TRAUSI(Τραυσοί, Hdt. 5.3, 4; Thrausi, Liv. 38.41), a Thracian people, who appear, in later times at least, to have occupied the SE. offshoots of Mount Rhodope, to the W. of the Hebrus, and about Tempyra. Herodotus tells us that the Trausi entertained peculiar notions respecting human life, which were manifested in appropriate customs. When a child was born, his kinsfolk, sitting around him, bewailed his lot in having to encounter the miseries of mortal existence; whereas when any one died, they buried him with mirth and rejoicing, declaring him to have been freed from great evils, and to be now in perfect bliss.Mela has followed Herodotus very closely in the following passage (2.2): Lugentur apud quosdam puerperia, natique deflentur: funera contra festa sunt, et veluti sacra, cantu lusuque celebrantur.
As to the Thrausi spoken of by Livy, see TEMPYRA
Suidas and Hesychius (s. v.) mention a Scythian tribe called the Trausi, who, according to Steph. B. (s. v.), were the same people as the Agathyrsi. The last-named author speaks of a Celtic race also, bearing this appellation. On this slight foundation the strange theory has been built that the Thracian Trausi were the original stock of the Celts; and by way of supporting this notion, its propounders arbitrarily read Τραυσοίinstead of Πραῦσοιin Strabo, 4. p. 187, where Strabo expressly says that lie was unable to state what was the original abode of the Prausi: had he been writing about the Thracian Trausi we may safely assume that no such ignorance would have been acknowledged. (Cf. Ukert, ii. pt. 2, p. 230.)
[J.R]