the local solar cults, it ultimately prevailed and became entrenched in Thrace, after which it merged with the solar cult and the Sun and chthonic deities merged into a single deity within the Thracian pantheon. The Thracians were culturally closer to the Iranian Scythians to the north of the Danube river and the peoples of Asia Minor and the Achaemenid Persians to the east of the Hellespont than to their Greek neighbours in the south. Nevertheless, with the Greek colonisation of the Aegean and Pontic shores of Thrace, cultural exchanges led to the Thracians adopting the names of Greek gods and adding them to the names of their own gods, with the Thracians giving linking the name of Apollo to those of (), (), and (), Hermes to that of (), and Artemis to those of () and (). Cosmology The Thracians, like the other ancient peoples of south-east Europe, believed universal forces worked within the world, which was itself made from the four classical elements, namely the Earth, Air, Water and Fire. These four elements were conceived of as forces or energies which were combined in the form of the mountain, which was personified as the Thracian Great Mother Goddess. Therefore, the tetrad was seen as the basis of the cosmos in Thracian religion, and the number ten was seen as representing the Cosmos since it was itself composed of the numbers four, three, two, and one, according to the equation . A symbolic representation of the Thracian cosmology in Thracian art is the image of a horned eagle holding a hare in its talons and a fish in its beak: the eagle represents the element of the Air and the "above," the hare represents the Earth and the "middle," and the fish represents Water and the "below". Pantheon According to the ancient Greek historian, Herodotus of Halicarnassus, the Thracians worshipped only three gods, whom he identified via interpretatio graeca with the Greek deities Artemis, Dionysus, and Ares, who respectively held the positions of the Mother of Gods, the Father deity, and the Son of the previous two. This triad recorded by Herodotus might have reflected the tripartite division of Indo-European societies into the priestly, military and economic categories. Thus, "Ares" represented the warrior function, "Dionysus" was connected to the clergy, and "Artemis" in her form as the Great Goddess was the female "transfunctional" deity who was the patron