presented the horse; another Thracian brought a young slave and, similarly, drank to Seuthes and offered him the slave; a third Thracian again drank to Seuthes and offered him garments for his queen; Timasion of Dardanus also drank to Seuthes and offered him a silver cup and a carpet worth ten minas. The preciousness of the gifts and the pouring of libations at the feast meant that this ceremony was also a ritual of deifying either the king himself or the institution of royalty, and Thucydides was likely referring to this custom when he wrote that noting could be accomplished among the Odrysians without gift-giving. Seuthes's feast as described by Xenophon had all the trappings of a sacrificial ritual carried out in a hall build specifically for such a purpose, thus attesting of Seuthes's position as a king-high priest.^[6]

Royal sacrifices

The images of horse and human heads suspended behind the backs of horsemen on appliqués from the Letnitsa Treasure attest of the existence of regular human and equine sacrifices to the "Arean" Zis^[2] meant to present the Thracian kings as victors. These sacrifices, which are recorded in Graeco-Roman sources, find parallels among Indo-Iranian peoples, such as the Ashvamedha and Purushamedha sacrifices practised by the ancient Indo-Aryans, and similar sacrifices practised by the Scythians. In Thracian art, the figure of the Greek goddess Nike offering a wreath to a victor while standing on a quadriga was used to represent the victorious ruler.^[5]

Earring in the form of the goddess Nike driving a quadriga

The king of the Caeni tribe, Diegylis, while going to celebrate a wedding, once captured two young Greeks from the kingdom of Attalus II, garlanded them like sacrificial animals, led them to his royal palace, declared that his sacrifice could not be the same as that of the common people, and sacrificed them in his royal palace. while the attendees praised his skill and sang a paean.^[6]

The royal tour

Among the rituals performed by the Thracian kings to renew their power, the king's tour of the lands he ruled was a common one. Since Thracian kings had multiple residences located at cult centres instead of a permanent capital, they visited each residence regularly, and the kingdom's territorial model was re-enacted and the social Cosmos was restructured on each visit. Whenever foreign guests visited the kings of the kingdom of the Odrysians, they had to accompany him on this ritual tour, which for the most part consisted of visiting settlements located in southeastern Thrace, around the "sacred mountain" which was the religious centre of the kingdom and the location of the kings' treasury. A representation of this ritual tour might be found on Derrones coins depicting a king sitting on an ox-driven cart while an eagle holding prey in its talons is above him, as a royal omen of divine patronage.^[5]

Horse ownership

Thracians considered white horses to be symbols of the divine origin of the Hero and the ruler. Therefore, their ownership was part of the royal customs, and is attested by how, in myth, the horses of Rhesus, described as "whiter than the feathers of the river swan," and by the two herds of white horses that Cotys gave to his daughter as dowry. Connected to this custom might be how the Thracians stole the sacred chariot of "Zeus" harnessed with eight horses that the Persian king Darius I had left with the Paeonians for safekeeping: the Thracians might have considered that chariot as a symbol of their Hero, or maybe their king took over it because he saw it as a traditional insignia of power.^[6]

The hunt

The hunt, which in Thrace was customarily carried out on horseback, held the status of being a test of valour for kings, therefore being a ritual character as part of the royal customs. The royal residence probably had reserves to provide supplies for the royal hunt, as is suggested by Plutarch's record of Cotys offering a lion to someone who had gifted him a panther.^[2][6]

The hunt more generally was royal privilege among the Mycenaeans, the Thracians, and the peoples of Western Asia and was therefore part of the iconography of heroes: heroes were represented fighting real animals or mythical creatures in Hittite, Assyrian, and Achaemenian and Egyptian art, in which the hunt was also a popular theme. Thus, in this aspect the Thracians were closer to the ancient cultures of ancient Western Asia and North Africa, which is reflected in the Odrysian king Teres I's declaration that he did not feel different from his grooms when he was idle and not engaged in war, which echoes the words of Atys son of Croesus that it was a "great and noble pleasure" for him and his father to warring and hunting when he persuaded his father to allow him to go on a boar hunt.^[2][6]

Gift-giving

Thucydides was likely referring to the following custom, detailed by Xenophon and carried during feasts, when he wrote that noting could be accomplished among the Odrysians without gift-giving: during Seuthes II's banquet, a Thracian arrived leading a white horse, took a full horn and drank to Seuthes, and presented the horse; another Thracian brought a young slave and, similarly, drank to Seuthes and offered him the slave; a third Thracian again drank to Seuthes and offered him garments for his queen; Timasion of Dardanus also drank to Seuthes and offered him a silver cup and a carpet worth ten minas. The preciousness of the gifts and the pouring of libations at the feast meant that this ceremony was also a ritual of deifying either the king himself or the institution of royalty, and Thucydides was likely referring to this custom when he wrote that noting could be accomplished among the Odrysians without gift-giving.^[6]

Gift-giving was an important social ritual in ancient Thrace, and among the Odrysians, vessels bearing the king's name in the genitive case, the name of the king's court artist in the nominative case, and the name of the settlement from where it originated were offered to the king at the city gates as a mythical investiture rite. Later, during a feast at the royal residence, the king would offer some of these phialae and rhytons to his important guests, which included local rulers from the Triballi, Getae, and Moesi tribes, as pledges of friendship, but also as an act of investiture whereby the Odrysians king would stand as a substitute for the Hero Zis by putting his name on the royal insignia and then presenting them to the Triballi and Getae rulers. Achaemenid Persian kings also sent precious vessels as signs of special favour to their satraps and commanders, and the Odrysians custom might have been borrowed from the Persians, as attested by the fact that the Persians had themselves also offered to a local Thracian cheftain an amphora-rhyton and a silver jug, which were discovered in the Koukova Mogila near Douvanli.^[5][6]

Coinage

Under the reign of Cotys I, Odrysian coins started being stamped with the image of a galloping horseman; although this image had already been known to the Thracians from earlier times, Cotys adopted the practice of depicting it on coins from the Achaemenid Empire - that Cotys had sought inspiration from Achaemenid practices is visible in how his coins were also stamped with the likeness of the Persian satrap Tissaphernes. Other coins of Cotys were stamped with a boar's head, copied from earlier Lydian coins. The images of the horseman and the boar's head on the coin represented the royal test of valour and the protection of life.^[6]

The Odrysian kings Amadocus II and Teres I stamped the image of the "Dionysian" Zis on their coins due to the god's role as a deity of kingship.^[6]

Heroic burials

The graves of Thracian mythical heroes were places of worship around which shrines were built, and where prayers were offered to the heroes and protectors and miracles were held to occur.^[6]

The burial mound of Orpheus therefore was a shrine where sacrifices and other rituals in honour of the god were performed. According to one account by Pausanias, a shepherd once fell asleep while leaning on Orpheus's shrine, and during his sleep he started singing the songs of Orpheus while nightingales sang on his grave.^[6]

The grave of Resus was also the site of a shrine where miracles were believed to occur, such as when boars, deers, and other mountain animals walked in twos and threes to willingly offer themselves to sacrifice at his heroum. This resting place of Rhesus was located on the thickly populated Rhodope Mountains, and there were many settlements around the shrine itself.^[6][5]

Royal burials

When a Thracian king died, his body laid in state for three days during which animal sacrifices were performed and funerary feasts were held and the deceased was mourned, after which he was either cremated and his ashes buried or his body was interred.^[6] Thracian kings were usually buried with two spears in their graves (a custom derived from the Indo-European concept of "two sets of weapons" owned by the king, where he inherited one of the spears from his father, and gained the other through his own valorous deeds. They were also buried with phialae used for the mystery cults to be used in the afterlife.^[5] Finally, the king's most beloved wife was sacrificed on his grave so she would join him in the afterlife.^[5] A tumulus mound was then raised over the burial site and games were held, with the greatest prize set aside for single combat.^[6]

The Thracian tomb of Tatul

The sacrifice of the favourite wife in the king's case symbolised the concept of the king's death as being his marriage to the princess Earth, and therefore marriage scenes were painted in Thracian tombs (such as in Kazanluk and Sveshtari) as a symbol of death, referring to an ancient identification between marriage and death in Thracian religion. His other wives would be given to his friends who would leave wedding gifts on the tomb or challenged the dead king to a duel.^[5] The mural of the Kazanluk tomb is also a depiction of the ritual divine marriage, in which the deceased chieftain, having already been deified and become an anthropodaemon, is seated at a table with food on it and holds a phiale in one hand while his other hand is tenderly placed under that of his wife, who is seated on a throne next to him. To the left of the chieftain is a tall woman wearing a long peplos and carrying a tray of fruit who approaches the couple, who is most likely the Snake-Goddess, who in the Letnitsa Treasure holds a twig over Bendis and Zis during their hierogamy. The chieftain's gesture is similar to that of Zeus drawing Hera to him from a metope from Selinus, and represents the royal rank of the chieftain which he acquired by his union with his deified wife who has been assimilated with the goddess Bendis in the presence of the Snake-Goddess foremother. The phiale he holds in his hand was a symbol of investiture, and which therefore linked the hierogamy with the royal investiture.^[6]

The veneration of the king's burial site continued after the funeral, sacrifices were offered near the tumuli on festival days. therefore, the builders made the tombs as accessible as possible, such as a pyramidal Thracian tomb near the village of Tatul where steps were carved into the rock so worshippers could climb to the top and pay homage to the members of the royal family buried there, and the Odrysian burial complex in the Eastern Rhodope Mountains below the Thracian fortress on Mount Saint Marina, where a staircase cut into the rock led straight to the tomb of the deified chieftain which was located at a considerable height. The many Thracian tombs were always built in high locations so they would face the Sun all day, hence uniting the chthonian and solar cults within themselves, and thus embodying the oneness of the king and the Hero Zis.^[6]

Boar sculpture from the Thracian tomb of Mezek

Statues of the dead rulers were erected atop their tumuli, and a group of sculptures representing the Hero Zis's boar hunt were placed at the entrance of the Thracian tomb of Mezek.^[6]