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Dacian legends

The stories, in one place

Here you will find the legends of the Dacians in brief, with a link to each full page. For the stories with a source, the whole text is in Dacian legends and myths; the music and the images are in Sounds from the past.

Zalmoxis and immortality

Herodotus writes that the Getae believed themselves immortal and that they periodically sent a messenger to their god, Zalmoxis. The Greeks of the Black Sea shore told that Zalmoxis had been a man and that he stayed three years underground. Herodotus does not fully believe the story.

The holy mountain

Strabo calls the sacred mountain of the Getae Kogaionon and says that Zalmoxis withdrew there. Its location remains a hypothesis.

The treasure of Decebalus

Cassius Dio tells that Decebalus is said to have hidden a treasure in the bed of a diverted river. The story has led to many searches; no treasure of Decebalus has been proved.

To listen to

The album Echoes of Dacia, with 22 tracks and more than an hour and a half of music, accompanies the legends on the page Sounds from the past, together with the vertical film “The forgotten world of the Dacians”.

What we know

  • Herodotus, Plato, Strabo and Cassius Dio tell these episodes.

What is debated

  • How much of them is history and how much is the telling of others; each legend is attributed to its author.

Sources

  • Herodotus, Histories, IV, 93–96 (Zalmoxis and the messenger sent to the god)
  • Strabo, Geography, VII, 3, 5 and 3, 11 (Kogaionon, Deceneus, Burebista)
  • Cassius Dio, Roman History, LXVIII, 14 (the treasure of Decebalus)
  • Plato, Charmides, 156d–157b (the physicians of Zalmoxis)

Text written by Explore Dacia on the basis of the sources above; claims are attributed to their authors.