PART 1
- Ch.X.2
(Termini Liberi Patris)
X.
2. ‘Exampaios, ‘Irai odoi. The sacred
roads of the Scythians.
Herodotus, in his description of Scythia, mentions a
region, north of the Black Sea, which the Scythians called in their language Exampaeos, word which in Greek
translation meant ‘Irai odoi, meaning the Sacred
Roads (lib. IV.c.52). These places called Exampaeos were, according to
Herodotus, situated at a distance of four days navigation upstream the river
Hypanis (Bug), and formed the frontier
between the Agricultural Scythians,
settled towards north, and Alazoni,
with their dwellings towards south (Ibid.IV.c.81). But Herodotus doesn’t tell
us anything about the origin and destination of these sacred roads of the
Scythians.
This sacred road,
at the north of the
During Greek antiquity,
the lines of communication established between the principal centers and the
more important religious places were called “sacred roads”.
Along these sacred
roads were scattered in antiquity various sanctuaries and temples of
divinities, columns, statues, graves of heroes and distinguished people, and
other commemorative monuments. On these roads took place the solemn processions
of the clergy and the people, on them were sung the funeral hymns, the hymns of
victory, of praises and of thanks to the gods. Finally, on these roads of
public safety were transported the gifts of private persons, of the cities, and
of the population to the sanctuaries of the gods.
Such a sacred road
(odos
iera) existed in antiquity between Athens
and Eleusis, famous place for
the Elysian mysteries, which it was believed to have been the residence of the
great divinities Ceres and Proserpine (Pausanias,
Descriptio Graeciae, I.36.37.38).
Another sacred road was established between Elis, the capital of the province with this
name, and Olympia, the plain famous
for the Olympic games of ancient Greece (Ibid. V.c.25.7).
Some of these
sacred roads crossed entire provinces.
Three sacred roads
led especially to the famous sanctuaries of Delphi, which had such an immense role in the religious and
political history of Greece.
One of them started in the north, at the valley Tempe,
passed over the entire Thessaly,
over Doris and Locris and was used by the pilgrims coming from the parts of the
north and Thrace. Another sacred
road came from south-east, from Attica.
It was built, as traditions say, by Theseus, and served for the sending of
gifts to Delphi by the Athenians, the Peloponnesians and the Beotians. Finally,
the third sacred road towards Delphi
started at the port Crissa of the
Aegean Sea, had a length of 80 stades and was used by the pious travelers who
came by way of the sea (Pauly,
Real-Encyclopadie, II Bd. 1842 p.915).
The same
institution of the sacred roads is also found with the ancient Egyptians.
Strabo, talking about the building of the
memorable temple of Thebes in Egypt, the one with one hundred gates, makes the
following description of the Egyptian sacred roads: “In front of the temples”,
says he, “there is a space a jugerum wide or less (TN – approx. 25m), but three
or four times as long, or even more. This
space is called the sacred road (dromos ieros) and along this sacred
road statues of sphinxes are aligned on both sides, situated at a distance of
10 ells (TN – cca 11m) from each other, so that a row of these statues is on
the right side and another on the left side of the road; the number of these
sphinxes is not limited, but depends of the length of each road, and at the end
of these two lines of statues there is the vestibule of the temple” (Geogr.
lib. XVIII. p.28).
The same monumental
aspect must have had also the Exampaeos, or the sacred roads of the Scythians.
But what sort of religious monuments could decorate these sacred roads on the
deserted expanses of land at the north of the Black Sea?
The Scythians, as Herodotus also tells us (lib. IV.c.59),
erected neither altars, nor statues or temples to their divinities. The
principal monuments which decorated the sacred roads of the Scythians could not
be therefore but a long series of enormous tumuli,
as well as the famous pillars of Liber Pater, considered sacred [1].
[1. Herodotus (lib. IV.c.81) mentions only one sacral object which was
deposited at the Exampaeos. This
antique monument was a copper crater
of enormous size, which had a capacity of cca 600 amphorae, and the thickness
of its sides was 6 fingers. The origin of this sacred vase went back, according
to Herodotus, to the times of the Scythian king Ariantanus who, wishing to know the number of the Scythians in his
empire, had given order that each should bring him an arrow tip. As a huge
number of arrow tips was gathered, the king ordered to be made a copper vase
out of them, which was consecrated as a monument in the Exampaeos].
There exists though
another important geographical proof that this series of huge slabs stuck into
the ground, which extended from Prut towards Crimeea and Tanais, was one of the
Exampaeos, or the sacred roads of southern Scythia.
The waters of Bac,
along which this famous line of monolith monuments passed until the 18th
century, flow into ancient Tyras, or Nistru, close to the Romanian village
called today Gura-Bacului (TN – the Mouth of Bac). At a short distance, north
from this point, there are today situated two villages; one on the right bank
and the other on the left bank of Nistru, both having the same characteristic
name of “Speia” (Charta Basarabiei, published by the
Russian military topographical Section in 1868-69, col. XXIX. page 7).
From a historical
and philological point of view, these two topographical names of Speia appear identical with the
Scythian term of Exampae-os, the
last syllable forming here only a simple Greek suffix. These names of Speia prove at the same time that
ancient Exampaeos of Herodotus, which formed the frontier between the
Agricultural Scythians and Alazoni, stretched westwards beyond Nistru, to the
valley of Bac [2].
[2. The name of the river Bac is not from the German Bach. The
origin of this name rests with the ancient legend about the roads of Bach or Liber Pater through Thrace and Scythia.
In the heroic folk songs of the
Romanians is mentioned even today the “valiant
Bac”, the “outlaw Bac”, who had
established a watch service along the long road between Odriu (Adrianopole) and
Diu (Vidin).
(The high emperor)
heard, yes he heard,
The name of Bac, of Bac the outlaw,
of Bac the valiant,
Who put watch on the road, from the
hill of Odriu, to close to the Diu …
(Teodorescu, Folk poetry,
p.605)
Liber Pater
or Osiris had in antique traditions and legends various other names, out of
which one of the most known was Bachos. In old Slavonic language bikz means bull (Romanian bica,
young bull). In Egyptian papyri Osiris bears also the epithet “bull” (Pierret, Le livre des morts, ch. I.1). According to the doctrines
of the Egyptian priests, Osiris and Apis, the sacred bull, formed the same
idea. Apis was only the living image of Osiris, or in other words Osiris was
the god-bull (fertilizing). This is
enough for the time being regarding the history and primitive meaning of the
name Bachus].
We have therefore
established the following positive fact about the history of the archaic times
of Dacia: The long row of huge slabs stuck into the ground, which stretched
from Basarabia towards Crimea and Don, represented in a remote antiquity as
many sacred monoliths, or itinerary
pillars, called in historical Roman literature “Termini Liberi Patris”, placed along the great road, which had no
villages and cities in its proximity, which passed through the deserted regions
of ancient Scythia, and which connected Asia to Europe. This sacred road, which
began in eastern Dacia, presented a grandiose aspect and appeared with Pindar
as one of the marvels of the
prehistoric world (‘Yperboreon daumate odos). Its origin was connected to
memorable war deeds. It was a triumphal road, identical with “Scythici triumphi” of Bachus or Liber
Pater. According to Herodotus the name of this road in the language of the
Scythian tribes was Exampae-os, word
of Pelasgian origin, whose national form appears to have been “sam-biae”, meaning sanctae viae. (In Romanian language the word “sant” (TN – saint) becomes “sam”
in compounded words, for example Sam-Petru,
Sam-Medru).