Alexander Fol Interpretatio Thracica

7/30/2019 Alexander Fol Interpretatio Thracica

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The Journal OfINDO-EUROPEAN

STUDIES VELIZAR VELKOV

Ancient Settlements i1l Thrace ........................ 194 ALEXANDER FOL HRISTO M. DANOV Interpraetatio Thracica . .................... . . . ...... 217

Some Characteristic Moments in Thraco -Greek Relations During the Pre-Roman Period ......................... 231

GEORGI MIHAILOV IVAN VENEDIKOV Some Problems of Th rae ian Mythology Qlld Religion .

......... 241 Thracian Art . ................................... . 249

J.P. MALLORY EDGAR C. POLOME ALFRED BAMMESBERGER FREDERIK KORTLANDT LEO A. CON OLL Y TOM M.S. PRlESTLY KENNETH SHIELDS T.L.MARKEY

Proto-Indo-European and Kurgan Fauna II: Fish . ............ 263 Celto-Germanic Isoglosses (Revisited) . ........... . ...... 281 The Aorist Optative of a-Roots in Sanskrit . ... . ............ 299 ProtoIndo-European Verbal Syntax . .............. . . .... 307 Germanic r-Preterites ... _......................... . 325 On 'Drift'in Indo-European Gender Systems . . . . ........... 339 The Hittite First Person Singu/(:r Imperative Suffix -Iu ......... 365 English dog I Germanic hound ....................... . . 373

ERIC P. RAMP IE *meHenot- and the Perfect Participle . ................. 379

Volume 11, Numbers 3 & 4 Fall/Winter 1983


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INTERPRAETATIO THRACICA

ALEXANDER FOLSofia University

Th e Thrac ian culture was judged by alien, mostly Greek and Roman,criteria for years. The author gives a seri es of examples of false interpretations . The revaluation of anc ient Thracian culture with the helpof a more tho rough study of a var iety of sources - archaeological,linguistic, epigraphic, an d numismatic.

The beginning of research in the field of the history ofancie nt Thrace was laid down before the Paris Academie desInscriptions et Belles Lettres by M. Cary in his report on theThracian and Bosphorus kings identified by their coins. (1)The report, dated 1756, marks the starting point of the moreth an 200 year long development of Thracologic research, whichenjoyed particularly remarkable success at the end of the19th century with the Austrian historiograp hic and linguisti cschool. (2)

The high esteem which the contemporary scientist bears forhis predecessors cannot suppress his discontent with the methodolo gical points at issue in their works. From a theo reticalpoint of view, fascinated as they were by the splendour of theHellenic civilization then bein g discovered, the scientists of theprecedin g generations could not overcome their simplisticnotion of the "barbaric periphery" of the antique culturalcenters, in which Thrace, together with other territories in theMediterranean basin and Europe, was included. (3) Froma methodological point of view, they made full use of theresults from the study of the Greco-Roman antiquity, verifyingthrough them the data on Thrace ; thus, the basic processesof the essentially Thracian historical development, its periodization, etc. - the main aspects of Thracian culture - werejudged by alien criter ia. (4) After World War II the necessary

( I i tv!. Cary, Histoire des rois de Thra ce et de ceux du Bosphore Cimmerien,eclaircie par les medailles, Paris, 1757.(2) Cf. Chr. Danov, Criti cal o utline of the historiograph y for Bulgaria in antiqui ty before the 9.9 .1944: 1. Annuary o f the Faculty o f History and Philology ofthe University of Sofia, 57, 2 (19 64); 8-20, 23-37 (with lit. in Bulgarian).(3) Cf. A. Fol, The Thracological Researches in Bulgaria, in Problems of theBulgarian Historiography after the Second World War, Sofia, 1973: 150, with lit.(in Bulgarian).(4) Cf. A. Fol, General Into duction, in A. Fol. I. Marozov 's, Thrace and Thra-cians, Cassel-London (1977): 9-13.


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218 JOURNAL OF INDO-EUROPEAN STUDIESconditions gradually appeared for a fundamental revaluationof Thracian historiography. (5)

It is evident that the equal scientific value of the history ofancient Thrace can be exactly demonstrated by the complexmethod of analysis of the data obtainable from all sources.Of course the complex method here implies primarily interdisciplinary study, i.e. the confrontation of information extracted from written sources, archaeological, linguistic, epigraphic, and numismatic data. Generally speaking, the interdisciplinary method of research is not a novelty in contemporary science, although its use is comparatively late in Thracian studies. (6)The complication here arises from the specific circumstancethat the Thracians left no literature. As we shall try to showlater, Thracian ideology and religion are built on the conceptof the interaction and equilibrium of the solar (Orphic) andchthonic (Dionysian) elements. Thracian culture was oral,im pressed on the consciousness by implications of the worlddoctrine. Thus Theopompus and Jorc1an tell how the Geticnotables, dressed in white, melodeclaim accompanied by aguitar, even when conducting war negotiations. (7) The men,who left their arms at the entrance and stepped into the sacredhall to become the heroes of a legend, (8) look like their greatteachers, of whom we know the names of two - Orpheus andZalmoxis. I f we assume that Pythagoras in southern Italy wasthe last representative of the great teachers and the creatorof the Hellenic philosophic and literary variant of ThracianOrphism, we will understand why he left no writings; theassumption that the writings of Pythagoras have been lost isbased on the modern presumption that he could not do otherw1se than record his teachings. But the Orphic, bearer of anaristocratic teaching, did not feel an inner necessity to do so.

Writing is, of course, a manifestation of ethnic self-consciousness and of a state building. I t is evident that the large

(5) Fo r Thrace d . A. Fol, Political History of the Thracians, Sofia (1972):9-10, with lit. (in Bulgarian).(6) Symposium International Sur L'ethnogen'ese des Peuples Balkaniques,Plovdiv, IV (1969): 23-28. Cf. L'ethnogenese des peup!es balkaniques, in : StudiaBalcanica 5, Sofia, 1971.(7) F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker I-III, Berlin-Leiden,1954; hereinafter FGrHist. Jacoby, F. GrHist. I, 115, F: 216; Kaibe!, Athen, XIV,24: 627 doe, Mommsen, lord. Getica 65.(8) FGrHist. I (Con) F: 45.


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INTERPRAETATID THRACICA 219Thracian nation had not attained that degree of a commonidentification_ The feelings of individuals were of belongingto a particular tribe. (9) As it is, the objective side of the Thra-cian culture, the one we usually call "material culture," remainsmute. Even the Thracian inscriptions on stone, pottery, rhy-thons and phialae, with few exceptions - when they containpersonal names - will never be deciphered. (10) This failurewill be due not alone to linguistics, but mainly to the vaguenessof the phonetic and morphologic structure of the language andthe poverty of its preserved vocabulary. This failure is directlyattributable to the character of the Thracian ideology andreligions, in which the inscriptions play the role of sacredformulae, linking the solar together with the chthonic begin-nings; the only thing we can say about them is that they areroyal or sacerdo tal form ulae and oracles.

Therefore, interdisciplinary research into Thracian antiquityincludes, beside the confrontation of different data fromdifferent sources, one most important operation: to overcomethe distortion of the actual situation in Thrace, entirely aliento the Greek or Latin observer, and at the same time, theanalysis of an sorts of data outside the actually traditional"Hellenic (Latin) interpretation."(ll)

The extension of the problem concerning the sources orcontents of the Interpraetat io Thracica would look as follows:

1) Which sources are more useful to Thracian history, theones referring to calendar facts, or the ones dealing with histori-cal facts (processes and phenomena)?

2) I f the latter are more useful, then the whole system ofdata given by the sources about Thracian history will representhypotheses advancing each other and resulting from one another;

3) I f that is so, then any single source whatever it s nature,will carry little weight. It gains importance only when juxta-posed to others, i.e. when interdisciplinary method is applied,together with the principle of chronologie stratigraphy (group-ing the data by epochs), and the principle of rejecting theGreek and Roman interpretations.

(9) A. Fol, Political History 36; idem., Thrace and the Balkans in the EarlyHellenistic Period, Sofia (1975) (in Bulgarian).(10) Cf. V. Georgiev, The Thracians and Their Language, Sofia (1977): 105-151

(in Bulgarian).( I I ) Fol & Marazov, op. cit.,: II.


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220 JOURNAL OF INDO-EUROPEAN STUDIES

1. Written sources (codes , texts, schoLiae).The Greek and Roman authors, reporting calendar facts

of Thracian history are, on the whole, either ve rifiable oracceptable. But the fragments treating historical events orcharacterizing processes cannot be acc epted literally. That iswhy w e must begin by checking the codes of the authors whohave not yet been studied for the purposes of Thracian history.The variant readings have not been admitted in scientificpractice, for in the commented editions the Thracian personal,local, and theoforic names stand as seen and established bytheir first editors from the Greek language point of view. Theywere accepted by scientists after W. Tomaschek and have notsince been ch alienged.(12) The present pr(lctice is to checkthe codes, estab lish the different readings, and choose the mostprobable of them from the position of modern knowledge inThracology.

The review of the codes begins with the names of th e Thracian tribes. Herodotus, for instance, mentions (13) that thetrib e, living uphill Apollonia (the actual Sozopol) is called"LKvPllLaJjaL, which in the different read ings appears also as"LKVPj.1WVOL. During the 4th century B.C., in Eudoxes, it iscalled "LKVj.1VLCL


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221NTERPRAETA TIO THRACICAof the Agrianes, the Laeaei, and other P aeo nian tribes), theethnonymic A'Ypw..VEr:; became highl y doubtful. Instead th ereappeared the ethnonymic vpawi. (16) The different readingslead to considerable consequen ces in Thracian ethnonymic andtopon y mic stud y . Actually it would see m a probable ass umption th at the name 'Agrianes' mentioned by Arrian in hisdescription o f Alex and er's expedition in Thrace in 33 5 B.C.results from a shady literary tradition. The establishment ofsuch a tradition in litera ture in this case is eas y enough, foraccording to the Greek popular etymology A gr ianes means"people from th e plain" and h elps the reader.

Immediatel y, howe ver, there arises the problem of the nameof th e river 'A'YPuiv17r:; (the ac tual Ergene, confluent of th eMarica Ri ver) to gether w ith the problem of the ethnonymic .The extant hypothesis th at the migratin g o[ the Agrianes tothe east, thus gave their name to the river, becomes dubious .Finally, the question whether the ethn onymic of the Agrianesshould remain among the other Thracian trib al names pre sentsitself, as well as the problem of th e new ethnonymic map o[the high course of the Strum a River and th e lands between itand the Ri ver Vardar.

In sp eaking of Thracian toponymies, it should be mentionedthat Thracian names o f localiti es still ex ist, as co nfirmed b ythe compendium o[ D. Detsc hev ; they are easily identifiableeven when they are hapaxes. According to Theopompus(17),Philip I I m et Coty s I in Thrace in the spring of 359 B.C . at alocality nam ed Onoca rsis, in Thrace. The ed itors of the Greeksourc es [or Thrac ian histo ry (1949) loca te this meeting inwestern Thrace, presumin g it to lie somewhere near the borderof th e two kin gd oms which ran along the Strum a River. (18)But 'OvoKapa[\ is a h ap ax, an d it is encoun tered in the codesalso as '0 vOKapoLr:;; such is the case with 'OvapLr:; = ' 0 NapLr:; ,a Bysaltia n slave in Cardia, leader of the assault agains t thetown.(19 ) Furthe rmo re, while -Kapa a\ is a stable compon entin Thracian onomastics, ava-Iva- is not. Bu t it is entirely admissi

(16) Thuc. II, 96 : 3 in : R. Weil & L. Bodina's J. de R omiliy . Paris. 1953- 197 2:LI.

(17) FGrHist 1.115, F: 31; Athen . X II,42: 53 1e-532a.(18) Sources for the History and Geography of the Ancient Thrace and Mace-donia. Sofia, n. 62 (1949): 3 71 (in Bulgarian).( 19) Charon in Athen. XII, 52 0 d-f (cf. Muller FHistGr 1. F 9: 34). The readingNa ris is to Kaibel.


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222 JOURNAL Of INDO-EUROPEAN STUDIESble to se e in it the conupted mo - in 1l0K a-/1l0LO which is a Thracian onomast ic element. (20) Thus, 'OVOKapOl':: = MOKEPOO(;'PO,in the different readings. By this process we arrive at a name ofa locality (later Mocasura on the Via Egnatia) fac ing the actualChorloo.(21) Thus, Mocasura appears squarely inside thedomain of Cotys, near his main res idence Hieron Oros (the Sacred Mounta in ). The distance between ivlo scaura and Phillips'sstarting point on the lovv er course of the Struma Ri ver is about400 km . along the coast. This distance coincides \vith th estatement of Theopompu s about the duration of th e j ourney ofthe Macedonian king - he reached the place of the rendez-vousafter three days' ride on horseback.

These changes lead necessar il y to a new understanding ofthe his toric situation in Thrac e. And by virtue of the analyzedinstances to the foll owing conclusions: First, the summedup data of the Greek and Latin sources have created an eth-nonymic reality . Second, this ethnonymic reality does notcoincide w ith the ethnic situation as well - because of the lateappearanc e of tribal names an d because o f the erroneous transcriptions. As the literature demonstrates, the act ual anal ys isaims at discovering the lo ca lization of the genuine tribal unionsunder the eth nonymics of the Th rac ian lands. (22) The "Thracian interpretat ion " approach creates a new problem: to deaJwith the disposition of the tribes even then different in eachof the great epochs of Thracian history. (23)

The problem with the codes ap plies also to Thracian religion. In Herodotus, the famous Getaean king/priest/prophet Zalmaxis is qualifi ed as TE(3EA.EtSLV, a hapax in all the literature. The epithet, or in this case, the second of the double name of Zalmoxis is explained by Kretschmer fE!3EAE == ~ E I l E A E = ZajJ. oA as signifying first of all "man" and second , "master, king". (24) Asi de fro m the fact that Kretschmer's reading is most convenient for the modern interpretation of the Thracian

(2 0) Cf. Detschew, op. cit.: 3 10, 312 f.(21) Tab. Peu t . 8, 5.(22) A. Fo l, Ethnical an d e thno nym ical reality in Thrace, in : A. FoL & T. Spiridonov's Historical Geography of the Thracian Tribes to the I I I B.C., Sofia (\978):

Chap. VI. (in Bulgarian) .(23) Cf. the out line by A. Fol , Monuments and Tribes, in : The klegalithicsin Thrace (Thrac ian Monuments I), Sofia (1976): 1630 (in Bulgarian) .(24) Her. IV , 94. The explanation s. in Detschew's op . cit.: 100, with the lit.Another based on Nebeleizis s. in C. Pogh irc's Considerations Philologiques et linqu is-tiques sur Gebeleizis, Thracia II , Sofia , (1974): 357-360.


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223NTERPRAETATIO THRACICA

religion and especially for th e legend of Zalmoxis, one finds inthe codes the different readings 3 E A i ~ w , f 3 E A i ~ ~ v , N E f 3 E A f i ~ w .

These variants, particul arly the latter, cas t doubts on Kretschmer's interpretation and suggest possibilities of a differentexplanation. As in the case of e thn onym ics and toponymiesthe different readings of the theoforic names offer two possiblein terp retations.

When Herodotus travelled the western shore of the Pontus,probably reaching Olbi a, he obta in ed his information concerning Zalmoxis from the Ionian co lonists on the Getaean coast.The latter, having been taught that Zalm oxis impersonates theGetaean faith in the imm orta lity of th e soul, had constructedtheir own interpretation of his doctrine to conform with thatof Pythagoras'. Thus was born the Ion ian story that Zalmoxiswas a slave and a disciple of Pythagoras. (25) But the parallelwas fallacious, for it is well-established that the Getae believed,not in the immortality of the sou l, but in immortality in general.That is why the epithets transmitted to us, according to the"Gree k interpretat ions" of Zalm oxis must be accepted withutmost care.

Neither is the proble m of the texts definitely solved. As hasalready been stressed, they can by no means be acceptedliterally , but must be su bmitted to "Thracian interpreta tions."For instance, according to a fragment in Herodotus, commentedon man y times, the Thracians worshipped Ares, Artemis, andDionysos; and the kings, apart from their people - Herm es,whose descendents they were . (26) But analysis shows thatthe Thracian pantheon remained alien to Herodotus. Thraciangods were unknown to him, or els e he wrongly impersonatedthem on the basis of the insi gnia of the most popular Greekdivinities.

Similarly, Sophocles in "Tere us" exclaims: "Oh Helios,god of the horse-loving Thracians!" (27) Helios was neverworshipped by the Thracians. Sophocles has Grecicized th eircult of the sun, in a sense natural for him. But because t heThracians were known as horsebreeders and their way of li fewas connected with war and hunting, and because in the Greek

(25) D. Popov, Thrace of the King Priests and God Kings, in: A. Foi, & r. Venedikov, & I. Marazov, & D. Popov 's Thracian Legends, Sofia (i 9 7 7): 77-82).(26) Her. V, 7.(27) Soph. Ter. fr o523 (Pearso n ).


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mythology horses were an attribute of Helios, Sophocles hasassociated the two traditions_

Still more complicated is the study of those texts wherethe authors do not mention either Thrace, or the Thracians,but which can successfully be used for analysis. Thucidydesin his "Archaeology" painting the pre-Hellenic world of Hellasas he puts it - up to and after the Trojan war - hints at characteristic features of Thracian antiquity. (28)

Although he attributes some of them to the Pelasgians,others to the Carians, those fe atures are identical with or relatedto Thracian ways of life, religious practice , ritual, armament,and settlement system. Hence, one finds the relics of theconventionally so-called Pelasg ian side of Hellas in Thraceat the time of written history - facts which strongly supportthe existence of a Thraco-pelasgi an community, on the basis oflinguistics(29) of ethn oculture. This community has left tracesin the northern part of the continent. Parallels between thecustoms of the Tyrceneans and the Thraco-pelasgians (31)and between the Thrac ian ways of life and the Thessalian (32)were noted by Herodotus. (30)

The link between Thessaly and Thrac e becomes more easilyperceptible on ideologic and religious grounds, the most reliablesign o f cultural kinship. According to one remarkable piece ofinform ation found in Theopompus,(33) in earliest times theThessalians divided themselves into T E T a x w p ~ T a L . That coincides with Strabo, who says that the Bessoi were T T P e X p ~ T a Land also TETpaKW/-LoL. (34) This indirect information becomes,through the "Thracian interpretation," highly valuable withregard to the Thracian religion, the ro ots of which are tobe sought in the pre-Hellenic Pelasgian period which coversThessaly. Thessaly itself is directly connected \vith the Thracianand Pelasgian enclaves to the north, in Chalcidique and at themouths of the rivers Struma and Vardar, as well as with the

(28) A. Fol, Greek Literary Sources of the Thracian History III, Annuary of theFa culty ofHistory o f th e University of Sofia 58, Sofia (1978) (in BUlgarian).

(29) 11'1. Sakellariou, Peuples prehelleniques d'origine Indo-Europeenn e, Athens,(1977): 28,4 7, with the lit.(30) Her. 1,5 7: 1-3.(31) FGrHist. I, lIS , F: 204.

(32) Ibid. f,49.(33) Ibid. F, 208 , with mentions to Hellanic us, Aristotheles, and Demosthenes.(34) Strabo, VII fr. 58 a (Loel). The same notion in FGr.Hist. I, II 5, F: 217.


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INTERPRAETATIO THRACICA 225northern coast of the Bay of Corinth (Delphes) and southernRhodopes (the temple of Dionysus). In Thessaly we find thebasic Thracian elements syncretized in Greek mythology andreligion .

The quadruple division has a very old religious base. Itreflects the 4-way cycled religious conception of the world inthe pre-Hellenic period which survived in Thrace up to thetime of written history . This cycle represents the goddessmother/son-lover hierogamy =(new) son-lover. It is projectedthrough the religion in the cycle of self-perfection of theinitiated (members of the secret religious Orphic societies).The initiate himself, taking the path of self-perfection, turnsinto an anthropodaemon and then into a god to become worthyof the goddess-mother. (35)

The study of the scholiae is still in an initial stage. To dateonly some scholiae, discovered by chance by the investigators,have been subjected to scientific precedure; but these areisolated cases. (36) Needless to say, they contain most interesting data; even more, the scholiae appear late with respectto the author and remain part of the whole literary traditionof the antiquity of a particular source. The importance of thescholiae is increased by the fact that they begin, generallyspeaking, in the late Hellenistic period. In the near future,the texts and the scholiae will be studied in their entiretychiefly by the method of chronologie stratigraphy, in orderto discover and analyze the superimposed data about Thrace.2. Historic and Archaeologic Sources

The interpretation of the Thracian archaeologic materialis much more complicated than the Hellenic and will continueto be until it is clearly accepted that the existing conventionalchronologie and typologie schemes of the Hellenic pre-classicand classic art, including the fine arts and ceramics, are subjectsfor re-examination, possibly reVISIOn. But that is anotherproblem.

The interpretation of the Thracian archaeologic materialcannot be exhausted solely by the Greek interpretation, i.e.,by parallels drawn between it and the material evidence from

(35) D. Popov, op. cit. : 92-103 .(36) An outline by Z. Lazova, Homerus and Homerus' scholiae as sources o fthe Thracian History (diss. Institu te of Thracology, Sofia, 1977, in Bulgarian ).


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226 JOURNAL OF INDO-EUROPEAN STUDIESthe circle of the Hellenic civilization. Thracian monumentsshould be compared first to the Anatolian, then to the Scythian,only last to the Hellenic: then with those which have a geneticlink with Asia Minor; m ore precisely, with monuments fromthe so-called Irani an cultural circle. This is now being done. (37)

Learning the sources represents the first stage of analysis;the second stage is a more complicated analysis of the ideological and religious meaning of the objects and their semanticphases in order to discover the concepts of the people, concerning the world as represented by the objects of the materi alculture. (38)And this attempt must be made in the speechless Thraceof symbols. Some examples:

Thracian archaeology constantly runs across an extraordinaryfact: all known Thracian roy al treasures, or rather treasuresconsisting of objects with the insignia of royal authority rhytons, phialae, amphorae, amphora-rhytons, etc. - werefound by chance at very shallow depths usually when workingthe land. Such is the case of the treasures from Vulcitran,Panaguriste, Ruse (Rousse), Letnica, etc. The consensus atpresent is that the small depths at which they were found isdue to the haste of burying them, i.e. their royal owner washurrying to escape an invader or enem y. In my opinion, however, this is m ere nonsense; a tribal chief forced to escape willbefore all else take with him all the gold treasure he owns ifonly to pay his mercenaries; by no means will he bury it in aDat insecure place without a landm ark.

In his Scythian logos Herodotus says (39), that the Scythianking offered royal gifts to the Great Goddess, the Motherearth; they lie upon her and sleep with her. In this way the kingsee ks the religious mating with the Goddess-Earth-mother;that union, the hierogamy should be assumed for the Thraciankings too. (40) It is predictable that the rhytons, the phialae,and other royal paraphernalia - the attributes of the investiture - will always be found at small depth. They are gifts to

(37) 1. Venedikov, T. Gerassimov, The Thracian Art, Sofia, 1973 (in Bulgarian);idem, Dolmens (Chap. III) and Rock Tombs (Chap. IV) in: The Megalithics in Thrace:76-127.(38) Cf. for instance 1. Marazov, Th e hierogamy from Letniza, Archaeology,XVIII, 4 (1976); 1-13 (in Bulgarian).

(39) Her. IV, 7: 2.(40) Cf. n. 38.


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INTERPRAETATIO THRACICA 227the Goddess-mother with which she will initiate to power andauthority her son and lover. One may firmly state that wherethe treasures lay, there the king passed his fateful night; withhis own hands he has buried these treasures. That is why thephialae and the rhytons in Thrace are so numerous, and theirnumber will certainly increase with time.

Helios is not worshipped by the horse-loving Thracians, asSophocles thought, for the solar cult is an essential trait of theThracian religion and particularly of the beliefs connected withself-perfection, i.e . the gradual transformation of man intoan anthropodaemon and god. (41) The practice of the solarcult was for the common people; self-perfection, as a projection of the solar cult was reserved for the aristocracy (thepriestkings). Herodotus' famous fragment about the Temenidoiwho moved from Argos to Illyria and served in the court of theking, gives the best idea of that. When the king, unwilling topay the three brothers for their work, foolishly gave themas recompense a spot on the floor made by a sun ray. Theyoungest, Perdica, outlined the spot with his knife and symbolically grabbed the sunlight. Then he left and founded thekingdom of Macedonia. (42)

Graffitti discovered on the rocky surfaces of a plateau inPangey mountain illustrate this concept. (43) The authorof the published graffitti remarks that such solar discs carriedon poles are to be seen even today on village feast days in theregion of the Pangey. (44) On the cliffs, which form the naturaldefensive line of the Paleocastro fortress (near Topolovgrad)were found more than 160 solar circles within 1.5 km.; someare convex, others concave, still others are surrounded by rays.The cliffs face east and northeast, as does the massive stoneidol found there. The head which surmounts the body projecting from the ground resembles a solar disk. (45)All this historic and archaeologic data cannot be dated to asingle period, of course, nor even to a single epoch. I t givesthe character of the Thracian solar, i.e., royal cult - the pure

(41) Cf. n. 35. (42) Her. VIII, 137.(43) N.K. Moutsopoulos, Les graffites du Pangaion, in In Memoriam Panayotis

A. Michelis, Athens (1971): 482489, fig. 15.(44) According to N.K. Moutsopoulos.(45) I. Venedikov, Fortress in Strandja and Sakar Mountains, in: The Mega

lithics in Thrace: 159160.


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228 JOURNAL OF INDO-EUROPEAN STUDIESThracian Orphism of centuries - from pre-Pythagorian timesto the end of the 6th century B.C. Though later modified, thecult does not disappear throughout the entire pre-Romanepoch.

This cult inspired the production of the numerous hewnniches and burial chambers in the cliffs of the eastern Rhodopes.At this time, the only rock necropolei, known and documentedare trapezoidal niches near the town Ardino and in the localitycalled the Deaf Stones (Gluchite camani) near Ivailovgrad,in the valley of the Arda River. (46) These necropolei, togetherwith the burial chambers near the village of Tatul, Departmentof Karjali, are typical Orphic centers, exposed to the sun anddominating the environment. Similar necropolei found byarchaeological field surveys in the valley of the Arda River,are yet to be published, (47) The shepherds of the easternRhodopes in Greece still call such places - cliffs with nichesand chambers - "Orphica hestia."(48)

At this point, we could attempt to draw parallels from theposition of actually familiar monuments and registered characteristics, among them the statuette of a deer found accidentallynear Sevlievo. I t has been dated to the 7th century B.C. becauseof its geometric shape (as the geometric style was developed inHellas just after the 8th century B.C. the statuette is dated bycomparison with the finest Hellenic specimens). But the geometric style, or rather the style of geometrization has a long historyoutside Hellas. The Hellenic geometric style is a development ofthe Anatolian and penetra ted into Europe through the Greekcities along the shore of Asia Minos. Furthermore, the sculpturediscovered by James Mellaart at Catal-Huyuk (7th millenniumB.C.) coincides in the posture, silhouette, and horns with thedeer-statuette from Sevlievo. (49) This coincidence, however,does not necessarily demand revision of the dating. The mainpoint is that the parallel cited above is not an isolated case. (50)The latest linguistic observations have shown the close relationship between the conventionally so-called "Hi tti te" and theThracian linguistic regions, both lying close to Troada. Some

(46) Ibid.: 82-109 .(47) Idem, The Megalithicsin ThraceII, Sofia, 1979.(48) According to N. K. Moutsopoulos.(49) Cf. all the problem in Brinna Otto, Geomethrische Ornamente auf anatolischer Keramik, Cap. IV, Mainz, 19 76.(50) The analysis by Venedikov, The Thracio.n Art,: 31.


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INTERPRAETA TlO THRACICA 229basic aspects of the spiritual culture in both regions are close,if not identical - primarily, the divinities (theoforic names).One such theoforic name of Hittite origin which passed intothe Thracian language and thence into other Indo-Europeanlanguages is the name Elia. (51) Elia is the god of heaven; intime he received a specific impersonation, but in the ThracoAnatolian zone he has the typical attributes. One of them is thedeer which appears in all Bulgarian popular legends dedicated toSt. Elia's day. Consequently, in its ideological and religiousaspects the geometricised statuette of the deer carries morecomplex implications than those of the Hellenic world alone.Similar problems face the scientist dealing with mass materialsuch as, for instance, the vow tablets with the Thracian horseman. They first appear, although rarely, during the Hellenistic period and become particularly abundant during Romanepochs. (52) It is the consensus that since the Thracian horseman is similar from an iconographic point of view to the GrecoRoman reliefs and is called, aside from the epithets, by theGreek name Heros, he should be subject to the same interpretation as the Hellenic horseman. I f this "Greek interpretation"is not attacked - especially as there are no written data on thegod-horseman - a Hellenic model entirely alien to it will beimposed on the Thracian religion.

Traditional classic philology hardly copes with linguisticsand general historic situations incompatible with this model.For instance, among the heavily damaged inscriptions of th eThraco-pelasgian temple of the Kabyrians on the island ofSamothrace one reads IN-. Without taking into considerationthe historic and archaeologic data about the Thracian religionand the character of the Kabyrian cult on the island of whichwe learn from Herodo tus, (57) strict linguistic analysis gives usIN = Zeus. Thus one gets a general personification of asupreme male divinity in Thrace(54) based on a rejected schemeof th e Indo-European trinity of father-m other-child. (55) This

(51) V.N. Toporov, To the Ba lkan parallels of Hitt. Purulliia-, Lat . Parilia, Paliliaand others, in : Antic Balkanistics , 2 Mo scow 1975: 32-38 (in Russian).

(52) M. Operman, To the chronology and classification of the monuments of theThracian rider from type A, Archaeology XV, 3 (1973): 1-13 (in Bulgarian).

(53) Her. II, 51: 1-2 and II, 51 : 3-4.(54) V. Georgiev, op. cit.: 143-144.(55) A. Fo!. The symbolic tomb from Kasicene, distri c t of Sofia, Les Arts 30

(1975) fase. 3-4 : 11-13 ( in Bulgarian).


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230 JOURNAL OF INDOEUROPEAN STUDIESscheme does not exist in Thracian religions anymore thandoes a supreme male divinity of the type of Zeus. Such apossibility is out of the question in the temple of the mysterious Kabyrians, whose cult does not admit it, and in whosepantheon the name of Zeus does not appear. The idea ofsupremacy remains unknown in the Thracian religion. Theidea fragments from Samothrace may contain only appelations - epithets or exorcising formulae.

For Sophocles the horse is a companion to the solar divinity.But in the Thracian religion with its fundamentally royal cult,the IndoEuropean idea that the Sun ascends on a horse or in achariot pulled by horses is connected with the king's reincarnation as anthropodaemon and as son and lover of the Goddessmother. The horse is a royal (solar) animal, taking part in thereligious and political identification of the king as priest andgod. The horse is a constant companion of the initiate, andtogether with him takes part in the trials of valor (the royalhunt) through which he ascends in rank.(56) Thus, the Thracian horse of the tablets is not the Hellenic Heros, but thestandard of the anthropodaemon, with different appelationsin the different parts of Thrace. These are theoforic names.That is why the horseman appears on royal rings even beforethe Hellenistic period, i.e. before the beginning of its newiconogTaphic representation. So the iconography of the lateHellenistic and Roman epochs now lose significance, for ithas evidently been adapted by the population as a comfortable and practical form at the time of the syncretism. In anycase, the deer and the horse are not only solar attributes (androyal animals) in the Orphic way. They also fulfill the connection with the earth, they incorporate chthonic elements . Thecycle of reviving nature is closed at last, and man, self-perfectedthrough the trial of valor attains his balance. (57)

(56) Cf. n. 38.(57) This method of Thracian interpretation will be included in its entirety in

the prepared monography "Res Gestae Tribium Thracicarum".

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Alexander Fol Interpretatio Thracica

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