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AGATHYRSI

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Originally appearing in Volume V01, Page 371 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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AGATHYRSI , a See also:

people of Thracian origin, who in the earliest See also:historical times occupied the See also:plain of the Marls (Maros), in the region now known as Transylvania. Thyrsi is supposed to be a Scythian See also:form of T pavoot (Trausi), a Thracian tribe mentioned by Stephanus of See also:Byzantium. They are described by See also:Herodotus (iv. 104) as of luxurious habits, wearing See also:gold ornaments (the See also:district is still auriferous) and having wives in See also:common. They tattooed their bodies (picti, Aeneid iv. 136), degrees of See also:rank being indicated by the manner in which this was done, and coloured their See also:hair dark See also:blue. Like the Gallic See also:Druids, they recited their See also:laws in a See also:kind of sing-See also:song to prevent their being forgotten, a practice still in existence in the days of See also:Aristotle (Problemata, xix. 28). See also:Valerius See also:Flaccus (Argonautica, vi. 135) calls them Thyrsagetae, probably in reference to their celebration of orgiastic See also:rites in See also:honour of some divinity akin to the Thracian See also:Dionysus. In later times the Agathyrsi were driven farther See also:north, and their name was unknown to the See also:Romans in their See also:original See also:home. See See also:Ammianus See also:Marcellinus xxxi.

2. 17; See also:

Pliny, Nat. Hist. iv. 1.2 [26]. 88; See also:Pomponius See also:Mela ii. I. to; W. Tomaschek, " See also:Die See also:alten Thraker," in Sitzungsber. der philosophisch-historischen Klasse der kaiserl. Akad. der Wiss. exxviii. (See also:Vienna, 1893).

End of Article: AGATHYRSI

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