Sanctuary of Zalmoxis

The Getae regarded Zalmoxis as the one true God, or at the very least their supreme god, with lesser deities at his sides. There is a body of evidence pointing to their worship of multiple deities, not least of all the implication by Herodotus that he was also known as Gebeleizis. The Getae believed in the immortality of the soul, thinking that when they died their soul simply travelled to meet Zalmoxis. It was even tradition, according to Herodotus, to pick a man by chance every four years and send him as messenger. This was achieved by hurling the chosen man into the air onto a trio of spears. If he survived the goring he was unworthy of being the messenger and a bad person. If he was speared to death, however, the man’s soul would ascend to Zalmoxis as messenger to the god.