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who induce the men by their example to a more attentive
worship of the gods, and to the observance of feast-days and
supplications; for scarcely is there found a man living by
himself who pays any regard to such matters. And again attend to the words of the same poet when he speaks in one of
his characters, bringing in a man disgusted with the expenses note
of the sacrifices of the women.
The gods weary us indeed, but especially our married men, who are
always obliged to celebrate some feast.
And his Misogynes, complaining of the same things, exclaims,
We sacrificed five times a day, while seven female slaves ranged in a
circle played on the cymbals, and others raised their suppliant cries.
It would therefore seem absurd to suppose that only those
among the Getae who remained without wives were considered
pious, but that the care of worshipping the Supreme Being
is great among this nation is not to be doubted, after what
Posidonius has related, and they even abstain from animal
food from religious motives, as likewise on account of the
testimony of other historians.
5
For it is said that one of the nation of the Getae, named Zamolxis, note had served Pythagoras, and had acquired with this philosopher some astronomical knowledge, in addition to what he had learned from the Egyptians, amongst whom he had travelled. He returned to his own country, and was highly esteemed both by the chief rulers and the people, on account of his predictions of astronomical phenomena, and eventually persuaded the king to unite him in the government, as an organ of the will of the gods. At first he was chosen a priest of the divinity most revered by the Getae, but afterwards was esteemed as a god, and having retired into a district of caverns, inaccessible and unfrequented by other
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Strabo, Geography (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Str.].