Zalmoxis

Zalmoxis, (or Zamolxis, Zalmoxe, Salmoxis) was a semi-mythical social and religious reformer, regarded as the only true God by the Thracian Dacians (known in the Greek records as Getae). According to Herodotus, the Getae, who believed in the immortality of the soul, looked upon death merely as going to Zalmoxis. By the euhemeristic Hellespontine Greeks Herodotus 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 and agriculture.

He traveled to Egypt and brought the people mystic knowledge about the immortality of the soul, teaching 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 (some other accounts considered he actually lived in Hades for these 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 Cronos. In Plato he is mentioned as skilled in the arts of incantation.

The name it is believed to be the derived from the Thracian word "zamol" which means "earth" and it may be linked to the underworld experience.