Histories

To be tattooed is a sign of noble birth, while to bear no such marks is for the baser sort. The idler is most honored, the tiller of the soil most scorned; he is held in highest honor who lives by war and robbery.

These are most notable of their usages. They worship no gods but Ares, Dionysus, and Artemis.[*](Herodotus as usual identifies foreign with Greek deities: v. How and Wells ad loc.) Their princes, however, unlike the rest of their countrymen, worship Hermes above all gods and swear only by him, claiming him for their ancestor.

The wealthy have the following funeral practices. First they lay out the dead for three days, and after killing all kinds of victims and making lamentation, they feast. After that they do away with the body either by fire or else by burial in the earth, and when they have built a barrow, they initiate all kinds of contests, in which the greatest prizes are offered for the hardest type of single combat. Such are the Thracian funeral rites.