SABAZIO, MISTERI di. — Thraco-Phrygian god, hypostasis of Dionysus (Diodorus Siculus, IV, 4, 1), whose cult, having begun in Greece in the 5th century, spread widely, especially toward the end of paganism, in Asia Minor and the Roman world.
An initial testimony concerning his mysteries is found in Demosthenes (De corona, 259 ff.). In them the serpent, symbol of the god, was of great importance; the initiates allowed it to wind through their bosom: ὁ διὰ κύλιτου θεός (Clement of Alexandria, Protr., II, 13, 5), as far as the sexual parts: inferioribus partibus atque iniis (Arnobius, Adv. nat. V, 21); an ancient rite of adoption or new birth for the initiates. Perhaps St. Ambrose alludes to these mysteries (De virg., I, chap. 4, no. 16): « Quid de sacris Phrygiis loquar, in quibus impudicitia disciplina est... Quid de orgiis Liberi ubi religionis mysterium est incentivum libidinis ? ».
The mystery ritual of S. is connected first of all with that of the Magna Mater and Attis, and subsequently with the Orphic ritual. In the Hellenistic age, as a clear example of syncretism, S. came to be identified with Zeus «ὕριστος», or “Most High,” and then, through the close influence of Jewish monotheism, with the κύριος Σαβασάδ of the Jews, from which certain objects of worship, such as lamps (CIG, III, add. 4380, no. 2), etc., were derived. The numerous votive hands perhaps likewise derive from the same ritual; in the gesture of the Latin benedictio, already previously in use in the mysteries of Thracian Bacchus, they bear a statuette of the god blessing and protecting his faithful. The first mention of the cult of Jupiter S. at Ostia is found in an inscription discovered in a building having the same characteristics as the mithraea (Vaglieri, in Notizie scavi, 1909, p. 22). Jupiter S. also had a shrine on the Capitoline, on the Aracoeli side (CIL, VI, 30948–49). In the mysteries of S. there was a strong sense of the need for an afterlife, with the judgment of the soul and its inductio, by means of an angelus bonus, to a banquet presided over by the blessed, participation in which would entitle one to eternal joys.
A considerable example of this conception is the cycle of mural paintings, dating from the 3rd–4th centuries A.D., which a certain « Vincentius », numinis antistes Sabazi, had executed in an underground chamber in honor of his wife Vibia (the inscription in Dessau, 1361). The hypogeum is located near the cemetery of Pretestato and for a long time was considered Christian, but it is more probable that this proximity is explained by the fact that the practice of burial was also imitated by the pagans of the 3rd century A.D., after the system of cremation had fallen into disuse.