Moesica Et Christiana 2016_Zoe Petre. Immortality, pagan and Christian

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MOESICA ET CHRISTIANAStudies in Honour of Professor Alexandru Barnea

Edited by Adriana Panaite, Romeo Cîrjan and Carol Căpiţă

muzeul brăilei “carol i”brăila editura istros2016


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Descrierea CIP a Bibliotecii Naţionale a României

Omagiu. Barnea, Alexandru

Moesica et Christiana : studies in honour of professor Alexandru Barnea / ed.: Adriana Panaite,

Romeo Cîrjan, Carol Căpiţă. - Brăila : Editura Istros a Muzeului Brăilei “Carol I”, 2016

ISBN 978-606-654-181-7

I. Panaite, Adriana (ed.)

II. Cîrjan, Romeo (ed.)

III. Căpiţă, Carol (ed.)

082.2


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Professor Alexandru Barnea


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Foreword13

Publications list of Prof. Alexandru Barnea15

Tabula gratulatoria23

General abbreviations25

Ad multos annos! Alexandru Suceveanu †

27

I. VARIA EPIGRAPHICA ET ARCHAEOLOGIcA

1. MOESICA

Divinités attestées dans l’épigraphie du territoire tomitain (Ier-IIIe siècles après -J. C.)Maria Bărbulescu · Livia Buzoianu

33

Three epigraphic monuments from DurostorumPeti Donevski · Radu Ardevan

47

On the funerary altar of Valerius Firmus, veteran of legio V Macedonica , in Troesmis (ISM V, 196)Cristina-Georgeta Alexandrescu

57

Diplômes militaires - carrières équestres : le cas de Flavius FlavianusLucreţiu Mihailescu-Bîrliba · Iulia Dumitrache

67

Considerations concerning child’s place in the Roman society between the Danube and the Black SeaDan Aparaschivei

75

About the Roman Frontier on the Lower Danube under TrajanOvidiu Ţentea

85

Image of the castrum of the I Italica on the Column of Trajan: fiction or archaeological reality?Piotr Dyczek

95

The Knidian ware from BulgariaGergana Kabakchieva

111

Graves in Moesia Inferior with strigils as grave-goodsLiana Oţa

125

contents


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The Terrritory of CallatisNicolae Alexandru

139

Obiecte din fier descoperite la Edificiul cu mozaic din Tomis(Iron objects discovered at the mosaic floored building from Tomis)

Irina Nastasi153

Tropaeum Traiani from civitias the municipium, a hypothesis Adriana Panaite

163

Despre cercetările arheologice din cartierul romano-bizantin (sector sud-C1) de la Tropaeum Traiani(About the archaeological research from the Roman-Byzantine district (sector South-C1)

from Tropaeum Traiani)

Gabriel Talmaţchi · Constantin Şova 173

An Early Byzantine Building Next to the Main Gate at CapidavaIoan C. Opriş · Alexandru Raţiu

193

Roman amphorae discovered at NiculiţelDorel Paraschiv

219

The deposition of statues from Tomis: Relic of a religious war or sacred abandonment?Silviu Anghel

233

Apollodoro di Damasco ideatore del piano architettonico del monumento di Tropaeum Traiani?Ipotesi interpretative

Anca Cezarina Fulger 247

Revisiting the Late Antique countryside Alina Muşat Streinu

253

The roof tiles found at Açik Suhat - Caraburun (Baia, Tulcea County, Romania). Preliminary results Alexandra Dolea

259

Munera in Moesia InferiorMarius-Cristian Streinu

265

Despre valurile transdobrogene(About the Transdobroudjan valla)

Gheorghe Papuc271

Sur les traces de Pamfil Polonic à MangaliaRobert Constantin

277


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The municipal law of Troesmis: preliminary remarksRomeo Cîrjan

289

Les commencements de la flotte mesiqueOctavian Bounegru

301

Further considerations on the votive reliefs of the Thracian HorsemanDiliana Boteva

309

Regăsirea antichităţii pe frontul din Cadrialter:cu Vasile Pârvan pe şantierul arheologic de la Disi-Puda

Iulian Stelian Boţoghină 321

2. DACICA

Immortality, pagan and christianZoe Petre

331

Un Dace dans une inscription de NarbonnaiseC. C. Petolescu

339

Manus Dei in the Dacian milieu?

Silviu Sanie341

Römische Lampen als Votivgaben in Dakien. Mit besonderem Hinblick auf TibiscumDoina Benea

355

A ceramic mould from RomulaBondoc-Popilian

367

Supply and consumption of terra sigillata in Roman Dacia during the Severan dynasty Viorica Rusu-Bolindeț

379

3. CHRISTIANA

À propos de martyrium de St. Loup de Novae (Svichtov)Georgi Atanasov

413

Basilica no. 1 from NovaeM. Čičikova

421


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The early christian mosaics in the episcopal basilica of Odessos (late 4th-early 7th c. AD) Alexander Minchev

431

Piese creştine descoperite în DobrogeaCristina Talmaţchi · Gabriel Custurea

445

Vase de tip ploscă descoperite recent în Dobrogea (sec. VI p. Chr.)Florin Topoleanu

455

Decretul Ekthesis al împăratului Heraclius (638):contextul emiterii, traducere, comentariu şi receptare

Remus Feraru463

4. VARIA

Aspects de la plastique de la culture Gumelniţa:pièces de mobilier et d’autres éléments de ritual

Mirela Vintilă · Marian Neagu481

Marginalien zu griechisch beschrifteten Schleudergeschossen (III) Alexandru Avram

489

The Peutinger map, the Antonine Itinerary and the Roman roadfrom Singidunum to ViminaciumFlorin Gheorghe Fodorean

495

Ungewöhnliche Grabungsbefundeim Umfeld des spätrömischen Kaiserpalastes Romuliana-Gamzigrad (Ostserbien)

Gerda von Bülow 505

Alexander the Great in the Persian legends: from Alexander of Macedon to Sikandar.The circulation of mythical topoi between the Greek Alexander romance and Firdousi’s Shah-Nameh

Dan Tudor Ionescu

523

II. STUDIA HISTORICA

Despre vultur ca prevestitor și însoțitor al deminității de împărat în Imperiul roman și cel bizantinTudor Teoteoi

537

Considerations regarding the Venetian chronicleascribed to Marco and its copy from the 16th century

Șerban Marin

545


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Tiran şi tiranie la cumpăna secolelor XVI şi XVIITyrant and tyranny at the turn of the centuries XVI and XVII

Cristian Antim Bobicescu

559Statul medieval balcanic: model pentru statul modern în literatura politică

a secolului al XIX-lea. Cazul bulgarElena Siupiur

571

Autour des palais de la Banque Nationale de la Roumanie:l’histoire d’une partie de Bucarest

Sabina Mariţiu581

Stat şi armată în sud-estul european: România şi Bulgaria la 1914Daniel Cain

601

Unirea Transilvaniei şi ecourile sale în presa din RomâniaCristina Gudin

613

File din istoria românilor din Albania în anii 1925-1926Constantin Iordan

623

A chronology of Romania's relations with Western countries 1971–1980Constantin Moraru

633

III. NUMISMATICS

Discovered treasures, lost treasures, regained treasures... Virgil Mihailescu Bîrliba

643

The Gold Coins with the Effigy of King Ferdinand IDan Ilie

649

Eine unbekannte BergwerksmarkeErwin Schaeffer 655

IV. MISCELLANEA

To cause “to make divine” through smoke: ancient Egyptian incense and perfume.An inter- and transdisciplinary re-evaluation

of aromatic biotic materials used by the ancient EgyptiansRenata Tatomir

665


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Miscellanea pentru o nouă ediţie a memorialelor lui Vasile PârvanLiviu Franga

679

Three Monuments of Roman Art Illustrated on Romanian Postage StampsCristian Andrei Scăiceanu

693

Social perceptions on history and archaeology in Romanian society - an exploratory study Alexandra Zbuchea · Monica Bira

713

List of contributors737


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IMMORTALITY, PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN1

Zoe PETRE

For almost 700 years, the people named Getai by the Greek historians and other scholars hasevolved less as a signied, and mostly as a signicant: as a carrier of meanings that transcend the facts,

the identity, and the actual history of the Getae, turning them into literary characters. As images of the Other – either as a radical Other, irreconcilably opposed, like Sophocles’ King Charnabon2, or asan impersonation of pure and ascetic beginnings of human civilization, as Diodorus’ KingDromichaites3 – the Getai athanatizontes, “practitioners of immortality”4, are a persona cta, a way by what the Greeks dened themselves a contrario.

Once their territories came under the rule of Rome, from a paradigm, Dacia became a province:an object measured by gromatici like Balbus5, who chartered its bridges and watercourses, measuredits width and the height of its mountains. Absorbed by the history of the Empire, with its wars,

seditions, victories, and defeats, Roman Dacia entered history 6, and other realms - Ultima ule orScandza – became the repositories of the images about the end of the Earth, with all their utopiancharge of the territories at the border between reality and ction7.

However, without any link with the history of the Danubian provinces, the Getae athanatizontescontinued to live in the imagination of the Greco-Roman writers as a quasi – legendary people,depositary of a mysterious science of the soul. is resilience has several sources. Trajan’scontemporaries, Crito and Dio of Prusa, had published each under the same title, Ta Getika, amonograph dedicated to the history of the Getae – to the old one in the case of Dion, to the Dacian

wars in that of Crito, who accompanied Trajan as his personal physician. In particular the book of Dio,himself a representative par excellence of the Second sophistic, is likely to have circulated in the rhetoricalcircles, along with his speeches, which were studied in schools8. e Getika provided many picturesque

details about this exotic, and half-forgotten civilization from the northern border of the oikumene.e topoi about the strange beliefs and customs of the peoples at the border of the Greco-Roman

world are well-represented in the reservoir of arguments of the second sophistic, and the sophistic

textbooks have not a few entries for the Getae, as well as for the Persians, Scythians, and Celts - withexcerpts from the writings of Herodotus, Ephorus, Poseidonius, or Strabo, part and parcel of the poolof general knowledge of the Imperial era. An example of the persistence of themes about the Geticmirabilia in collections of this kind is the text of Solinus, the author of such an anthology of curiosities,Collectanea rerum memorabilium, published around the middle of the third century AD. Amidst other

1 e present paper is an English revised version of the lastchapter in my book, Petre 2004 (in Rmanian), with anextended recent bibliography. I have chosen to dedicate it to

my friend and colleague Alexandru Barnea, to be nearer hisown eld of excellence – the Late Roman history and culture.2 Petre 2004-2005.3

Petre 2012.4 Linforth 1918; Hartog 1982; Petre 2004.

5 Balbus in Gromatici ueteres, ed. Lachmann, I, Berlin 1848,91-92; König, Whitmarsh 20076 v. e. g. Arrian. Takt. 44.1; Dexipp. FgrHist 100 F20; SHA

19.16.3, etc.7 Phot. Bibl. cod 166, 111 b 35-37; Schol. ad Luk. VH 2.12

21, 23 ed. Rabe; Reyhl 1969; contra, Morgan 1985; cf. Dana

1998-2000; Petre 2006.8 Swain 2002.

MOESICA ET CHRISTIANA | Studies in Honour of Professor Alexandru Barnea

Edited by Adriana Panaite, Romeo Cîrjan and Carol Căpiţă

Muzeul Brăilei “Carol I” - Editura Istros | Brăila | 2016 | pp. 331-338

ISBN 978-606-654-181-7


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ZOE PETRE332

curious stories about gems, dolphins, and otters which castrate themselves to escape the pursuit of the hunters, we nd a passage which largely echoes Pomponius Mela ‘s text about the funeral practices

of the Getae9. Another one is due to Polyaenus, the Stratagemata, where the Getae are twice

mentioned, once in relation to Dromichaites and again as mercenaries of the racian King Seuthes.10

Such collections, typical for the scholarship developed around the schools of rhetoric in the II-IIIcentury AD, can sometimes exceed the strictly utilitarian, mnemonic function of the progymnasmata11,

and take a more elaborate literary form, preferably that of the literary banquet. In this way, theadvantage of a pleasant and free composition principle was added to the prestige of an illustrioustradition going back to Plato and Xenophon. Plutarch’s Symposium12, Aulus Gellius’ Attic Nights13,

Macrobius’ Saturnalia14, and last, but far from being the least, Athenaios’ Deipnosophistai, “Scholarsat dinner”15, collect with indefatigable assiduity excerpts from literary works, sometimes famous,sometimes almost forgotten, anecdotes and unusual occurrences illustrating the amazing diversity of human societies. e Getae appear here and there, as do the Scythians, adding color and detail to the

traditional portrait of the neighboring strangers.

In the third and fourth centuries AD, the arguments against or in favor of the Christian faith,the debate opposing Origen and Celsus, Porphyry’s great critical synthesis, Kata Christianon, and its

many echoes in literature - both pagan and Christian - implied an enormous effort of re-reading thewhole Greco-Roman cultural traditions in a polemical perspective intended either to prove the truthof Christian revelation, or, on the contrary, the excellence of the tradition and the dangers of amisleading innovation16. In this new perspective, the Platonic and Neopythagoreic schools are at the

epicenter of the clashes opposing the followers of the new faith. In the second half of the III century AD, with Plotinus and Porphyry, the febrile search for salvation doctrines and revealed truths amountto a spectacular rebirth of Pythagorean doctrines and beliefs. In this revival, the gure of Zalmoxis

and the tradition about the practices of immortality that he had revealed to his nation came back tothe attention of the schools of philosophy. In this context, the “Getic argument” functions as an

argument about the universality of Pythagorean doctrine, just as in the apologetic writings theconversion of the Getae or of the Scythians marks the universality of the New Law 17.

On the other hand, the competition between philosophy and rhetoric is a dominant feature of theintellectual life in the imperial period, and important schools of philosophy are constantly striving togain, at least in terms of intellectual fame, what they must concede in terms of social prestige to theglamour of the rhetoricians and sophists18. But, like the school exercises of their adversaries, the

philosophical predication depends too on the existence of previous texts, excerpted and used asarguments in the commentaries which are now the favorite form of practicing philosophy. is is attestedunequivocally by the direct testimony of the authors - for instance, that of Porphyry in his biography of

Plotinus - as well as by the composition and style of the works of the late philosophers, from Epictetusto Ammonius and again to Plotinus. In this context, school anthologies are equally important for the

stoic or the platonic circles, as they are for the schools of rhetoric: a scholarly collection like that aboute lives and doctrines of philosophers, composed by Diogenes Laertius, is an excellent example

demonstrating how half-forgotten writings from the classical or Hellenistic times can be rediscovered,anthologized, and systematized for the use of the arguments voiced by the philosophers of the LateEmpire19. As the neo-Attic style in the visual arts of the Antonine and Severan era20, with its deliberate

9 Solin. 10. 1-12; 12. 13-13.3.10 Polyain. 7.25; 7.38.11 Kennedy 2003; Gibson 2004.12 Klotz 2011.13 Fischer & Popescu 1965; Holford-Strevens 2003; Holford-Strevens, Vardi 2004; Anderson 2004; Gunderson 2009a.14

Fantham 2013.15 Braund, Wilkins 2000; Goldhill 2007.

16 de Labriolle 1935; Cameron 1967; Millar 2004; Brent 2006;

Elsner 2007; Goldhill 2009; Levy 2013.17 e.g. Tertullian., Adu.Iudaeos 7, PL II, col. 611; Euseb. Hist.Eccl. 3.1 (vol. II, 188, 1-11 Schwartz).18 Karadimas 1996.19 Johnson 2007; Gunderson 2009b.20

Swain, Harrison, Elsner 2007.


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IMMORTALITY, PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN 333

aesthetic quotations that re-discover almost forgotten forms21, the elitist aestheticism of the culturalcreations of the II-III centuries AD combines articial scholarship, a true philological passion, and the

art – minor, but not insignicant – of excerpt and anthology 22, with an authentic aspiration to the revealed

truths of philosophy, almost as a religious conversion, very much alike the Christian illumination, whichin turn uses the same weapons of erudition and scholarship in defense of the new faith.In this context, the Getae and their beliefs about immortality easily became an argument in the

debate between pagans and Christians, from Celsus and Origen to Julian and beyond. By the end of the II century AD, the conversion of the intellectual elites of the Empire reached a critical mass,producing the rst great confrontation of ideas between the new religion and the defenders of the

traditional paideia23. It goes without saying that, as in the previous tradition, from Herodotus toPoseidonius and Dio, the Getae have no effective autonomy as a historical civilization. ey continueto play the Other, and they become an argument debated about in schools or in polemics not as asubject of their own history, but as an object of Greco-Roman intellectual history.

In the famous anthology composed by Clemens of Alexandria, Stromata, the Getae and their

beliefs are listed as barbarian predecessors of the Greek philosophers, who worship their legislatorsand their teachers, like the Brahmans and the Odrydae (sic!)24. It is however a strange kind of adoration,

for they sacrice every year their most distinguished philosophers to the famous disciple of Pythagoras, the hero Zamolxis25.

e euhemeristic theme of a Pythagorean Zalmoxis – one of the many divinized legislators 26 –dominated the post-herodotean historical and philosophical tradition. In the Hellenistic literature,

instead, the motif of the sacrices for an archaic Zalmoxis was separated from the theme of the ritesand initiations aimed to acquire immortality more Pythagoreico, and seemed forgotten. In fact, it wasnot so: aer all, Herodotus was one of the most popular writers all along the Antiquity. But the

sacricial motif was latent, and did not appear aer Herodotus – at least as we can see now – inassociation with the novel of Zalmoxis the Pythagorean apprentice.

e theme of a sacrice for immortality rst resurfaced as a “Scythian” belief in immortality inLucian’s dialogue “e Scythe”, where we can read that not only the Scythians make immortal one of

their own, sending him to Zamolxis, the Athenians too, transform the Scythians in gods at home, inGreece27. e text derives obviously from Herodotus’ well-known passage 4.95, which Luciancompresses, retaining only a few keywords (apathanatizein, epichorios, pempein). However, it is morea paraphrase than a quotation, as Lucian uses these terms in his own way – for instance, the epithet

epichorios, which in Herodotus’ text was an attribute of Zalmoxis himself, here denes the local originof the human victims, in contrast with the Athenian sacrice of a stranger from Scythia. e idea isthat the Greeks may well sacrice humans – hoping perhaps, or not, to confer them immortality -

but at least they sacrice strangers, not local people, epichorioi. It sounds more like a spontaneousrecall of a famous text, than as a truly scholar allusion. is could explain also the name Zamolxis,

not Salmoxis, as in Herodotus. Or it could point to an intermediate lost text which summarizedHerodotus’ Histories. In any case, the text of Lucian proves that, despite the silence of the sources, the

theme of an archaic human sacrice by which the Getae acquired immortality was not entirely forgotten for the cultivated elites which were Lucian’s ideal public. If not trivial, the motif was at leastfairly familiar, so as the author does not have to explain it in detail.

In Clemens’ text, even if it also resumes Herodotus’ generic information – the Getae offer humansacrices to the hero Zalmoxis - the whole scenario is different: e Getae, a barbarian nation, but

21 Elsner 1996; Elsner 1998; Elsner 2007.22 Kim 2010.23 Bowie 1970; Borg 2004; Eshleman 2008; Bakker 2010.24 Clem. Strom. 1.15.130 (Stählin).25

Clem. ibid . 4. 8. 213 (Stählin).26 Petre 2004, 165-170.

27 Luk. Scyth. 1, cf. Hdt. 4. 94-95; v. also Luk., Iupp. Trag . 42,

where the Getae who offer sacrices to the former slaveZamolxis are cited along with other bizarre barbarian belief,as with the Scythians who adore a sword, akinakes, or the

Ethiopians who worship the divine Day; Anderson 1982;Petre 2004, 365-369; Cribiore 2007; Johnson 2007.


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ZOE PETRE334

not without familiarity with philosophy, choose an annual ambassador , presbeutes, whom they send tothe hero Zamolxis, one of the famous (disciples) of Pythagoras. ey slay as a sacricial victim,aposphattetai, the man that they each time consider to be the most prominent, dokimotatos, of those

who practice philosophy, and those who are not chosen are deeply humiliated, as they are deprived of access to a happy condition, eudaimonia28.

So the Getic sacrices, now annual, are explicitly qualied as embassies, and it is a community of philosophers, not of warriors, who chose each time the worthiest amongst its members to sent him

to Zalmoxis. e sacrice itself – with an initiatic subtext marked by the term eudaimonia – does notappear in its singular specicity, as in the ritual throwing of spears described in Herodotus’ text. e verb aposphagein comes from the common vocabulary of Greek sacrice, and marks the violence of the sacricial gesture, the slaughtered victim – here a philosopher – butchered as an animal. On the

other hand, the disappointment of those who are not chosen replace the theme of the bad omen of afailed sacrice, and echoes perhaps the reaction of the wives who are not chosen to be sacriced atthe funerals of their spouses.

We do not know from which previous anthology may originate this version recorded by Clemens.e revival of the theme of the sacrices for Zalmoxis, aer nearly seven centuries since its rstmention in Herodotus’ Histories29, is, in my opinion, signicant for the role that the image of the Getaeapathanatizontes plays now in the debates of the II-III centuries AD. Beyond the constant interest for

mirabilia, we can guess why these stories about human sacrices capture the attention of theintellectual elites of the Empire in the II-III centuries AD. e key to understanding this resurgenceis to be found, in my opinion, in Origen’s text, which quotes the essential elements of the anti-Christian

polemic gathered by Celsus. Celsus wrote that, when they consecrate a cult to the captured and dead,Christians imitate the Getae who worship Zamolxis30 and that the Christian predication resemblesother of old, which persuaded gullible listeners, using their ignorance, as we are told that Zamolxis, theslave of Pythagoras, did with the Scythians, or Pythagoras himself in Italy 31.

e conjunction of the two contrasting themes, that of the philosophical eminence of the Getae,and the other one, of the ritual slaughter of “the best of the Getae”, dedicated to the Hero Zalmoxis,could therefore be used both as an argument proving that the new beliefs are supported by well-known

precedents, as we can guess from the narrative subtext of the Stromata, or, on the contrary,condemning the Christian predication and practice as akin to some strange, barbaric rituals, designedto fool the simpleminded. e Getic precedent is highly adaptable, and can be invoked either ironically by the skeptics, as does Celsus, or with veneration by authors believing in revealed truths, even if they

do not accept the Christian revelation. According to his own views, one author may stress the horricbrutality of human sacrices, or, on the contrary, the hope of eudaimonia for an entire nation32. Fortheir part, Christian authors may refer to the initiations of Zalmoxis as a false doctrine of immortality – as does, for example, Aeneas of Gaza in his dialogue eophrastus or about the immortality of souls

and the resurrection of the bodies, written at about the same time when Cassiodorus, on the footstepsof Dio, recorded the excellence of the Getae/Goths led by their wise priests33. Aeneas, on the contrary,seems to have echoed Celsus rather than Origenes. He writes that the Getae worship as their only god

a fugitive slave of Pythagoras, who imitated his master’s philosophy, cutting the throats of the mostbeautiful and the best of them – and they imagine that it is the way to make them immortal34.

Origen protested against the fact that his opponent does not recognize the philosophical excellence

of the Jews, but confers instead this eminent quality to the archaic initiating rites of the so-called

28 Clem. Strom. 4. 8. 213 (Stählin).29 Petre 2003.30

Origen. In Cels. 3.34 [469].31 Origen. In Cels. 2.55 [429].

32 cf. Euseb. Ad Const . 13.5; 13.8; Praep. 4.16.9 (156).33 Petre 2004, 319-342.34

Aen. Gaza, PG 85, 940.


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philosophies of barbarian nations from the legendary beginnings of humanity: Samothracians, Eleusineor Hyperboreans, as well as to the Druids or the Getae, despite the fact that we do not know any writtenrecord kept by these archaic peoples.

e contrast between the Jews, people of the Book, and those nations that are not known to havekept a written record confer a new nality to the arguments of Diogenes Laertius against the exaltationof a presumed philosophical excellence of the barbarian nations35. It recalls the observation rstformulated, if I am not wrong, by Androtion back in the fourth century BC. He wrote that, unlike the

barbarians of Asia, the ancient racians knew not the letters; even worse, in general, the barbariansin Europe considered writing as something shameful , aischiston36. Androtion’s text has survived throughthe collection of stories composed by Claudius Aelianus the early III AD37, which means that theargument was familiar to the cultivated elites at the time when the rst polemics between pagans and

Christians were published. e same illiteracy of the Zalmoxian lore is mentioned, with sympathy this time, by Apuleius, who, in defense against the accusations of magical practices, quotes Plato’sdialogue Charmides38, where Plato writes about a certain Zalmoxis, a racian, and master of the same

magical art, and records in writing that the incantations are beautiful discourses. If so, why should it be forbidden for me to know the bona uerba of Zalmoxis or of the priest of Zoroaster 39?

It follows that in the second and third centuries AD, the initiations assigned by tradition toZalmoxis were mentioned as a constituent of a complex of archaic precedents that, due to their

venerable antiquity, legitimate the aspiration to the religions of salvation and the mystery cults, bothstriking in the Greco-Roman world of that time. We may anyway infer from Origen’s text that hisopponent Celsus used earlier ideas, ultimately expressed by Ephorus and Dikaiarchus, about the

excellence and virtue of the Barbarians40, to argue that, far from being the intellectual property of theChristians, their ideas copy an ancestral wisdom, shared by many archaic peoples, as the Druids of the Celtic nation or the Getae.

e association between the Druids and the Getae is a reminder of a Pythagoreic topos which

stressed the universality of Pythagoras’ preaching both in the Far West and the northern realm of theknown world. is combination nds its probable origin in Poseidonius’ writings41, and its remanenceis attested by the initiatic quest of Astraios in Antonios Diogenes’ novel, in which the heroes wander

from the Getic realms to the Celtic Far West and back to the Mediterranean world 42.e Pythagoreic lore was for a long time a erce competitor of the Christian faith, and Origen

denounces it together with its Barbarian version. It is quite possible, on the other hand, that at a timewhen the triumphant Christian predication sought its precursors in various archaic beliefs and

practices from the edges of the oikumene – when, for instance, the asceticism of the gymnosophistae,a recurrent theme of the rich novelistic literature about Alexander the Great in India, is claimed as aparadigm of the monastic asceticism43 – the initiation rites of immortality of the ancient Getae to bealso claimed as a precedent for the belief in the immortality of souls and the resurrection of the bodies .

A passage of Emperor Julian’s dialogue Caesares stresses that, in the predication of Zalmoxis, death isonly a change of venue44. It is possible to suppose that the same interpretation was adopted also inthe Christian liturgical texts, where one of the dominant images of death is that of a journey by which

the deceased “is shiing” in a happier place.Anyway, a fact of vocabulary is certain: the verb athanatizein, or apathanatizein, is seldom used in

the texts of the classical and Hellenistic era45. e same verb makes then a sudden and spectacular entry

35 DL 1.2.1.36 Androtion, FGrHist 324 F54 (36).37 Aelian. VH 8.6.38 Petre 2007.39 Apuleius, Apolog . 26.40

Petre 2004, 179-240.41 Petre 2004, 240-250.

42 v. Petre 2006.43 Brown 1982.44 Iulian. Caes. 22: Believing that they do not die, but only change their venue, metoikizesthai, they dare more to ght than to start a journey , apodemia.45

Chrysip. F 620. 11; Damasc. In Phaed. 1.177.2; Procop. Debellis 8.10.8 about the immortal fame of the heroes.


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in the writings of Philo of Alexandria, where it appears no less than 27 times46. Second in frequency of use stands Clemens of Alexandria, with six occurrences47. e scholarly texts and scholiae naturally continue to use it from time to time to denote the immortality of fame that the poets and historians

bestow upon the heroes, or the immortality with which Calypso tempted Odysseus48

. Recovered by the Eastern Church Fathers, the verb (ap)athanatizein becomes however crucial in the Christiandiscourse about the resurrection of the dead. e main occurences of the verb are to be found in theapologetic and patristic literature, where it signies the certitude of the Christian victory over death49.

In the modern interpretation of the texts concerning the Getae, the traditional use of the verb(ap)athanatizein to denote the Getic rituals was articially linked with the new signication it acquiredin the apologetic writings, extrapolating upon earlier texts nuances which appear in fact only late, inthe heat of the polemic between Christians and pagan authors from the II-III centuries AD. is

erroneous reading was uncritically, even enthusiastically absorbed in the nationalistic discourse, bothRomanian and Bulgarian, rst by the extreme right ideologies, and then, in the late seventies of theXX century, by the national-communist rhetoric. Starting from late antique, Romano-Byzantine and

Byzantine texts, it claimed for the Getae and their rites the standing of precursors of the Christianfaith. In fact, a thorough examination of the textual testimonia proves beyond any doubt that the shifrom the Getic practices of immortality to the Christian belief in resurrection is only an intrinsicaspect of the polemic arguments opposing late Greek authors one to another in the process of

spreading and generalization of the Christian beliefs, and has nothing to do with the historical Geticreligion and culture50.

46 Phil. Iud. De opicio mundi 44.2; 78.1; 135.9; 154. 6; Quod deterius potiori insidiari soleat, 111.5; De posteritate Caini

123.3; De confusione linguarum, 149.5; De somniis 1.36; Deuita Mosis 2.108; 2.288; De Decalogo 58.5; De specialibuslegibus 1.290; 1.304; 2. 125; 2.225; 4.14; 4.112; De uirtutibus

15.1; 67.7; Quod omnis probus liber sit 109.5; De aeternitatemundi 9.3; 35.2; 109. 5; 144.4; Legatio ad Gaium 92.1;Quaestiones in Genesim fr., 1. fr. 51.7; 4. 166.5.47 Clem. Alex. Protr. 4.55.1; Paedag. 1.6.26; id. Strom. 1.15.68;1.27.173; 4.25.160.48

V. e. g. Eustath. Comm. ad Il. (12. 508), vol. 1. 415. 21; id.ad Od. (21 v. 197) vol. 1. 208.4; Ioan. Lyd. De mensibus

4.149.22; Schol. in Pi. P. 3, sc. 178b2.49 Euseb. Praep. 1.9.8; Greg. Nys. De mortuis non esse

dolendum, Scr. Eccl.Gr. vol. 9. 58; Ioan. Chrys. De adoratione pretiosae crucis, Scr. Eccl.Gr. vol. 52. p. 836; Athenagoras, Deresurrectione 12.2; Basilius Caes. Ep. 105.1; id. Encom., Scr.

Eccl.Gr . vol. 29. p. 712; Roman. Melod. Hymn. 8.20.2, etc.50 Pippidi 1943a,b; Pippidi 1946; Pippidi 1972; Petre 2004,

377-383; Dana 2008; Dana 2012.


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Documents

Moesica Et Christiana 2016_Zoe Petre. Immortality, pagan and Christian