The dacian pantheon, as we know it today,
is mature and well defined. It doesn't need many gods, going towards
a monoteist model, with one supreme god and very few (3-4) lesser
gods.
Initially, the dacian religion was built around
the supreme god
Gebeleizis, but an event that happened somewhen
between centuries 10 and 5 BC changed this fact: the coming of the
prophet
Zalmoxe and the birth of his religion. However, the new
religion wasn't a radical change from the old one, but more of a
reorganization. Zalmoxe became the only god, replacing an already
restricted pantheon and taking the function of the
previous gods. The belief in life after death, present for a long time
in the Dacian religion, remained unchanged after the adoption of the
new cult: true life only begins after death, where the worthy will live
together with their god.
Before Zalmoxe, there was a god for each
essential element of life: fertilty was represented by
Bendis, and
health and vitality were assigned to
Derzelas.
Gebeleizis
plays the role of master of the nature, god of war and keeper of the
secrets of life and death. Neither of the forms of the religion, pre- or
post-Zalmoxe doesn't have semigods or moralizing heroes; the reason why
they are absent is detailed in the
Myths
section.
Switching from a polytheist religion to a monotheist
one, however brought a major change, in the function of the priests. The
old priests, called the
kapnobatai, mastered the primary elements
of the nature and used their powers to actively change the world around them.
In contrast to them, the priests of Zalmoxe, called the
ktistai,
have a more non-intrusive role, being oriented to healing, and letting
their god handle the major changes; their function is more one of
creating a bond between the people and the supreme god.
