Immortal Mortal: Heroic Ideology in the Thracian Myth and Cult
Immortal Mortal: Heroic Ideology in the Thracian Myth and Cult

Summary/Abstract: The total amount of written evidence on Rhesos gives the opportunity to recreate the full semantic meaning of this part of the heroic epos, in which the Thracian ruler has the central part. The semantics of the considered testimonies leads the solution of the problem towards establishing some relation between the religious nature of the Thracian Heros and the legends about Rhesos. In its initial stages, the cult of the heros was a cult of the ruler with all the detailed attributes. This statement makes possible for the semantics of the images – as integral part of the cult – to be interpreted in a new light. Relief images of the Thracian Heros reflect the oral epic narratives of the ruler-heros. Some structures recovered from the primary myth make it possible to analyse acknowledgment of the myth-image correlation in Thracian culture.

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