Samothrace, Mysteries of

SAMOTHRACE, Mysteries of. - After those celebrated at Eleusis, the m. of S. were among the most famous in the Greek world. There were various legends about their institution and origin, but the one that perhaps best reflects historical reality is the one that derived the cult of the Cabiric "Great gods" from the region of Ida (Phrygia).

Alongside this Micrasian tradition there was another tending to derive the m. of S. from Thrace. In fact, with Herodotus (2, 51) we have the first historical notices about these mysteries, which he attributes to a very ancient epoch and to a people believed to have preceded the Greeks on Hellenic soil: the Pelasgians, in whom, given the proximity of the territory and the affinity of religious manifestations, are to be recognized - at least in this case - the peoples of Thrace. To Herodotus' notice one may compare that of Diodorus of Sicily (5, 47), according to whom even in his own time in many religious ceremonies of S. the characteristic dialect of the indigenous (Pelasgian?) peoples was preserved. Toward the end of the 4th century B.C., and then especially in the Hellenistic age, S. became a center of the first order, so much as to rival Eleusis: Demetrius Poliorcetes erected the famous statue of Nike in 306; Lysimachus placed the sanctuaries on the island under his protection; Perseus, defeated by the Romans, took refuge on this island, where Ptolemy Philometor also withdrew; both bear witness to the great devoted esteem in which the island was held, a true and proper inviolable place of asylum.

To the m. of S. the Romans too flocked in great numbers, and they made of them a kind of national sanctuary, thanks to the tradition that the Penates of Rome were the same gods of S., transported to Troy by Dardanus, and from there to Rome by Aeneas (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, I, 61, 68). Still in the time of Libanius (4th century A.D.) the m. of S. were celebrated regularly.

The m. of S. were sacred to the Cabiri (v.), who in the cult received the generic name, because esoteric, of "Great gods" (μεγάλοι θεοί, sometimes called "mighty" = ἰσχυροί, or "Lords" = Ἄνχες). But of them in the Samothracian cult - a truly exceptional case - the true, that is esoteric, name is known, which was revealed only to the initiated and which they could pronounce with efficacy only in dangers, especially at sea (whence their appellation of σωτήρες = saviors, and their assimilation to the Dioscuri). According to Mnaseas of Patara (2nd century B.C.), these gods were four and were called: Axieros, Axiokersa, Axiokersos and Kadmilos (or Kasmilos), interpreted respectively (but not always) as: Demeter, Kore, Hades and Hermes. So that, although knowing almost nothing of the cultic development of these mysteries, these last divinities (especially the first three), by recalling the Eleusinian Mysteries (v.), give the vague intimation that those of S. must without doubt have spoken to the initiate of a death and a resurrection, and above all of the blessed vision of the future life, as moreover can be maintained from the fact that in them a liturgical drama was represented concerning the "search" for Harmonia by the bridegroom Cadmus (at Eleusis there was the "search for Kore") and the initiates were taught that Adam was the name of primitive man.

Unlike the Eleusinian ones, in these the ceremonies of initiation did not take place only once a year but, it seems, in all the summer months, from May to September. However, there was also an annual festival (perhaps in high summer) celebrated with extraordinary pomp and with a great number of initiates, during which armed dances were performed analogous to those of the Curetes and the Corybantes and which recalled certain rites of Phrygia; the performers, accompanied by the flute and the timbrel, were called Saal.

The mysteries - into which women and children could also be initiated - were presided over by a priestly body headed by a "king" (βασιλεύς), who also had the functions of first magistrate of the island; a large part was played by the purificatory rites, celebrated by a special priest, called (perhaps with a Lydian term) λόγος or λόγος (cf. Hesychius, s. v.) "the purifier," by means of a true and proper auricular confession of the initiates. To these - who were distinguished into: simple (μόσται) and pious (μόσται εὐσέβεις) - a sacramental meal was offered.

One may recall finally that, unlike and perhaps in opposition to Eleusis, where on the first day of the celebrations the banishment of murderers took place, at S. these were admitted (and initiated?) after a kind of confession-expiation, a task which - according to Hesychius (loc. cit.) - belonged precisely to the λόγος (v. above).

Cesare D'Onofrio