In the works of some ancient writers one finds information about an oracle of Dionysus in Thrace, the land of the Thracians, one of the wildest people in ancient Europe and “the most numerous people in the world, after the Indians” (according to Herodotus). Ancient sources on the oracle in question are as follows:
1. A Scholia to Euripides maintains that according to the information of the “physicist Heraclides”: “That [oracle?] of Dionysus was built in Thrace on the so-called Haemo, where it is said that there were some writings of Orpheus on tablets. “This could be the oldest evidence of the oracle of Dionysus in Thrace. There is a clear location: on Mount Haemus.
2. Another scholium to Euripides, again with unknown author and, in any case, later, summarizes: “Some say that the Oracle of Dionysus was in Pangaeus, others – in Hemo, where there were some writings of Orpheus on tablets, about which speaks in Alcestis: “No drug in the Thracian tablets, where the sayings of Orpheus are written.” And as Dionysus was a prophet, in “Bacchantes” he says: “This god is a prophet too, because in his rites the The Bacchic celebrations and madness unleash enormous prophetic power. “The anonymous author presents an interesting location of the oracle – in Pangaeus or in Haemus. As in the previous scholium, the location of the oracle is associated with some writings on tablets, whose authorship It is attributed to Orpheus.
3. Traditionally, and not without reason, when it comes to the Oracle of Dionysus in Thrace in modern historiography, greater attention is paid to the statement of Herodotus (ca. 484 – 424 BC), who wrote: “The Satrians , however, they never yet became obedient to any man, as far as we know, but to my time they remain free, alone from all Thracians; because they inhabit high mountains, which are covered with forests of all kinds and snow, and They are also very skilled in warfare. These are the ones who possess the Oracle of Dionysus; Oracle that is in its highest mountains. Of the Satrians, those who act as prophets of the temple are the Bessians; it is a priestess who pronounces the oracles, as at Delphi, and beyond this there is nothing else of a remarkable character. ” The very general nature of Herodotus’s information has long been asserted.
4. In a text attributed to Aristotle we read: “They say that rabbits, captured in Crestonia near the land of the Bisaltians, had two livers [two hearts] and it had a spot size like a decarea, in which each animal entered, dies. There is also a large and beautiful temple of Dionysus, in which a celebration and sacrifice took place. When the god intends to make a fruitful year, a great flame of fire appeared, and everyone who is in the sacred area sees it. As in the other nights ”.
5. Another text, also attributed to Aristotle, is preserved in Macrobius’s Saturnalia, drawn in the late 4th or early 5th century AD: “What was said about Apollo can be said and by Liber. Aristotle, who wrote” Study of the gods “states that Apollo and Liber Pater are the same god, and many other evidence suggests that: even, he says, the Ligiri in Thrace had a temple, dedicated to Liber Pater, where predictions are issued, but they uttered their prophecies after to drink pure wine, as those of Claros drink water “.
6. Elsewhere in his text, Macrobius wrote: “Similarly, we learn that in Thrace the Sun and Liber are considered the same: they call him Sabazius and worship him in a splendid ritual, like Alexander [Polyhistor] he writes, and on the Zilmissos hill they dedicate a round temple to him, with an open center to the sky. The round shape of the temple points to the shape of the sun, and the light enters through the ceiling to show that the sun purifies all things when it shines from on high, and that the whole world opens up when the sun rises. “
7. Suetonius preserves the later direct evidence for the prediction, received in a Thracian oracle of Dionysus: “Later, when Octavian was leading an army through remote parts of Thrace, and in the grove of Liber, Pater consulted the priests about of their son with barbarian rites, they made the same prediction [that the ruler of the world had been born]; since such a column of fire sprang from the wine that was poured on the altar, which rose above the roof of the temple and rose up to the very sky, and such an omen had not happened to anyone except Alexander the Great, when he offered sacrifice on the same altar. “
8. Cassius Dio mentions the following: “He [M. Licinius Crassus] surpassed the rest of the country [Thrace] except the territory of the Odrysae. He forgave these because they are assigned to the service of Dionysus, and they had come to receive him on this occasion without his arms; and he also granted them the land in which they magnified the god, taking it away from the Bessi who occupied it. “
So this is what we can read in ancient literature about the enigmatic oracle of Dionysus in Thrace. But was there only one oracle? The answer is sought in the second part of this article.