ZALMOXIS, or ZAMOLXIS  , a semi-mythical social and religious reformer, regarded as the only true God by the Thracian Getae . According to Herodotus (iv . 94), the Getae, who believed in the immortality of the soul, looked upon death merely as going to Zalmoxis . Every five years they selected by lot one of the tribesmen as a messenger to the god . The man was thrown into the air and caught upon the points of spears . If he did not die, he was considered unfit to undertake the mission and another was chosen . By the euhemeristic Hellespontine Greeks Herodotua was told that Zalmoxis was really a man, formerly a slave of Pythagoras at Samos, who, having obtained his freedom and amassed great wealth, returned to Thrace, and instructed his fellow-tribesmen in the doctrines of Pythagoras and the arts of civilization . He taught them that they would pass at death to a certain place, where they would enjoy all possible blessings for all eternity, and to convince them of this he had a subterranean chamber constructed, to which he withdrew for three years . Herodotus, who declines to commit himself as to the existence of Zalmoxis, expresses the opinion that in any case he must have lived long before the time of Pythagoras . It is probable that Zalmoxis is Sabazius, the Thracian Dionysus or Zeus; Mnaseas of Patrae identified him with Cronus . In Plato (Charmides, 158 B) he is mentioned with Abaris as skilled in the arts of incantation . No satisfactory etymology of the name has been suggested .