. History of Rome and of the Roman people, from its origin to the Invasion of the Barbarians;. THE ALLIED AND TRIBUTARY COUNTRIES. 21 to immortality, he says, is this : they think that they do notreally die, but that when they depart this life they go to Zalmoxis.^To this god every five years they send a messenger, who is chosenby lot out of the whole nation, and charged to bear him theirseveral requests. Their mode of sending him is this. A num-ber of them stand in order, each holding in his hand three darts ;. DACIAN others take the man who is to be sent to Zalmoxis, and swincr-
. History of Rome and of the Roman people, from its origin to the Invasion of the Barbarians;. THE ALLIED AND TRIBUTARY COUNTRIES. 21 to immortality, he says, is this : they think that they do notreally die, but that when they depart this life they go to Zalmoxis.^To this god every five years they send a messenger, who is chosenby lot out of the whole nation, and charged to bear him theirseveral requests. Their mode of sending him is this. A num-ber of them stand in order, each holding in his hand three darts ;. DACIAN others take the man who is to be sent to Zalmoxis, and swincr-ing him by his hands and feet, toss him into the air so that hefalls on the points of the weapons. If he is pierced and dies,they think that the god is propitious to them ; but if not, theylay the fault on the messenger, who, they say, is a wicked so they choose another to send away. The messages are 1 This Zalmoxis was the Thracian Dionysos and the Phrygian Sabazios. Funeral in-scriptions have been found in Thrace recalling the joys promised to those initiated into theDionysian mysteries (Fr. Lenormant, Voie eletisinienne, 410-412). 2 Bas-relief from the Museum of the Louvre, No. 349 of the Clarae Catalogue. Thisbeautiful fragment may have belonged to a triumphal arch. The dress of the Barbarian — twotunics, one with long, the other with short sleeves — is the same as that of the Daei scul|>turedon Trajans column. The conical hut of reeds adorned with branches of oak recalls thehabitation
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