Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 31/1. (2011)
Articles
164 M.-C. Nicolae repertory of Greek allegories regarding the protection and heroization of the deceased, carried by this vehicle to the Islands of the Blessed. According to Greek conception, heroes are nothing else than the spirits of the deceased, which live eternally, as well as gods. Greeks present offerings to them, as do for deities, having a rich repertory regarding their legends, considering them as founding ancestors, everything according to the interest that Greek population gave to intermediary powers. The iconographical expression of heroes in Greek world is materialized through the apparition of the deceased in the funerary banquet scene - an Anatolian motif which generalizes in ancient world through Greek vein as bearer of the deceased heroization message -, or through the apparition of the rider-horse group in different hypostases (Nemeti 2003, 308). Nevertheless, only beginning with the Hellenistic time did the Greeks represented their deities (or spirits) mounted, and this happened under the influence of Alexander the Great and his reforms. The first monuments in the Pontic area of the Hero Rider appear at Histria (Condurachi 1981, 63), and especially at Odessos, Varna (Vagalinski 1997, 47), both Greek colonies. Nevertheless, as regarding Odessos, Varna, one should bear in mind the hypothesis according to which the colony was founded on an ancient Thracian settlement (Gocheva 1998,122). Thus, the Greek tradition found a prepared terrain for receiving this type of representations. The reliefs of the Thracian Hero exemplify moreover the reception of Greek art by a non-Greek population, the iconography revealing the process through which this practice was perceived, being invested with a new meaning, impregnated by local beliefs and cultural preferences (Dimitrova 2002, 214). It may be considered that the Thracian population borrowed certain schemes or iconographical elements, but these borrowings have been filtered through their own religious beliefs. The iconography of the Hero Rider on the monuments from Odessos, Varna might be explained through the Hellenistic influences and by the relatively strong Hellenization of the dedicants, probably of Thracian origin, who made a dedication to their god using Greek formulae, and thus leading to a diversification of the iconographical set. Nevertheless, in territories further from the urban centres, this practice is unknown; therefore, the iconography is rather simple, the large mass of population having no need of inscriptions or of details in order to represent the multiple aspects of their god (Gocheva 1998, 128). Thracian Hero or Thracian Rider was a religious and funerary symbol spread on the entire area from the eastern Balkan Peninsula, and also in the territories where Thracians expanded. As a result, the deity seems to be - at least during Roman times - their main divinity, the popularity of which has not been overwhelmed by any other. This might be explained also by the fact that, for the Balkan area, rendering mounted personages was not a novelty at the moment of junction with the Greek world. Therefore, a possible hypothesis is that we are dealing with a Thraco-Phrygien deity, which came from Anatolia in the Balkan area, at a relatively early date, while his prestige developed during Hellenistic and Roman time (Picard 1956, 17). Along with the Thracian rider, the Balkan area is accustomed with another cult whose set of representations raised controversy among researches of history and history of religion. The cult of Danubian Riders, considered as an original example of religious syncretism (Petolescu 2000, 273), likewise the cult of the Thracian Rider still remains an enigma for present day research. They take their name, on the one hand, from the area on which the monuments which depict them are spread, and on the other hand, due to the fact that the central motif of the reliefs is the representation of one or, most often two mounted male personages together with a female personage (Párvan 1980, 193, 295, 350). It has been considered that the model for this type of representation has been offered on the one hand, by the Thracian Rider, for the monuments which depict a
