AGATHYRSI  , a

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

2 . 17;

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