Religions
Thracian Religion
Religions
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The pre-Roman religion of the Thracian peoples of the southeastern Balkans, known mainly through Greek interpretation of Thracian cult (interpretatio graeca), Greek and Roman inscriptions, and archaeology, since the Thracians themselves left no surviving native religious literature. Its best documented export is the goddess Bendis, whose cult reached Athens itself and whose torch-relay festival, the Bendideia, is the setting Plato uses to open the Republic.
Facts
Disputed
Origin PeriodThe Thracians themselves left no religious literature, so nothing fixes when their religion began; their earliest outside literary attestation is Homer's Iliad, conventionally dated to around the eighth century BCE, where Thracian warriors already appear as an established people. 800 BCE marks that earliest outside glimpse, not the religion's actual origin, which is undocumented and almost certainly older. Correspondences & Relations
Cross-Tradition Connections
Sources
1. The Thracians (Hoddinott)
R. F. Hoddinott, Thames and Hudson, Ancient Peoples and Places, 1981Hoddinott's survey of Thracian religion and the Bendis cult
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