Thoth. The Egyptian deity of written learning, the author of the mystical treatises on medicine and sacred literature, called by the Greeks the Hermetic books, and himself, as the author of them, Hermes Tris- megislus, and, in his character of introducer of souls in Hades, Hermes Psychopompos. He had many names and occupations, which led to his identification with many of the chief divinities by virtue of a parity of offices. He was called on a statue in the Lej-den Mu- seum "He who is the good Saviour;" and on some of the funeral papyri he takes the place of Annbis, or even Horus, with respect to the souls of the deceased. In the Hall of the Two Truths it was the duty of Thoth to weigh the soids of the deceased, and to read from his tablets a record of their actions in the past life. Thoth was also the god of all writing, and founder of all the sciences. He brought to the gods a translation of all the sacred books, and he was called the " Scribe of the Gods," and the " Lord of the Divine Words." In another form the god Thoth was identified with the moon, when he would be represented with the head of an il)is, surmounted by the horns and lunar disk; but of- tentimes he was figured with a human head, hav- ing that of the ibis as a coiffure, and wearing the A tef crovin. As Thoth- Axah, or Thoth the Moon, he was generally entirely naked, and in the figure of an infant with thin bowed thighs, possibly to indicate the moon in its first quarter.
Fis;ure of Thoth.
At other times he was repre- sented as an adult man, bearded, and wearing the short loin-cloth,ors/?e?i^i, of the Egyptians; sometimes he car- ried in his hand the eye of Horus, the symbol of the full moon, the Cucufa or Uas sceptre, and the cnix ansata. In his latter characteristics Thoth was regarded as one and the same with Khonsu of Tliebes. The Cynoceph- alus ape was also sacred to the god Thoth, and hiero- glyphically figured for him. It was Thoth who re- vealed to the initiated certain mysterious words and formulas, thus imparting a knowledge of divine things which was supposed to elevate man to the height of the gods. It was only necessary to pronounce these formulas in the name of the deceased over his mummy, and to place a copy of them by his side in the cotfin, to insure for him the benefit of their influence in the dangers which he had to combat in the lower regions. Should any one take pos.session of the magic-book composed by the god Thoth before he has been initiated, supernatu- ral catastrophes will assail him. He was also wor- shipped by the Phoenicians, Scythians, Germans, Gauls, and other ancient nations. His symbol was the ibis; and his festival was celebrated on the first day of the first moon in the year. — Cooper, A rchaic Diet. s. v. See Egypt.
Thra'cia, or Thrace (QpyKrf), occurs in the Bible in one passage of the Apocrypha only (2 Mace, xii, 35), where a Thracian horseman (tCjv 'nnrfwv OpgicaiT tic, "a horseman of Thracia") is incidentally mentioned,
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apparently one of the boily-triiard of Gorgias, governor of Idumi^a under Antiochus Kpi])lianes (comp. Josephiis, lF(?c, ii, l(j, 4; Appian, ^'z//-. 1 ; Cii\iv,S8). 'I'll race at this period included the whole of the country within the boundary of the Strymon, the Danube, and the coasts of the ^Egean, Propontis, and liuxine (Herod, iv, 99; Pliny, iv, 18); all the region, in fact, now compre- hended in Bulgaria and Kumelia. Under the Konians, Moesia Inferior was separated from it (Ptolemy, iii, 11, 1). In the early times it was inhabited by a number of tribes, each under its own chief, having a name of its own and preserving its own customs, although the same general character of ferocity and addiction to plunder prevailed throughout (Herod, v, 3). Thucyd- ides (ii, 97) describes the limits of the country at the period of the Peloponnesian war, when Sitalces, king of the OdrysiV, who inhabited the valley of the Hebrus (Maritza). had ac()uired a predominant power in the country, and derived what was for those days a large revenue from it. This revenue, however, seems to have arisen mainly out of his relations with the Greek trad- ing communities established on different points of his seaboard. Some of the clans, even within the limits of his dominion, still retained their independence; but after the establishment of a Macedonian dynasty under Lysimachus, the central authority became more power- ful; and the wars on a large scale which followed the death of Alexander furnished employment for the mar- tial tendencies of the Thracians, who found a demand for their services as mercenaries everywhere. Cavalry was the arm which they chiefly furnished (see Homer, Odyss. ix, 49), tlie rich pastures of Kumelia abounding in horses. From that region came the greater part of Sitalces's cavalry, amounting to nearly fifty thousand (see Herod, i, 94 ; v, 3 sq. ; Tacitus, A nnal. iv, 35 ; Hor- ace, Sat. i, 6 ; Pliny, Hist. Nat. xvii, 3, 5, 2 ; xviii, 12, 1 ; Justin, viii, 3; Mela, ii,2; Ce\\a.x\\i\otitia,i\,lb; Man- nert, Gtogr. vii, 1 sq. ; Gatterer, in the Comment. Soc. Got/iiig. iv and v [ Germ, by Schlickhorst, Getting. 1800] ; Smith, Diet, of Class. Geoi/. s. v.).