Sabazios 1

Sabazios
Sabazios (Ancient Greek: Σαβάζιος) is the nomadic horseman and
sky father god of the Phrygians and Thracians. In Indo-European
languages, such as Phrygian, the -zios element in his name derives
from dyeus, the common precursor of Latin deus ('god') and Greek
Zeus. Though the Greeks interpreted Phrygian Sabazios[1] with both
Zeus and Dionysus,[2] representations of him, even into Roman
times, show him always on horseback, as a nomadic horseman god,
wielding his characteristic staff of power.

Thracian/Phrygian Sabazios
It seems likely that the migrating Phrygians brought Sabazios with
them when they settled in Anatolia in the early first millennium BCE,
and that the god's origins are to be looked for in Macedonia and
Thrace. The recently discovered ancient sanctuary of Perperikon in
modern day Bulgaria is believed to be that of Sabazios. The
Macedonians were also noted horsemen, horse-breeders and
horse-worshippers up to the time of Philip II, whose name signifies
"lover of horses".

Possible early conflict between Sabazios and his followers and the
indigenous mother goddess of Phrygia (Cybele) may be reflected in
Homer's brief reference to the youthful feats of Priam, who aided the
Phrygians in their battles with Amazons. An aspect of the Bronze hand used in the worship of Sabazios
compromise religious settlement, similar to the other such mythic (British Museum). Roman 1st-2nd century CE.
Hands decorated with religious symbols were
adjustments throughout Aegean culture, can be read in the later
designed to stand in sanctuaries or, like this one,
Phrygian King Gordias' adoption "with Cybele"[3] of Midas. were attached to poles for processional use.

One of the native religion's creatures was the Lunar Bull. Sabazios'
relations with the goddess may be surmised in the way that his horse places a hoof on the head of the bull, in a
Roman marble relief at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.[4] Though Roman in date, the iconic image appears to be
much earlier.
Sabazios 2

This copper alloy Roman hand of Sabazios was used in

ritual worship. Few hands remain in collections today.
Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

God on horseback
Further information: Thracian horseman
More "rider god" steles are at the Burdur Museum, in Turkey. Under
the Roman Emperor Gordian III the god on horseback appears on coins
minted at Tlos, in neighboring Lycia, and at Istrus, in the province of
Lower Moesia, between Thrace and the Danube. It is generally thought
that the young emperor's grandfather came from an Anatolian family,
because of his unusual cognomen, Gordianus.[5] The iconic image of
the god or hero on horseback battling the chthonic serpent, on which
Thracian horseman, National Museum of
Romanian History
his horse tramples, appears on Celtic votive columns, and with the
coming of Christianity it was easily transformed into the image of
Saint George and the Dragon, whose earliest known depictions are from tenth- and eleventh-century Cappadocia and
eleventh-century Georgia and Armenia.[6]

Sabazios in Athens
The ecstatic Eastern rites practiced largely by women in Athens were thrown together for rhetorical purposes by
Demosthenes in undermining his opponent Aeschines for participating in his mother's cultic associations:
"On attaining manhood you abetted your mother in her initiations and the other rituals, and read aloud
from the cultic writings ...You rubbed the fat-cheeked snakes and swung them above your head, crying
Euoi saboi and hues attes, attes hues[7]
Sabazios 3

Transformation to Sabazius
Transference of Sabazios to the Roman world appears to have been mediated in large part through Pergamum.[8] The
naturally syncretic approach of Greek religion blurred distinctions. Later Greek writers, like Strabo in the first
century CE, linked Sabazios with Zagreus, among Phrygian ministers and attendants of the sacred rites of Rhea and
Dionysos.[9] Strabo's Sicilian contemporary, Diodorus Siculus, conflated Sabazios with the secret 'second' Dionysus,
born of Zeus and Persephone,[10] a connection that is not borne out by surviving inscriptions, which are entirely to
Zeus Sabazios.[11] The Christian Clement of Alexandria had been informed that the secret mysteries of Sabazius, as
practiced among the Romans, involved a serpent, a chthonic creature unconnected with the mounted skygod of
Phrygia: "‘God in the bosom’ is a countersign of the mysteries of Sabazius to the adepts". Clement reports: "This is a
snake, passed through the bosom of the initiates”.[12]
Much later, the Byzantine Greek encyclopedia, Suda (10th century?), flatly states
"Sabazios... is the same as Dionysos. He acquired this form of address from the rite pertaining to him;
for the barbarians call the bacchic cry 'sabazein'. Hence some of the Greeks too follow suit and call the
cry 'sabasmos'; thereby Dionysos [becomes] Sabazios. They also used to call 'saboi' those places that
had been dedicated to him and his Bacchantes... Demosthenes [in the speech] 'On Behalf of Ktesiphon'
[mentions them]. Some say that Saboi is the term for those who are dedicated to Sabazios, that is to
Dionysos, just as those [dedicated] to Bakkhos [are] Bakkhoi. They say that Sabazios and Dionysos are
the same. Thus some also say that the Greeks call the Bakkhoi Saboi."[13]
In Roman sites, though an inscription built into the wall of the abbey church of San Venanzio at Ceperana suggested
to a Renaissance humanist[14] it had been built upon the foundations of a temple to Jupiter Sabazius, according to
modern scholars not a single temple consecrated to Sabazius, the rider god of the open air, has been located.[15]
Small votive hands, typically made of copper or bronze, are often associated with the cult of Sabazios. Many of these
hands have a small perforation at the base which suggests they may have been attached to wooden poles and carried
in processions. The symbolism of these objects is not well known.[16]

Jewish connection
The first Jews who settled in Rome were expelled in 139 BCE, along with Chaldaean astrologers by Cornelius
Hispalus under a law which proscribed the propagation of the "corrupting" cult of "Jupiter Sabazius," according to
the epitome of a lost book of Valerius Maximus:
Gnaeus Cornelius Hispalus, praetor peregrinus in the year of the consulate of Marcus Popilius Laenas
and Lucius Calpurnius, ordered the astrologers by an edict to leave Rome and Italy within ten days,
since by a fallacious interpretation of the stars they perturbed fickle and silly minds, thereby making
profit out of their lies. The same praetor compelled the Jews, who attempted to infect the Roman custom
with the cult of Jupiter Sabazius, to return to their homes."[17]
By this it is conjectured that the Romans identified the Jewish YHVH Tzevaot ("sa-ba-oth," "of the Hosts") as Jove
Sabazius.
This mistaken connection of Sabazios and Sabaos has often been repeated. In a similar vein, Plutarch maintained that
the Jews worshipped Dionysus, and that the day of Sabbath was a festival of Sabazius.[18] Plutarch also discusses the
identification of the Jewish god with the "Egyptian" Typhon, an identification which he later rejects, however. The
monotheistic Hypsistarians worshipped the Most High under this name, which may have been a form of the Jewish
god.
Sabazios 4

References
[1] Variant spellings, like Sawadios in inscriptions, may prove diagnostic in establishing origins, Ken Dowden suggested in reviewing E.N. Lane,
Corpus Cultis Jovis Sabazii 1989 for The Classical Review, 1991:125.
[2] See interpretatio Graeca.
[3] Later Greek mythographers reduced Cybele's role to "wife" in this context; initially Gordias will have been ruling in the Goddess's name, as
her visible representative.
[4] Zeus Sabazios at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (http:/ / www. mfa. org/ collections/ object/ zeus-sabazios-151211)
[5] Sabazios on coins, illustrated in the M. Halkam collection. (http:/ / mihalkam. ancients. info/ giiilycia. html)
[6] See Saint George and the Dragon
[7] Demosthenes, De corona 260; Attis, serpent cult, Sabazios, Dionysus (Aeschines is characterised as "ivy-bearer" and "liknos-carrier"), and
"cultic writings", which may have insinuated Orphic connections as well, are not otherwise linked in cult, save in their foreignness in
fifth-century Athens.
[8] Lane 1989.
[9] Strabo, Geography, 10.3.15.
[10] Diodorus Siculus, 4.4.1.
[11] E.N. Lane has taken pains to dismiss this widespread conflation: Lane, "Towards a definition of the iconography of Sabazios", Numen 27
(1980:9-33), and Corpus Cultis Jovis Sabazii:, in Études Préliminaires aux Religions Orientales dans l'Empire Romain: Conclusions 100.3
(Leiden, etc: Brill) 1989.
[12] Clement of Alexandria, Protrepticus (Clement), 1, 2, 16.
[13] Sudas, under 'Sabazios,' 'saboi'; Sider, David. "Notes on Two Epigrams of Philodemus". The American Journal of Philology, 103.2 (Summer
1982:208-213) pp209f.
[14] Antonio Ivani, writing to his fellow humanist Antonio Medusei, 15 July 1473; noted in Roberto Weiss, The Renaissance Discovery of
Classical Antiquity, 1969:116.
[15] Lane, E.N. Corpus Cultis Jovis Sabazii, in Études Préliminaires aux Religions Orientales dans l'Empire Romain 100.3 Conclusions (Leiden,
etc: Brill) 1989:48.
[16] M.J. Vermaseren, Corpus Cultis Jovis Sabazii, in Études Préliminaires aux Religions Orientales dans l'Empire Romain 100.1 (Leiden, etc:
Brill) 1983 assembles the corpus of these hands.
[17] (Valerius Maximus), epitome of Nine Books of Memorable Deeds and Sayings, i. 3, 2 (http:/ / www. fh-augsburg. de/ ~harsch/ Chronologia/
Lspost01/ Valerius/ val_fac1. html#03), see EXEMPLUM 3. [Par.]
[18] Plutarch. Symposiacs, iv, 6.
Article Sources and Contributors 5

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Image:HandOfSabazius.JPG Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:HandOfSabazius.JPG License: Public Domain Contributors: Cyborian, Mike Young
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