Mysteries of the Great Gods

The Great Gods of Samothraki and Lemnos were chthonic or Underworld deities, older and more potent than the Olympian upstarts of the patriarchal state religion, at whom even first poet Homer could poke fun.

But no one dared to mess about with the Great Gods; no writer revealed the mysteries, although they (like the more famous Eleusis mysteries) may have offered promises for the afterlife. Although dedications found at the sanctuary were simply ‘to the gods’, their Thracian secret names were revealed by a Hellenistic writer: Mnaseas, Axieros, Axiokersos, Axiokersa and Kadmilos, whom the Greeks identified with Demeter, Hades, Persephone, Kore and Hermes.