PART
2 – Ch.XII.4
(The
principal prehistoric divinities of
XII. 4. Saturn worshipped in
His simulacrum
at the Iron Gates.
Apart
from the honorific title of “tatal”
(TN – father), which Saturn had in the religion of ante-Hellenic times, as
personification of the supreme divinity of the sky and the earth, one of his
most popular epithets, with all the Pelasgian tribes from the south and north
of Istru, was that of “mos” (TN –
old man).
He was called by the Latins Saturnus senex (Virgil, Aen. VII. V. 180; Ovid,
Fast. V. v. 629), as he was attributed by ancient traditions a patriarchal age
(Cicero, N. D. II. 25), deus vetus (Virgil, Aen. VII. V. 204), Deus
Majus (Macrobius, Saturn. I.
12).
According
to Ovid (Fast. V. 72-75) and Varro (L. L. VI. 33), the name of the
month Majus meant “mosi” (TN – old men). In the language
of the Osci, Majus had the form Maesius
and Moesius (Festus, De verb. Signif.), word even closer in form to the Romanian
“mos”.
Saturn
was called by the Greek Pelasgians with the epithet presbites (Eschyl, Eumenides, v. 638) and polios,
and by the Trojans, Jupiter avus (Virgil, Aen. VII. v. 219-220).
The
Phrygians called him Zeus (s. theos) ‘Atis
(Psellos, p.109. Boiss. at Tomaschek, Die alten Thraker, II. 42),
the Scythians Papaios (Herodotus,
l. IV. c. 59), and on the
This
epithet indicated Saturn as a mortal
man, as the ideal author of their national life, moral and political, as the
genealogical originator – principium
generis – of the ancient Pelasgian dynasties and noble families [1].
[1. The Trojans claimed their origin from the Old God, “Zeul Mos” (Virgil, Aen. VII.219-220).
Varro
(R.R.III.1) calls the farmers of
For Virgil (Aen. VII. 203), the Latins are gens Saturni, meaning descendants of the old god. And Horatio (Od. I. 12. 50) calls Augustus:
Orte Saturno].
The Latin king, addresses the ambassadors
of Aeneas, with the following words:
”Do not avoid our hospitality, do not ignore the Latins, the nation of Saturn, who are righteous people not as a result
of punishment or laws, and who preserve even today the ancestral
institutions from the times of the old
God (mos), by their goodwill and
their inclination” (Virgil, Aen.
VII. v. 177-188; Ibid, 202-205).
This
same title of Old God, Zeul Mos (“deus
vetus” or “avus”) was also given to Saturn by the Dacians.
The
historian Mnaseas of Patrae, who
lived in the 3rd century bc, tells us that the Getae venerated Saturn, whom they called Zamolxis (Photius, Fragm. Hist. Graec. III. p.153).
Similarly,
Diogenis Laertius writes (VIII) that
the Getae call Saturn Zamolxis, and Hesychius
says Zalmoxis
o Kronos.
The
form Zalmoxis,
which appears with Herodotus( lib.
IV. c. 96), Porfirius (De vita
Pythagorae, c. 14) and Hesychius (Pauly,
Real-Encyclopadie), as well as in various manuscripts of Plato and Suidas, is
acknowledged to be the most correct.
But the
word has remained to this day without an explanation based on positive
historical and etymological facts.
By the
ancient customs of the Saturnian religion, the name of Zalmoxis could not be
anything else but a simple hieratic epithet of Saturn, an attribute with the
same meaning of senex, deus vetus, deus avus, Papaios, presbites,
Majus (or Maesius), which Saturn also had with other Pelasgian tribes. The word
Zal-mox-is meant nothing else but Zeul-mos (TN – the old man God) in the
language of the Dacians, from the point of view of its etymology and meaning.
The ending is represents here, as in other similar cases, just a simple
Greek suffix.
In
reality, the language of the Getae and the Dacians had a proto-Latin character; it formed just a branch or a particular
rustic dialect of the Pelasgian language, as we will have occasion to be
convinced by the historical research done for this work.
The
Greek authors have transmitted various explanations of the word Zalmoxis.
Some of
these, although knowing very well the real meaning of the word, as results from
their writings, gave it only general interpretations.
Lucian (lib. XXIV.C. 4), one of the most
interesting writers of antiquity, distinguished for his spirit and erudition,
calls Zalmoxis patroos theos, meaning “parental
god” or “ancestral”. Herodotus (lib. IV. c. 94 and 96) calls
him daimon
epichorios (deus indigena), and Plato
(Charmides, Ed. Didot, Tom.
This
interpretation of Plato had a positive basis. In prehistoric antiquity, the
founders of states made the object of a particular cult of respect. The king,
founder of the state and colonizer of uninhabited lands, was considered as a
common proto-parent, as a public Mos (according to Manetho, the dynasty of Mosi,
Manes, had reigned over
So we
see that some authors of antiquity have interpreted a part of the name Zal-mox-is by the word theos,
and the rest by the epithets patroos, epichorios and basileus,
less adequate to the real meaning.
Zal, in the language
of the Dacians, by meaning and form, is identical with the Romanian word zeu, or zeul, while mox is our word mos, majus in the old
Latin language, the maesius and moesius of the Osci. Finally, the
Pelasgian tribes of
We find
the archaic word zeu or zeul used as a national term in the
Pelasgian lands of
On an
inscription discovered in Upper Mesia, close to Scopia, there is a dedication
addressed to DEO ZBELTHIURDO (C.I.
L. III. nr. 8191 at Tomaschek, Die
alten Thraker, II. p.60), or more correct ZBELTHEURGO,
meaning to the “God, the miracle maker”.
In the
mountains of Rhodope, a veteran erected at 76ad an altar to DEO MHDYZEI (MHDVZEI Desj., MHDIZEI
Ren.), where the last word is only an altered form of Domnudzei or Domnidzei,
Romanian Dumnezeu, pl. Dumnezei (C I. L. III. nr. 6120).
The
name Zal-mox-is, so mysterious in
modern historical literature, belongs therefore to the primitive Pelasgian
dialect of
Zal-mox-is or Zeul-mos, in the cult of the Dacians and Thracians (Lucian, lib.
XXIV. 1.4; lib. XXIV. 42), represented therefore the same great divinity of
prehistory who was also venerated by the Scythians under the name of Zeus
Papaios, by the Trojans as Jupiter
avus, and who appears on the banks of the
[2. The same historical traditions about both Zal-mox-is and Saturn
have existed in both
In particular the Greek theogonies
tell us that Jove, after ousting Saturn from old
Herodotus
had heard the same about Zal-mox-is,
that this man-god (andropos-daimon) had disappeared suddenly, in front of the eyes
of the Thracians (Getae), and had spent some time in a subterranean dwelling
(lib. IV. c. 95).
Zal-mox-is
travels through Egypt, and Saturn appears in all historical traditions as also
reigning at the same time over Egypt and over a large part of Libya.
Hesiod calls
Saturn an “astute”. The same character is also attributed by the Greek authors
to Zal-mox-is. Finally, Saturn was
honored during archaic times with human sacrifices, virorum victimis (Macrobius,
Sat. I. 7), and the Getae, as Herodotus
writes, sent one of them every five years with a mission to Zal-mox-is, in the sky, to ask for
whatever they needed].
As god
of the sky and the heights, Saturn or Zeul-mos of
At the
most important point in the southern range of the Carpathians, near the Iron Gates, on the coast called Sfantul Petru (TN. – Saint Peter), the
traveler notices even today the bust of a human figure, of a huge size, hewn in
rock by the hand of prehistoric man.
I saw
and examined myself, in the summer of 1899, this human representation on this
fine promontory of the
The
folk legends call this megalithic figure “Mos”,
and at the same time tell us that a long time ago a group of 9 human figures
existed here, sculpted in rock, generally called “Babe”, out of which 8 had
been destroyed in later times, during the building works of the national road
which passes under this hill towards Verciorova. (Tradition heard in the
village Gura-Vaii, on the territory of which this simulacrum stands. TN – today
here is the site of the great hydro-electric dam on the
By the
name it bears, by the ideas and the religious practices of ancient times, this
figure sculpted in rock near the Cataracts of the Danube presents one of the
most important prehistoric monuments of the country, the simulacrum of Saturn, called in Dacian times Zalmox-is or Zeul-Mos. By its position at the most important point of the
Carpathians and the
It
represented the great divinity of the country, under whose special tutelage
were the straits of the Iron Gates,
and this explains why, during the Christian era, the name of Sf. Petru was given to the hill on
which this simulacrum stands.
This
had been one of the rules of the religious institutions of Pelasgian times, the
sanctuaries and simulacra of Saturn had to dominate the passes of the
mountains, which served as natural gates of the lands beyond.
“As the
authors tell us”, writes Varro (L.
L. V. 42), “on the site where today is the mountain Capitol, in ancient times
was the city called Saturnia, out of which still exist three old buildings, a temple of Saturn in the straits of the
mountains, a gate once called Saturnia and today Pandana, and finally, a gate
at the back of the temple of Saturn”.
Near
the Iron Gates of the Carpathians there existed in antiquity, and still do, the
dangerous Cataracts of the Danube,
that barrier of rocks which rise from the depths of its bed and produce a
formidable speeding of the current and violent eddies.
The
archaic figure on the coast of the hill, called today Sf. Petru, represented
also in antiquity the protective divinity of the sailors who navigated through
this strait, so dangerous for the navigation with oars and sails.
Earlier
than the gods of the Greek Olympus, Saturn alone was the one who had ruled over
the sky, the earth and the waters. It was he who calmed the storms, who calmed
the waves, who protected the sailors from accidents on water.
The age
of this monument from the Iron Gates and the Cataracts of the Danube, once so
religious, goes back, according to the legends about which we will speak later,
to the times antedating the Argonauts.
Such
primitive simulacra, which represented Zeul-mos, the great protector of