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M. L. WEST
© M. L. West 1983
Ali rights reserued. No pari ef tlús puólicalúm may bt reproduud,
,tored in a retrieool system, or transmilltd, in any form or l!, any
means, eltctronie, mec/aanital, phototopying, rteording, or othtrwist,
without lhe prior p,rmission of O,iford Uniwrsity Prus
1. A HUBBUB OF BOOKS
Orpheus, 3. Ear{y P,1thagorean Orphica, 7. JJacchic m,1steries,
15. The point of convergence, 18. Orpheus at Athens, 20.
More Bacchic m,1steries, 24. Orpheus in other adts, 26.
Neopyt.hagorean Orphica, 29. Jewish Orphica, 33. More
hymns, 35. Some /ater poems, 36.
GENl!.JlAL lNDEX
LIST OF PLATES
(al end)
:1. Work.r cited by autlwr'.r namt onry, OT author and abbreviated titl,
ll11RK.ERT, W., Lore and Scin,çe in Ancient Pytlwgoreamsm, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, 1972.
1>11n.s, H., Doxographi Graeci, Berlin, 1879.
( !KAP, F ., Eleusi.r und di, Mphische Dichtung Athen.r in rxnhellenistischer
Zeit, Berlin and New York, 1974.
<!uTHRlE, W. K. C., Orpheus and Greek Religion, London, 1935.
1ÍOLWERDA, A. E. J., 'De theogonia Orphica', Mnemosyn,i 22
( 18g4), 286-329, 361- 85.
KERN, O., OrphicMUm Fragme,úa, Berlin, 1922.
I.INPORTH, I . M., The Àrf.s <if Orpheu.r, Berkeley and Los Angeles,
1941.
T.OBECK, e. A.' AglaopluznJu.r, Kõnigsberg, 1829.
MouUNIER, L., Orphie ti l'Mphisme à l'ipoque cla.rwiue, Paris, 1955.
Nn..ssoN, M. P., Geschichte rúr griechischen Religion, i, 3rd ed., Munich,
1967; ii, 2nd ed., Munich, 1961.
SceuSTER, P. R., D, utteri.r Orphicae theogoniae in<Me atque origine,
Diss. Leipzig, 1869. .
ScawABL, H ., 'Weltschõpfung', RE Supp. ix. 1434-1582 ( 1958).
STAUDACHEJt, W., Dú Trennung von Hiwnel ll1UÍ Erdt, Diss. Tübingen,
1942; Dannstadt, 1g68.
THESLEFF, H ., The Pytlwgortan Texts <ifthe He/lenisticPtriod, Ábo, 1g65.
Wit,AMOWITz-M0ELLENDORPF, U. von, Der Glaube der Hellenen,
Berlin, 1931-2. Cited after the second printing ( 1955; Darmstadt,
1959), which has slightly different pagination.
Zum:z, G., Persephone, Oxford, 1971.
B . Other abbreuiaJions
ANET Ancitnt Ntar Eastern Texts, ed. J. B. Pritchard, 3rd ed.,
Princeton, 1g6g.
J. D. Beazley, Attic &d-Figur, Va.re-Painters, 2nd ed.,
Oxford, J g63.
BSOAS Bulletin of the School <if Orúntal and Afrúan Studies.
CAG Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, ed. M . Hayduck and
others, Berlin, 1882-1909.
DK H. Dicls, Die Fragmente rúr Vorsokratiktr, 5th cd. by
W. Kranz, Berlin, 1934-5.
xii EXPLANATION 0F ABBREVIATI0NS
EGPO M. L. West, Ear[y Greek Philosophy and the Oritnt, Oxford,
1 971.
FGrHist F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, Berlin,
Leiden, 1923-58.
GDK E. Heitsch, Die griechischtn Dichterfragmente der riJmischen
Kaiserzeit, Gõttingen, 1963-4.
GRBS Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies.
K. Kem (as above).
LSJ H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon,
9th ed., Oxford, 1925- 40.
Orfar,w Orfismo in Magna Grecia, Atti del quattordicesimo con-
vegno di studi sulla Magna Grecia (Taranto 6-10
ottobre 1974), Naples, 1975 (appearcd 1978).
Patr. Gr. Patrologiae cursus complttus, Series Graeca, ed. J.-P. Migne,
Paris, 1857--66.
P.Mag. Papyri Graecae Magicae, ed. K. Preisendanz, Leipzig
and Berlin, 1928-41; 2nd ed. rev. by A. Henrichs,
Stuttgart, 1973- .
PMG D. L. Page, Poetae Melici Graeci, Oxford, 196!l.
RE Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyciopãdie der classisthen Alter-
tumswissenschaft, Stuttgart, 1894-198<>.
Roschn W. H. Roscher (ed.), Ausfohrliches Lexikon der griechischtn
und romischen Mytho/ogie, Leipzig and Berlin, 1884-1937.
SH H. Lloyd-Jones and P. J. Parsons, Supplementum Hellen•
isticum, Berlin and New York, 1983.
SVF H. von Arnim, Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, Leipzig,
1903-5
t {before a number) = testimonium in Kern.
TrGF Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. B. Snell and others,
Gõttingen, 1971- .
ZPE Zeitschriftfor Papyrologie und Epigraphik.
·I' n E magic of Orpheus• song drew animais and trees; the magic
oi' his name has attracted a more unruly following, a motley
r.rowd of romantics and mystics, of impostors and poetasters,
of dizzy philosophers and disoriented scholars. The disorienta-
Lion of the scholars is un<,lerstandable after so many centuries in
which Orpheus was all things to ali men. For generations they
wrestled, each after his own fashion, with the problem of
the origins of the Orphic poems and the pseudo-problem of
the supposed Orphic religion, or, more often, they confused the
issue by arbitrarily attaching the label 'Orphic' to texts and
doctrines not attested as Orphic. Certainly some secure results
were obtained. It has long been settled, for example, that the
extant Orphic Hymns were composed in the Imperial period,
and the Orphic Argonautica in late antiquity. But on many
more central questions opinions still diverge widely. The so-
called Rhapsodic Theogony, much the longest and most
influential of ali Orphic poems, but known to us only in frag-
ments, has been variously dated to the sixth century BC, to the
Hellenistic age, or even later. Truly one can only speak of
disorientation so long as such a massive uncertainty remains
unresolved.
The Rhapsodic Theogony was only one of three Orphic
theogonies distinguished and cited by a late Neoplatonic
writer; we shall see that in fact no less than six can be identi-
fied. The student who browses in Kem's Orphicorum Fragmenta
for the first time quickly comes to the conclusion that this kind
of complication is a normal feature of Orphic literature. He
finds three separate poems on the rape of Persephone, and a
poem called Testament (.d,aDijKa.t) in three different 'redactions•.
He finds fragments disposed under thirty-six different titles,
besides others 'incertae sedis' and others 'spuria vel dubia'.
What is worse, he remains for the most part without guidance
on the dates and connections of ali these works, and he is
aware that in some cases, at least, they are the subject of widc
disagreement. He feels he has strayed into a quicksand.
!l A HUBBUB OF BOOKS
ln the last forty years or so this field of study, the analysis
of this corpus of literature, has lain largely neglected. Rather
as with the Homeric Question, scholars secm to have resigned
themselves to an impasse. They have bccome adept at side•
stepping the subject whenever it threatens to impinge on their
studies. That is of course the only prudent thing to do until
greater clarity is bought into the matter. But it is nota situation
with which we should rest content indefinitely. Questions that
we lack evidence to decide are bettcr left undecided. ln the
Orphic case, however, the difficulty is not so much absence of
evidence as the fact that the evidence is both complex and
fragmentary. It needs a great deal of sorting out and putting
together, and there are m.any opportunities for muddle. I
believe it is possible to sort it out more thoroughly and put it
together more cogently than has been clone hitherto. Un-
expected new evidence has allowed the picture to be filled
out, while reminding us that it is far ·from being a complete
picture. It would be foolish to imagine that we now have the
means to solve every problem. On points of detail I shall often
offer speculative suggestions which the reader must judge as
he thinks fit; and I know that for some readers any speculation
is 'mere' speculation, and its denunciation an automatic victory
for scholarship. I hope nevertheless to construct an account of
the history of Orphic literature that will prove solid in its main
outlines and that students of antiquity will feel able to incor-
porate in their overall view of the history of Greek literature.
I speak of Orphic literature, not of Orphism or the Orphics.
Much of the fog which beset the subject in the past (and, of
which wisps still linger) arose from the confusion of these con-
cepts. It was Wilamowitz, whose clear old sceptical gaze falis
upon me from my study wall as I write these words, who first
: j· saw through it. 1 His insight was developed by I. M. Linforth
! 1 in his excellent book TM Arts of OrpMus. These two scholars
' emphasized the fact that while ancient authors frequently refer
to poems by Orpheus or attributed to Orpheus, they seldom
refer to Orphics, except in the sense of authors of Orphic books,
and never to 'Orphism'. They mention various cults and rituais
that Orpheus was supposed to have founded, and they apply
the adjective 'Orphic' to certain rites and religious practices
• Gltluiu, ii. 190 ff. My picture dates ti-om 1931, when he was working on Glau6e.
A HUBBUB OF BOOKS !I
anel to an ascetic way of life. But the name of Orpheus is the
1111ly consistent unifying factor.2 It·is a fallacy to suppose that
ali 'Orphic' poems and rituais are rclated to each other or
il1;lt tbey are to be interpretcd as different manifestations of
a single religious movement. Of course, in some cases there
an: connections between different poems, between separate
rituais, or between certain poems and certain rituais. But the
,·s.~cntial principie to remember is that a poem becomes Orphic
simply by being ascribed to Orpheus. By the sarne tokcn,
<)rphics are simply people who in their religious beliefs or prac-
lir.cs, whatever these may be, accord a place of honour to texts
asc:ribed to Orpheus. There was no doctrinal criterion for
ascription to Orpheus, and no ,copyright restriction. lt was a
drvice for conferring antiquity and authority upon a tcx:t that
slood in need of them.
Thesc are the axioms that must govern our use of terms like
' Orphic'. To say that an idea which we find stated in Pindar
or Euripides is Orphic means nothing unless it means that it
was derived frorn a poem or poems bearing Orpheus' name;
and even if we know that a given idea occurred in an Orphic
pocm, we cannot always assume that it originated in or was
peculiar to Orphic verse. We must never say that 'the Orphics'
hdieved this or did that, and anyonc who does say it must be
asked sharply 'Whúh Orphics?' A recent discovery at the site
,,r Olbia has made it probablc tbat tbere existed a sect there in
thc fifth century se who may properly be called Orphics.
l•:vidcnce from art points to the existcnce of an Orphic group
al Tarentum in the se-cond ha!f of the fourth century. lt is
l,:gitimate to talk about thesc Olbian or Tarentine Orphics, or
any other specific group of Orphics that we can identify, but
11ot to talk about 'thc Orphics' in general. As for 'Orphism',
1hc only definite meaning that can be given to the term is 'the
fashion for claiming Orpheus as an authority'. The history of
<>rphism is the history of that fashion.
Orpheus
( )rpheus was a figure of myth, and an unusual one in Greek
lcrms in that he had no place in the network of genealogics by l,
which almost everyone supposed to have lived in the heroic
• &e Linforth, 261-8g.
4 A HUBBUB OF BOOKS
age was linked together in the Hesiodic and logographic tradi-
tion. These genealogies co:nnected Greece with Egypt, Phoeni-
cia, and Anatolia, but not with Thrace, Orpheus' country. He
•.f stands outside the Mycenaean wodd. His father Oeagrus is
/, a mere name without substance. Four separate stories about
Orpheus are attested in classical times, all reflecting his unique
musical gifts.
(i) Birds and animals carne to hear him perform, rivers
stayed in their courses, even the rocks and trees carne sidling
down the mountain,3
(ii) He took part in the Argonautic expedition and saved
the Argonauts from the seductions of the Sirens by outsinging
them. 4
(iii) He prevailed upon the infernal powers to release his wife
, , from Hades.s
1
•• Ion, TriJlllMÍ, DK 36 B !.1; HdL !.1,81. I acecpt thc l0<1gcr venion of lhe
Herodotus pauage; shonening wu more likdy to happen than intcrpolation. For
cliscussion of lhe problelll$ tec Linforth, 38-5o; bibliograpby in Burkcrt, LS 127
n. 39 (add Moulinicr, g ft).
11 Cf. 2. 1g3, whcre Herodotua claims Egyptian origin for thc theory of metem-
p&ychosis, 'which certain Greclu have maintained aa their own, some earlie.-, some
later; 1 know tbcir names but pass ovcr thcm'. 1 tbinlr. it likcly that be had
Pythagoru aod Empododcs primarily in mind. Soe Burkcrr, LS 126 n. 38.
11 Fr. 17 M. = B 129, Thc authc:nticity ofthe f~cnt wu formerly doubted
but ia now gaicrally acoepted. Sec Bu.rkcrt. LS I So f.
A HUBBUB OF BOOKS 9
ditl at the sarne period with the oracles of Musaeus.u Now
dcarly Heraclitus is not saying the sarne as Ion; he is not
~aying that Pythagoras composed works under a pseudonym.
l lc may nevertheless be referring to Orphica-to a Pythagorean
publication which Heraclitus took to be what it claimed to be,
11amely an edition of older poetry, whereas lon saw it as a
l:tbrication.
For more explicit information we are indebted to one Epi•
1-:cnes, an obscure figure who appears to have lived in the first
l,alf of the fourth century BC. 14 He is recorded as having stated,
in a discussion of Orphic poetry, that the Descent to Hades and
lhe Hwos Logos were really by Cercops the Pythagorean, and
the Robe and Pkysika by Brontinus. •s Nothing is known of this
Cercops (he does not appear in lamblichus' long list of Pytha-
i-:oreans), but Brontinus or Brotinus of Metapontum or Croton
is known as a contemporary of Alcmeon ofCroton: he was one
of three people to whom Alcmeon dedicated his book. 16 Epi•
genes' ascriptions are worked into the long list of Orpheus'
poems in the Suda ( = t 223d Kem), with some variants. The
Hieros Logos appears as Hieroi Logoi in twenty-four rhapsodús- in
other words it is confused with the Rhapsodic Theogony, which
we shall see to be a poem of later date-and ascribed either to
Cercops the Pythagorean or to Theognetus the Thessalian.
,, Hdt. 7.6. Hc collcctcd and arrangcd thcm, hc intcrpolatcd thcm, and when
takcn to Susa hc falsilicd thcm further by supprcssing some (.-a ,trrux,,,,,.u.-o.
iKÃ<yÔ,,,.-,,os, thc sarne word as in Hcraclitus). Onomacritus' association with the
Orphica is a late invcntion, scc p. 1149.
14 In Callimachus' time there wcre people who thought that he was the author
ofthe Triagmoi oflon ofChios {Call. fr. 449). Perhaps he wrotc an excgesis ofit;
we know that he discussed tbe intcrprctation of onc of Ion's tragedies (Ath. 468c,
v.l. 'Epimcnes'). This might havc Jcd to bis bcing quoted as 'Epigcncs in the
Triagmoi'. Linforth, 114 ff., makes out an attractive case for identifying him with
Epigcnes thc disciplc of Socrates who appcars in Plato and Xenophon.
u Clcm. Str. 1.131 = t 111111 Kcm. Clemcnt writes 'Epigcncs in his writing on
tbe poetry ascribcd to Orpheus', and in 5.49 ( = fr. 33 K.) 'in his book on lhe
pocll'y of Orpheus', as if it wcre a monograph, but I suspcct tbat it rcally camc
from Epigcnes' exegesis of thc Triagmoi, and was an amplification of Ion's statc•
mcnt thcrc about Pythagoras. This would help to explain why the Sud4 llst of
Orphcu.s' poems, which incorporates Epigenes' ascript.ions, bcgins 'He wrotc
Triagmoi; but they are said to bc by Ion thc tragedian'. The sourcc presumably
named Epigcnes in association with the T riagmoi.
16 DK 114 B 1. Hc is said to have been the father (or husband) of Pythagoras'
wifc; (or daughtcr or pupil) Theano (D.L. 8.411, etc.). Cf. Burkcrt, LS 114 and
!!8g n, 57•
10 A HUBBUB OF BOOKS
The Descent is given to H erodicus of Perinthus,17 while the
Robe, together with a .Net, is given either to Brontinus or to
Zopyrus of Heraclea. Zo_pyrus is "known from the catalogue
of early Pythagoreans in Iamblichus, where heis listed as from
Tarentum. 18 He is further credited, both in the Suda and in
Clement, with a Krater. 19
Kraúr, Net, Robe. Thesc titles fali into a pattern, and it is
pos.,ible to conjecture something of their meaning. The Net was
in all probability the Orphic poem known to Aristotle in which
the fonnation of a living creature was likened to the knitting of
a net (fr. 26 Kem). T he image, already alluded to in the
Timaeus, 20 suggests that the soul is air occupying the interstices
of a material body. It savours of Pythagoreanism, for there
is a certain analogy betwe~n the picture of the net being
built up loop by loop and the Pythagorean (Philolaic) number-
cosmogony in which thc world is built up from a monad that
' brcathes in' and becomcs a dyad and so on. 21 On general
groune:ls one might supposc the physical thcory of the poem
to bc oldcr than the more abstract scheme of Philolaus.
R elatcd ideas may have inspired tbe Robe. 1n onc or other
ot thc Órphic poems he kncw, Epigenes found a dcscription of
wcaving or of a loom. H e quoted from it the expressions
'shuttles with bcnt convcyancc' and 'warp-threads' ,z• and
cxplained them as symbolizing the ploughing and sowing of
the carth . Robes and weaving go together, and therc is some
likclihood that the poem in question was the Robe. Epigenes'
allcgorical interpretation may of course have becn as arbitrary
as tbat of the Derveni papyrus to be discussed in the next
chapter but one. But a robe symbolizing the surface of tbe
earth had appeared in a pre-Pythagorean theological narrative:
í11 Pberecydes of Syros, who related how Zas wovc a robe for
ltis bride Chthonie, émbroidcred earth and ocean upon it, and
hy giving it to Chthonic transformed her into Ge. 21 ln the later
( >rphic Rhapsodies Persephone was described as weaving a
llowery robe, work which was interrupted when Pluto carried
ltcr off to the underworld: that robe too had an evident cosmic
significance. The Robe known to Epigenes and ascribed by him
lo Brontinus may well have contained an earlier version of the
sarne episode, with Persephone's weaving standing for the ,,
smsonal re-covering of the earth by crops, flowers, and other
vcgetation. The basic idea that 'the earth is the robe of P.er- ,
s1·phone' is quite in the style of thc carly Pythagoreans, who i
wcre given to sayings likc 'the Bears are thc hands of Rhca', ,
'lhe plancts are Pcrsephone's hounds', 'the sca is thc tear of \
K ronos', 14 \
>8 Scc Burkcrt, LS 345-8. Thc conccpt of infinitc other worlds bcsides our own
was already pn:sent in ~naxirnandtt (EGPO 8o f.).
>• Hcld. fr. 41 = Orph. fr. 291; sch, T li. 13,58g (not in Kem),
A HUBBUB OF BOOKS 15
otlu-rs.4° Didymus' testimony must therefore be considered
1111rl'liable, though there is nothing in itself improbable in an
,·arly Orphic poem prohibiting the consumption ofbeans. 41
1>iscounting these two potential contributions from Hera-
didcs Ponticus, we are still left with a quite adequate amount
ofcvidence for the production ofOrphic poetry in Pythagorean l)
w,,rkshops. This poetry was not, of course, fully representative ' 1
or cverything that we can call Pythagorean. Pythagoras must
ltavc been a man ofunusual intellect and imagination; he was
a lso a gifted showman who made a striking impression on his
rnntemporaries and whose influence led in more than one
1lircction. Hippasus of Metapontum, a student of mathematics
and music; Empedocles; Philolaus; the shabby vegetarians
earicatured in Middle Comedy; all these were in a sense
l_>ythagoreans, developing some aspect of Pythagoras' complex
l<"gacy and honouring his memory. The 'Pythagorean' poets \
who augmented the Orphic corpus were just one group, and ,
11ot necessarily a closely unified group. So far as we can judge, '
thcir interests lay neither in mathematics nor in superstitious
rules of deportment, but in picturesque metaphysics and
,·schatology.
lfacchic mysteries
The second of the three lines of evidence leading towards the
heginnings of Orphic literature is traced across four rather
slight but telling pieces of evidence, three literary and one
cpigraphic.
ln Aeschylus' Bassarai, as we saw, the playwright made
a tragedy hinge on the opposition between two images of
Orpheus: an Apolline, Pythagorean (?) Orpheus, and a Diony-
siac Orpheus who acquired honour from Dionysus and owes
him honour in return. This seems to presuppose the existence
of Dionysiac cult in which Orpheus had some part, that is to
say, in which verses ascribed to Orpheus had some part.
•• See bclow, pp. 35, n. 105, 36f. Tertullian, D, anima 15,5, and sch. Aphthon.
in G. Hermano, Orph~ (18o5), 511, provide parallels for venes of Empcdocles
(8 105.3, 127) being quoted as 'Orpheus'•
., Therc is a little evidence from the Roman pcriod for an Orphic interest in
beans: Paus. 1.37-4, Orph. Hymn 26 rubric, Greg. Naz. Or. 27.10 (Patr. Gr. xxxvi.
2,i.B). But the taboo cxisted in various culls (Frazer on Paus. 8.15.4; Burkert, LS
183-5), and these texts do not necesaarily lead us back to early Pythagoreanism.
16 A HUBBUB OF BOOKS
I havc also mentioned already Herodotus• phrase about 'the
observances which are callcd Orphic and Bacchic'. The passage
reads in fu)l (2.81):
(The Egyptians) wear linen tunics with a tauelled hem, which they caU
kalaJfrits, and over these they tbrow woollen wraps. But woollen fabrics
are not taken into shrines, or buried with them, for it ia not comldcrcd
holy, They agree in this with the obeervances which are called Orphic
and Bacchic, but are in fact Egyptian and Pythagorean; for neither is it
comldcred holy for a participantin thae rites (&py,u) tobe buriedin woollen
garments, and therc ia a sacred atory told on the subject.
Pythagoras is a many-sided figure, but Bacchic rites are one
thing that we do not associate with him. The gods with whom
he has connections in tbe tradition are Apollo and marginally
Demeter. And clearly the rites which Herodotus has i.n view
are not called Pythagorean: it is hc who detects something
Pythagorean in them, or in the teaching that goes with them,
just as he detects an Egyptian background in the wool taboo.
By our criteria, then, they are not Pythagorean, though what
they had in common wíth Pythagoras' teaching may have been
something signifi.cant. They were called Orphic or Bacchic.
That is, the celebrants called themselves bacchoi, and looked
to Orpheus as their prophet-probably as the founder of their
cult and the author of their 'sacred story' and whatever other
texts they used.
There is one furthcr scrap of literary evidence for Orpheus•
association with bacthoi in the fifth century. ln Euripides'
Hippolytus the enraged Theseus, misled into believing that the
reason for Phaedra's suicide was rape by he.r stepson, the osten-
tatiously pure and holy Hippolytus, excoriates him thus (952-
5): 'Go on, posture, advertise your meatless diet, play the
hacchos with Orpheus as your master, honouring your vaporous
screeds: you are found out'. None of this particularly fits the
form that Hippolytus• religiosity takes in the rest of the play,
but it must represent a re<;ognizable type of religiosity that a
young man of bis temperament might follow: bauluia (implying,
probably, initiation and group ecstasy), associated with vege-
tarianism and Orphic scriptures. Perhaps it was vegetarianism,
or this among other things, that Herodotus diagnosed as
Pythagorean in the Orphic-Bacchic cult he mentions.•2
o Prohibition of meat-eating by Orpheus is probably rd'erred to by Ar. Rait.
, 032, •o~~ ,-dp -rw-r&s 11· ..,,.,.. 1<crr'34ct• ~ .,.• &.-.x-..Bci., cr. Elllp.
A HUBBUB OF BOOKS 17
ln another place (4. 79) Herodotus tells us of a cult of
Dionysus Bacchews, Dionysus of the bauhoi, at Borysthcncs
(Qlbia), one of the most northerly of all Greek colonies, estab-
lishcd at about the bcginning of the sixth century beside the
cstuary of the river Bug. Tbe Scythian king Scyles, who was
attracted to the Greck way of life and maintained a large and
ornate house in Olbia, had himself initiated in the cult and
romped through the town with the Bacchic society, possessed
hy thc god. The Scythians did not think this at all suitable, and
he was deposed.
Soviet excavations at Olbia have produced a fair amount of
cvidence for the worship of Dionysus, going back into the sixth
ccntury and extending into Hellenistic times. Curiosity is par-
t.icularly aroused by quantities of roughly rectangular bone
plates, polished on one or both sides, about five to seven cm.
in length, some found in the sanctuary arca north of the Agora,
others in residential arcas. The majority are blank, but a few
carry inscriptions or drawings. A group of three discovered in
1951 (but not published till 1978), and dated to the fifth
century, are of special importance. They bcar the following
legends:
(1) Life: dcath: life.-Truth.-A-~-Dio{nysus), Orphic().
(~) Peace: war. Truth: falsehood.-Dio(nysus) N-A.
(3) Dio(nysus} ~-Truth.-(illegible word) ... soul.-A.
The second platc has on the reverse a curious oblong design
divided into scvcn compartments, cach of which contains a
small oval; it may possibly represent a musical instrument, or
a tray or table of offerings. Tbere are also several zigzag marks,
one group of which could be interpreted as the lettcrs IAX,
i.e. lacchus. The third tablet also has a design on the reverse,
perhaps representing a stool covered by a fleece, as uscd in
some initiation ceremonies.•J
The Bacchic rites were not celebrated by all the citizenry
but by those wbo chose to become initiates. I conjecture that
B 128.8, 136; Pl . .C.,. 78~c. So G. Zunt~, Gnomon 50 (1978), 5~; differently (of
prohíbition of bomicide) Graf, 34 f., ã. Linfmth, 6g f.
41 A. S. Rusyaeva, Bccnuut Aj)CBHCA HCTOpHH 1978(1), 87-104 (Ga•11:um
précis by F. Tinnefcld ut Z,PE 38 (1g8o), 67-71); West, q'E 45 (19&), •7-29;
SEG 28.65g--61. 0n Olbia ~ally sce E. Bclin de Baliu, OlbÍII (1972);
A. WflOWÍÇ2, OJl;ia P ~ d - úmlwl (1975); J. V111ogt-.dov, 011;;., (1g81),
A HUBBUB OF BOOKS
the little bone tablets scattered about the town were member-
ship tokens, bone slices symbolizing participation in common
sacrifices.44 Their embellishment with words and symbols seems
to have been left to the individual's discretion. One can specu-
late at length about the precise meaning and implications of the
graffiti. But it is clear enough that these people have some
doctrine about the soul and about life after death; that they
rejoice in 'truth', presumably a truth revealed to them as
initiates; and that Orpheus is somehow involved. It is not clear
whether the word 'Orphic' is being applied to Dionysus, to the
votaries, or to the rites, but it comes to the sarne thing.
~
l -3~w P--,.~1t" I'; N
A)"- 't4 !:l E\
~ ~
\ r blank
Fio, 1. Bone plates from Olbia. Fifth century ec. See also PI. 1.
Orpheus at Athtns
Wc have made inferences from Aeschylus about the existence
of certain Orphic tcxts. ~owever, the earliest direct allusion in
surviving Attic litcr~ture to writings originating from Oq~heus
is to spells or incantations.4 1 A Thracian '. shaman' was a suitablc
author for such things; they are also attributed to such persons
as Abaris and Zalmoxis.48 Under the stresses of the Pelopon-
nesian War and thc Plague people tum incrcasingly to super-
stition, and there is a new market for diviners and purveyors
of charms, exotic cults, and religious revelations. 49 Oracles of
•• Sud4, ~.,,.,,,;3-.is )1"7..,õos • p•o/J'"<pos TOi1 E•p/ou, &, ~ • .-cà • OP+'" 'f
ouvayay•••· Toe rclativc &v probably refen to the aubjcct of tbe cntry, Pherecydcs
of Athcru. But it was really Pherccydcs of Syros wbo was the oldcr of the two, and
be is the one more likcly to havc becn brought into conncction with Orphica
(F. G. Sturz, P/vru,dis Fr11~ itod ed. (t81t4), 6 1). Tbere are oth« aigm of
confimon betwcen tbe two Pherccydcs in the Suda entrics.
~_!_E..41&..~f.Jàd, .!!~, and Linf~~"1l, .1!9..!f.:. .
•• Pl. C/illnn. 156d, 158b. Spells and charms are more attractive if they come
from a rcmote, halC-legendary co-untry. Acsdiylus auociatcs drugs with the
Tyrrhenians (fr. dcg. 2) ; ai an earlier pcriod it was l!gypt (Od. 4-227-32) .
•• Cf. Dodds, Tltl Crnks ond t/v /,rotional, 1118-!)5.
A HUBBUB OF BOOKS 21
so R,p. 36~µ, cf. 364bc and 366ab. See the careful analysis in Linforth, 75 ff.
<lrpheus as poet ofsacramcnts aho Prol. 316d.
sr C/iar. 16.1~. The anecdotc about an Orphootelestes called Philip approaching
1hc Spartan king Leotychidas early in the 5th century (Plut. Apoplúh. Laç. 224c)
nmnot bc taken as historical. The same story was told about Antisthenes (D.L.
h.4). ln the best 51h-ecntury evidence for this type of quack ('Hp.' Morb. StJ&r.
~ ·4} thcre is no mention of Orpheus.
" PJ. Crot 400c, Phoed. 62b, cf. Lg. 854b, Ax. 365e; Arist. fr. 6o. Aristotle d.id
not spcak of 'Orpheus' bccausc he did not bclieve him to have existcd (fr. 7} •
.,. Fr. 20 Heinze. 1 sce no rcason to regard the phrase that follows T,.,.a..inj
.',rrt in 'Olympiodorus•, .-ai ~lf il,óvvoov d.1to1<op~oíiTG(., as part of the citation from
Xenocrates.
22 A HUBBUB OF BOOKS
number. 54 The myth of the imprisonment of the T ita.ns in
Tartarus would thus be for him an allegory ofthe imprisonment
of bad daimones in mortal bodies which actually takes place.
So far as the Titans are concerned this may have been Xcn<r
crates' own development of the Orphic doctrine to which Plato
had alluded. But the idea that the soul confined in us originated
as a daimon, and committed its offence in that form, had been
about for more than a century. It is dearly stated by Empe-
dodes (B 115), though hc describes incarnation in terms of
exile .rather than imprisonment, and it is not dear whether
he means that all human beings have this origin or only certain
superior ones such as himself. The punishment, in bis theory,
consists not j ust of a single incarnation but of an immense
series lasting for te.os of thousands of years.
Empedodes brings us d ose to the Pythagorean orbit, and we
recall two of the early Pythagorean maxims:
Having come for p unishment one must be punished.
One must not pull apart the god within onese(f.u
Plwinikika du LoUianos (1972), 114 f.; R.. Seaford, CQ. 31 (1g81), 259. ln&. 238
we 6nd díuctions for ceremonial robing in C01tumc which has ao analogy with
thc sun, stan, and oa:an and which Macrobius says belongs in lhe ritcs of
Dionysus, (Rcad l•pf. a1t<vB in vcnc t ; comma beforc 8ni, in 2.)
,. Thc titlc could bc intcrpreted a, 'rcpcrtory of (dívinc) namcs'. B. Gísckc,
RA. Mr,s. 8 ( 1853), 92 and 119, suggestcd idcntifying it with thc cxtant H:,mns.
They a.rc indeed Jargcly lisis of lhe goda' titles (a typical 11-ylistic f.:arurc of late
hymm), but thcy werc clcarly meant 10 bc used u i.nvoca1ions, not as works of
rcfercnce.
79 Cf. a<i)C• or acllao• 'grant salvation' in prayt:ra whcre no 1pecific danger is
prescnt: Ar. &a. 388, P . Gurõb 1 ( • fr. 31 K.) i S, Hy,u !2.3, 2.14-, 9.r2, 34.27,
etc. Thc author of the SwrN is given as T'unodes of Syncuse or Pcninus of
Milctus. 1o CQ. 18 (1g68), 288 f.
A H U BB UB OF BOOKS ,:,9
house and prayed to all the gods they could think of, to the
light of torches and the fragrances of eight varieties of incense.
Occasionally their ceremonial activity went as far as a libation
of milk. We get a picture of cheerful and inexpensive dabbling
in religion by a literary-minded burgher and bis friends, per-
haps in the second or third century of our era. Dionysus is thc
most prominent dcity, bcing the recipient, under diffcrent
titles, of eight hymns. The fiction that Orpheus is the author
is supported by a couplc of allusions to ApoUo and Calliope as
his parents. References to names and incidcnts in thc Rhapsodic
Theogony indicate awareness of more widcly current Orphic
literature and recognition ofits authority.ª1
Neof,ythagorean Orphica
ln one of the many P ythagorean pseudepigrapha of the Hel-
lenistic period, the prose Hieros Logos, ' Pythagoras' claims to '
have derived from Orpheus his knowledge that number is the
essence of the universe. He leamt of Orpheus' teaching when 1
he was initiated in the Thracian mysteries.82 We see that the
Pythagorean tradition of using Orpheus' name is still alive,
and that the Pythagorean Orpheus has been assimilated to
Orpheus the hierophant. The writer does not necessarily prc-
suppose the existencc of an Orphic pocm on the subject of
number. But the Ncoplatonists quote from one, a Hymn to
Number (frr. 309, 311- 12, 314-17), and it was as plain to them
as it is to us that it was of Pythagorcan origin. It was q uite
possibly of Hellenistic date.
Orpheus is also mentioned in another of the Pythagorean
writings of the period,8J where it is claimcd that he used thc
Doric dialect. The assertion is perhaps madc on the theoretical
ground that Doric is the oldest dialect ; but it is possíble that
thcrc existed a Ncopythagorean poem in Doric (likc the oath,
p. 170 Thesleff), attributed to Orpheus.
Another poem, the Lyre, sounds at oncc from its titlc as
though it came from the sarne mould as the Robe, the N et, and
11 On tbc Hymns see furtber Wilamowitz, GlmdJt, ii. 505-9; Guthric, 257-61;
Linforth, 179-89; R . Kcydell, RE xviii. 1321-33.
•• Fr. 1 Thesleff, T,xtr, p. 16.J. ln bis fntrod,ieti,m to 1/u Pyt}ul.torttm Wrinng, ef
tltt Htllatistie Period ( 1961), to+f., Thesleff suggcsi. <bting the work to thc
u t ccntury ao. " 'Mclrodorus', p. 122.13 Tbcsldf = t 247 Kern.
30 A HUBBUB OF BOOKS
theKrain'. Itis known only from a scholiumon Virgil discovered
in a Paris manuscript in 1925.lk The tcxt runs:
Dlcunt tamen quldam liram OrpheJ cum vii cordís fuisse, et célum habet
vii z:ónás, unde teologia assignátur. Varro autcm dlcit librum Orfei de
uocandá aninú Liram nóminári. ct ncganlur animac sine cithará posse
a.scendcre.
But some say tbat Orpheus' lyre had seven strings corresponding to the
scvcn circlcs of heavcn, Varro 1ays thcrc was an Orphic boolc about
summoning the souJ, called thc Lyre. l t is said that souls necd the cithara
in order to asccnd.
Virgil had referred to Orpheus' attempt to recover Eurydice.
Earlier the scholiast has intcrpreted the myth as an attempt to
bring upa dead person's soul by means of a lyre. So the context
implies that the libtr <k uocandá animá has to do with conjuring
souls by this method.85 But the title, and the analogy drawn
in the scholium and elsewhcre86 between Orpheus' lyrc and
the seven circles ofheaven, although this is not actually ascribed
to the Orpbic poem, suggest tbat the poem may have contained
an account of the musical scale formed by the planetary
spheres, equated with the strings ofOrpheus' lyre, and perhaps
an account of the soul's ascent to heaven through them.81
Such a scheme would be the product of Hellenistic spccula•
tion, of a variety particularly associated with ' Pythagoras'.
T qe idea of a cosmic lyre goes back to the iambic poet Scy•
thinus, who may be as early as the late fifth century.ss But
there the sun is the p lectrum, so that the strings of the Jyre
that Apollo tunes cannot correspond to the orbits of the
hcavenly bodies at different distances f:rom the carth. They
correspond rather to the diffcrent scasoos of the year, a con-
ception attested by several !ater authors.119 It was Eratosthenes
•• J.J. Savage, TAPA#, (1925), l!29ff, Not in Kern.
u A. D. Noclt, CR 41 (1927), 170. Noclt readi '6 (,)a>c,w/4.
16 Lobeck, 942 ff. See esp. [Luc.] astr. 10 (t 107 Kcm).
'' Cf. Noel<, l.c.
" Fr. 1 in my lambi ti Elegi. On bis dating cf. my StwJi,s in Gmk El,gy and
Iomb,u (1974), 177. ·
•• (4) Threeaeasom: Diod. 1.16 (Hennes' lyre), Orph. HJ"M 34.16-23 (Apollo's,
as in Scythinus). Winter - the lowes1 note, spring the middle, summcr the
highest. (b) Four seasons: Varro &t. 458, 'Otaldaeans' llf,. Plut, IR anim. proer.
1028f, Pythag. op. Arist. Quint, 3.19. Herc (as lhe last two sources agree) winter
= 12 , spring - 8,aurumn - 6,summer = 4;10winter:springmakes the interval
of a fifth, sprlng: summer an octave, apring : autumn a fourth. Thc simpler,
non•mathematical, th.ree-season system must be the older. The othcr involves
A HUBBUB OF BOO KS
in his poem Hermes who brought Plato's planetary scale into
connection with a divinc lyre. He described how Hermes
ascended to heaven and marvelled to find the planets hum-
ming along their orbits on the very notes of the lyre he had
invented on earth.9°
This elegant combination provoked imitation. , Sometime
between Eratosthenes and Varro a book in the name of
Pythagoras presented an account of thc cosmos witb measure-
ments based on the harmony theory. I t may havc used the
unit of 126,000 stades which was presupposed in another
' Pythagorean' work of the early second century (as well as
in the roughly contemporaneous astrological work of'Nechepso
and Petosiris'), and which is just half of Eratosthencs' measure-
ment for the circumference of the earth.9 1 A similar system was
cxpounded, again in connection with Hermes' lyre, by Alex-
ander ofEphesus, a minor poet of about 60 Bc. 91 Varro, whose
involvement with the Pythagoreanism in vogue at Rome in his
time is wcll known, 9J dcscribed the 'Pythagorean' scheme. It
was the sarne Varro who mentioned the OrphicLyre; and surely
it was a Pythagorean who transferred the cosmic instrument
from Hermes to Orpheus, at the sarne time introducing the
notion of using music to influence the natural order.9 "-
The use oflyre music to help the ascending soul is apparently
alluded to by Cicero in the Somnium Súpionis, where Africanus,
after explaining the music of the spheres, says: 'By imitating
this on their strings and in song, learned men have opened thc
way for themselves to rcturn to this place (heavcn), like others
of outstanding gifts who have devotcd earthly life to studying
the divine.'95 Simulation of the cosmic music on the cithara
tbc four clcmenu, which wcre not brou,ght into a harmonic rclationship bcfore
thc Tamans. Cf, abo PL Pml. li&, S.1ffll. 188a; Pythag. ap. (Diod. Eretr. and
Aristox. ap.) R ipp. R,f. 1.2.13; Cleanthcs:, SVF i . , r,u9; Varro Sal. 351; Cornu1.,
p. 67.17 L .; Orph. H:,m,, 8.9; Burkcrt, LS 355 í.
•• Frr. 1- 16 Powell, with SH 397-8.
•• Burkert, P/iilol. 105 ( 1g61), Qg-42.
•• SH 21 . Cí. Burkert, op. cit., 32 n. 1.
•• Cf. Nock, CR 43 ( 1929), 6o f.
•• The Pythagorcan writer Panace.u (p. 141 Thcsl~ said that it was thc func-
tion of music not only to rcconcilc 1he paro of lhe voice but to hring togcther and
attunc cverything in nature. Cf. lambi. VP 45. For thc R oman ·P ythagoreans'
calling up of the dcad cf. Cic. in l'alin. 14.
os De Rtp. 6.18. ct Arist, Qilint. 2.19, p. 92 W.-1.
A HUBBUB O F B OOK S
and by vocalization (we tbink of the intoníng of the seven
vowels in magic rituais attested by the papyrí ; cf. Orph. fr. 3o8)
enabled the soul to escape the bonds of common death and
retum to the divine sphere from which it carne.
ln older tradition, attested from the fifth century, Orpheus
beguiled the guardians of the underworld with his music and
won release for his wife. ln the Tarentine mysteries it secms that
his cithara is able to save every initiate from the horrors of
death (symbolized by Cerberus on thc British Museum crater)
and help him find paradisc. Now the Pythagorean poct of the
~re is able to combine this. with the Platonic- Eratosth enic
visioo of tbe cosmic lyre. Possibly he also linked it with Orpheus'
triumph over the Sirens in the Argonaut legend, for in Plato's
account of the music of the spheres the notes are given out by
Sirens who sit on the cdge of each revolving whorl.96 The
Malibu statuary group (p. 25) indicates that Orpheus' defcat
of the Sircns had been given an eschatological significance at
Tarentum. This necd not have anything to do with Platonic
astronomy, for $irens had loog been symbolic of death, espc-
cially in pairs in funerary art. On the other hand Plato's friend
Archytas, a promineot Pythagorean in Tarentum, would make
a good connecting link.97 Whether the Sircns appeared in the
Lyre must rcmain uncertain; but it seems likely that the Eury-
dice story was somehow incorporated, as the Virgil scholium
connects the poem with 'summoning' a soul (as ifback to earth),
and takes Orpheus to have used bis lyre for this purpose in thc
case of Eurydicc.
Besides astronomy, the interests of these later Pythagoreans
embraced such subjects as divination, botany, and medicine,
treated in a supentitious rather than a scientific spirit. The
poetic output of Orpheus keeps pace with them. Pythagorean
works on the propcrties of plants, current from before 16o
Bc,9 ª havc their paraUel in Orphica attested from the third
century BC on (frr. 319-31). Nigidius Figulus, the leading figure
among the Roman Pythagoreans, wrote on astronomy (Sphaera
gratetmÜa and Sphana barbari.ea), on divination from entrails, on
96 &p. 616lr7c. O n thc antecedents ofthis lovely idca scc CQ.17 (1967), 11- 14•
., I owc thu thougbt to Walter Burltc:rt, wbo uutted i1 in a lec1utt ai Cambridge
in March 19 79.
oa M . Wcllmann, ,tl,/a. Berl. Ak. 19,21(4), 17, 34ff.; Burkert, Phi.i,,J. 105 (1961),
239 f,; Th,sldf, Trxls, 109 f:, 174-,..
A HUBBUB OF BOOKS 33
dreams, on the significance of thunder on particular days, on
wind, and on natural history. Among the Orpbic fragments wc
can find attcstation of a Spluura99 and other astrological
works, 100 and ofpoems on divination from birds, dreams, eggs,
entrails, and carthquakes. 101 Some of them may only date from
the late Empire, but it is natural to flnd the origin of the con-
vention of ascribing this sort of material to Orpheus in thc
practice of tbe late Hcllcnistic Pythagorcans.
Jewish Orphica
From the second century BC Hellenized Jews made efforts to
increase the importancc and respcctability of thcir Jewish cul-
tural tradition in Greck eyes. Aristobulus of Alexandria wrote
a commentary on the Pcntateuch in the coursc of which he
quoted various Greek authors to show that some of their ideas
about God were in agreement with those of Moses. Artapanus
(FGrHist 726 F 3.3 f.) identified Moscs with Musaeus and madc
him the teacher of Orpheus, inverting the usual relationship
of Orpheus and Musaeus in order to subordinate Orpheus to
Moses. Later, certainly by the latter part of the first century
BC, more unsc~pulous means were used to support the claim
that Greek theology, even at its best, was derived from the
Pentateuch, of which a translation much older than the Sep-
tuagint was alleged to havc been available. An anthology was
•• p. 314 Kern. According to lhe Homer seholia lhe poem was addrosed to
Linus. Lobed, 1uggested tbat ir was a technopacgnium , wriuen tO tbc shapc of a
sphere; the cxistence oí such a poem by somconc is attcsted by a scholiast on
H cpbaestion, p. 140. 18 C. But a SJ>iw:ra by Orpbcus must surely have been oí
the same nature as tbe Spliana oí Musaeus, mentioned by Diogenes Lacrti111
(1.3) in a contcxt which shOWt that it had some scientific preten1ions, and rhe
Sphura attributed to Democritus. On the contents of such worb see F. Boll,
Splu,e,a ( 1903), 349 ff.
Plato likcns the carth to a coloured bali in Ph.tud. 11obc; Eratoatheocs followa
him (fr. 16 Powcll), and thc play-ball ofEros in A.R. 3.1311 ff. might bc understood
as a symbol of lhe eanh. (&:e/\. B. Cook, z..,.,, ü. 1047, for tbe artistic motif of
tbc eanh as E=' ball) Hcnce one could conccive of a Pythagorean pocm entilled
thc Ball in thc sarne spirit as thc Rob, and the resl.
• 00 'E+r,,..,pl3, r, ~"'3.,,a•"IP(3rr (cf. Boll, RE v. 11154 f,; B. L. van der Waerden,
&Í4JIU Awak,nint, ii. (1974), 177), trtpl l111µ.{J&at<»•, ,rtpl l(C1Tapxw•, Xwp<Y)'pa~lG
(astrological gcography) ; t 11115, frr. 249, 251-ô, 2~79, 1186--8, partly prescrved
in prose panpbrasc.
'º' '!J.olin,,rà. i} 'Q,-,.o..,"ó., SI/da; Arp. 3S-'1, sec below; 1N'JX a,.aµõw, fr.
285, alternativcly ascribed to Hermes. Sec: also Kern, p. 297 for variow conjectures
about tbe Suda-titlc J.,,,,"o,r(e1.
34 A HUBBUB OF BOOKS
compiled ofmonotheistic and otherwise theologically significant
utterances by Greek poets and dramatists, in which the genuine
passages were augmented by a number of forged ones. 10~ It
was probably this period that saw the composition of a short
poem in the name ofOrpheus called Testament (a characteristic
title for Jewish pseudepigrapba ofthe time), in which Orpheus
was represented as having finally seen the error of polytheism,
andas instructing Musaeus on the true nature ofGod. Abraham .
and Moses are alluded to (though not named), and there are
parallels with Isaiah and the Sibylline Oracles. Several different
recensions of it are quoted by Christian writers.' 03
The author naturally portrayed Orphcus in a fitting role:
as a hierophant revealing high-grade religious information to
Musaeus for the benefit of qualified initiates. He begins
J will speak for lhose cntil.led: close your doors, ye profane!
-echoing a mystery formula long established in Orphic
poetry.1°4 But this exclusiveness is hardly appropriate any more,
now that the message is not about the deity of a local cult but
about a God who has the whole earth as his footstool.
The first thing the initiate in a mystery cult had to do was,
of course, to swear that he would not divulge the secrets to
which he was about to be admitted. Both the adjuration and
the candidate's response m.ight for greater solemnity bc versified
and attributed to Orpheus. Theon of Smyma quotes from 'tbe
Orpbic Oaths' lines in which lhe initiand swears by elemental
powers: Fire and Water, Earth and Sky, Sun and Moon,
Phanes and Night (fr. 300). Phanes is a distinctively Orphic
figure, and his associations make it likely that this oath belongs
to Dionysiac mysteries. Though high-fiown, it is perfectly
Hellenic in principie, for frorn the earliest times oaths wcre
••• The clcarest cxamples are A. fr. 464 N., S. frr. 1126 and 1128 P. ( = Trag.
adesp. 617, 618, 6,w Kannícht-Sncll). 0n the whole aubjcct see N. Walter,
Da TltorOIIIUÚge,- kistoóuú,s (Tcxte u. Untersuchungcn 86, 1964); W. Speyer, Die
lilmui.«lw F4údulrtt im /widni.sdtffl 11. c/tristJid,,,n À1lntwi ( 1971), 155 lf.
m Frr. 245-7. See Ziegler , RE xviii. 1412 f.; Walicr, op. cit., 103- 15, 184-7,
::ioll-61 ; Speyer, op. cit., 161 f., 249; J. B. Friedman, O,pl,4us in 1./u Mid,Jle Agts
(1971), 13-37. Onc veraion appeara in an extract from Aristobulus in Eusebius,
but Walter bas madc it probable that Aristobulus had quo(C(j from some other,
'genuine' Orphic poem and that the Tuldmalt was aubttitutcd ata latcr period.
••• See pp. 82 f. On thc metapborical use of mystery tc:nninology in general see
A, D. Nock, Mnem.• 5 (19.52), 184 li'. ~ Essays "" R.digicn 4nd tJw ANimt World
(1972), ii. 7if, ff'.
A HUBBUB OF BOOKS 35
swom by cosmic witn~es such as the sun, the earth, rivers.
Pseudo-Justin, however, quotes from Oatlzs of Orpheus an
adjuration where we have a divine Father who created heaven
and the whole world by his word (fr. 299). Here again we seem
to have a Jewish forgery on our hands. Pseudo-Justin is one
ofthe authors who quotes the Testament. 10 s
More~ns
The syncretistic and pantheistic tendencies of the Hellenistic
age inspired the composition of a number of hymns which
belonged in no cultic context but simply gave expression to new
religious illuminations. Some of them were ascribed to Orpheus
to give them a proper clignity. There was apparcntly a hymn
to Zeus, current before 100 ec, in which the god's various
bodily parts were identified wiith the parts of the visible world:
it was incorporated in the Rhapsodic Theogony, and will be
discussed in that context. Diodorus and others quote from a
hymn to the Sun-god in which he was identified with Zeus,
Phanes, Dionysus, and Hades, and (if this was the sarne poem)
said to have created gods from bis smiles and men from his
tears, a motif of Egyptian provenance. 106 Clement quotes a
line from a hymn to a god who is both son and father ofZeus, 107
and a longer passage from a hymn addressed to a supreme god
who is both mother and father, whom the Moirai and other
gods obey, and whose fiery throne is attended by messengers
(or angels) who supervise the deeds of men. K ern was wrong
to assign thc fragment to thc Testament, which is addressed to
Musaeus, not to God. Nor do l think it can properly be called
Jewish, though the influence of Judaism can be seen in it.
••• lf fr. 299 wcrc not Jewisb it would have to be Hermetic. Malaias in fact
attributes it to H ermes Trismegistus, but by bis time Orpbeus and Hermes werc
pretty well interchangcable. Fr. 285 {on earthquakes) is ascribed to both in
dilfttfflt MSS. Earlier, Otph.ic and Hennctic lilttarure were q uite independent.
Orph. fr. 345 is interpolatcd in !ítJTr /(o,:,,_ 36 (iv. 11.19 N .-F.}.
The oath by the creator god has a p.arallcl in lhe (prose} oath of lhe initiates
of Isis known from P.S.I. 1162 and IR90 (R. Merkelbach, Z:,PE 1 (1967), 72 f.).
On oatbs in mystcry cults generally 1,ee Henrichs, Du PboinÜ!.iJ:a d,s Lolli1111o.s,
37-44.
1 •• See pp. 206, 2 12 f.
'º' Fr. 338. Thc god is probably Kronos (Chronos), called Zeus' son because of
lhe story in thc Rhapsodic Thcogony ~hat Zeus swallowcd tbc oldcr gods IUld
bcought them íorth again. CC. H,- 8 .13 Xp/wow nttp, dl<Úoon Zt/1.
A HU-BBUIB OF BOOKS
"' Frr. 28o-4, cf. 342, 358. It is impossible to explain why Tzetzes should havc
happcncd to quotc only passaga whicb. Muimus had transcribed. Tbc truth
was alrcady sccn by Hcrmann (Orphwa, p-. viii), and latcr by Kroll, RExiv. 2575,
and Wilamowitz, Htrtlli!s 65 (1930), 250 = Kl. Schr. iv. 518.
113 Fr. 3o8 K.
38 A HUBBUB OF BOOKS
30 atccp Cyprus and Adonian Aphroditc,
rites of Praxidica and t • • night of Athenat,
Egyptian laments, libatiOJI$ of Osi ris.
And you havc lcarned thc ways of divination
by bcasts and birds, and what the ordcr of cntrails,
35 and what is prcsagcd in their dream-roaming path.s
by aouls of mortais ovcrcomc in alcep;
answcn to signa and portents, the stan' courscs,
the purification ritc, grca.t blessing to men,
placarions of goda, and gifts pourcd out for thc dcad.
And I havc told you ali I saw and leamcd
whcn I to Tacnarwn walkcd the darlt road of Hadca
trusting rny cithara, for !ove of my wifc,
and the sacrcd tale I brou_ght forth in Egypt
whcn 1 wcnt to Memphis and the holy towns
45 of Apis, that the gTcat Nile garlands round.
Ali this you havc lcarncd truly from my brcaat.
What he means in detail is not always clear, but the general
picture resembles the one we have constructed for ourselves by
studying the fragments . If we could identify all the poems and
date the Argonautica, we should have an exact record of the
state of Orphic literature as seen by one person at a known
epoch; but the first can never be dane, and the second bas
not been done yet.
li. SOME MYTHICAL POETS OTHER
THAN ORPHEUS
Musaeus
Musaeus, to bc sure, was brought into dose conncction with
Orphcus, and thc two are often mcntioned in thc sarne breath.
But whereas wc can see in Orpheus a folk-talc figure with
origins in Thracian shamanism, Musaeus scems to have no
such roots. We class him as a mythical person, but there are
no myths about him. His life is a blank. He is notbing but a
source ofverses, Even his namc, ' belonging to thc Muse', is a
patcnt artificiality. His pareotage and land of birth vary
according to thc use being madc of him. He is regularly treated
40 S OME MYTHICAL P O&T S OTHER THAN ORPHEUS
as on e of the oldest poets, usually a little younger than Orpheus
but generations earlier than Hesiod and Homer; Democritus
actually made him the inventor of the hexameter.• Severa!
writers name the early poets in the sequence O rpheus, Musaeus,
Hesiod, Homer.i Gorgias a ud Damastes made Musaeus an
ancestor of Homer's, just as Pherecydes of Athens and Hel-
lanicus clid with Orpheus. H crodotus probably has Orpheus
and Musaeus in mind whcn he says hc thinks that the poets
said to havc written about t hc gods earlicr than Hesiod and
Homer werc really latcr.l
At first Musaeus seems to be exclusively a poet of oracles,
oracles known to Athenian chresmologists or 'oradc-gatherers'.
A chresmologist was a man who wcnt about looking for people
who would reward him for reciting to them oracles which he
knew and which had a beai.ing on their affairs. Aristophanes
makes fun of the type in his Peace (1043 ff.) and Birds (959 ff.).
Their oracles do not come from official centres like Dclphi
but from ancicnt prophets such as Musaeus, Bakis, or the
Sibyl, whose utterances thcy havc collected in books- where
from is not cxpla'ined. We first hear of the phenomenon in the
time of Pisistratus. Soro.e years !ater a chresmologist called
Onomacritus acquired a certain infiuence with Hipparchus.
He collected and arranged oracles ofMusaeus, but was banished
aftcr Lasus of Hcnnione caught hlm in the act of interpolating
a prophecy of his own into thern.• A generation later, when
Xerxes invaded, oracles circulated undcr the n ames of Musaeus
and Bakis.s lt was atjust such criticai times that oracles were
likely to circulate, and it is not surprising that Musaeus and
Bakis both reappear during the Peloponnesian War. 6 Sophocles,
Aristophanes, and Plato ali associate Musaeus with oracles,
and a collection of rus oracles, as well as of Bakis', was still
available in the time of Pausanias.7
• Democritus, DK68B 15, apparentlyíollowed by 'Alcidamas', Od. 25 (secp. 232).
2 Hippias, DK 86 B 6, As. R4tt. 1032 ff., PI. Apol. 41a, Chrysippus SVF ii,
316.12 (cf. 16), ·
• Corgias, DK 82 B 25, Damastes,, FGrHist 5 F 11a, Phcrecydes 3 F 167,
Hcllanicus 4 F 5, Hdt, 2.53. • Hdt. 7,6.3.
• Hdt. 8.g6, 9-43; Balds also in 8~o and 77.
' Bakis: Ar, Eq. 116 ff., Pax io70, Av. 962, Thc Sibyl and Musaeus: Paus.
io.9.11 - DK 2 B 22. Thuc. 2.8.2 an.d 5~6.3 rcfen to lhe currency of oracles,
but austerely refrains from naming their allcgcd au1hor1.
'Soph. ft. 1116, Ar, Ra. 1033, PJ. Prol. 316d; Paus. 10.12.11.
SOME MYTHICAL POETS OTHER THAN ORPHEUS 41
Besides oracles AristQphanes mentions cures as Musaeus' gift
to mankind. Such things must have found a good market par-
ticularly at the time of the plague, and they could fittingly
be attributed to a seer. It was perhaps in verses of this sort
that Theophrastus found the plant tripolium recommendeêt for
many purposes. 8 Another botanical fragment is cited in the
scholia to Apollonius Rhodius, from 'the third book of the
poetry attributed to Musaeus' (DK 2 B 2).
Eleusis adopted Musaeus before the end of the fifth century
BC, putting him at the head of the genealogy of the Eumolpidae,
as Eumolpus' father. 9 He thus became the author, or co-author
with Eumolpus, of such theological and eschatological poetry
as the Eumolpidae chose to sing. 10 ln the mid-fourth century,
as we have seen, Orpheus joined him in this role. This led to
the two being put in a personal relationship. On the Parian
Marble they still seem to be unrelated,11 but by the first century
BC, ifnot earlier, we find Orpheus represented as addressing his
poetry to Musaeus, and Musaeus counted as his son. 12
Musaeus in turn is said to have addressed his son Eumolpus
in a poem called Precepts (4,000 lines: Suda). Ifit existed, it was
perhaps a purely literary forgery with no particular Eleusinian
connection. The most important of the pseudepigrapha in
Musaeus' name, however, entitled Eumolpia, was presumably
recited by the Eumolpidae. The fragments quoted under this
title (B 11-12) are both narrative, and one of them concerns
the birth of Athena. It is reasonable to suppose a theogonic
a Hisl, pi. 9.19.11 = B 19.
• Cf. p, 23, n. 6o. The earliest definite evidence is a Pclilr.e by the Meidiaa
Painter, ARV• 1313, No. 7, Yihere Musaeus is shown in Thracian costume with
a wiíe Deiope and Eumolpus.
•• Eumolpus himsclf is crcdited in the S""4 with 3,000 lines of poctry relating
10 the mysteries; Diodorus 1.11.3 quotes a line from Bacclúta by him (not pre-
Hdlcnistic by the Jook of it).
11 FGrHist 239 A 14. Cf. p. 114.
12 P . Berol. 13044 (cf. p. 114), where Orpheus recites hymns in an inspirc<l state,
Musaeus writes them down and makcs minor improvcments; thc T<.1tamml (cf.
p. 34, where the influcncc of the mysteries js notcd); the Rlrapsodies (fr. 6t); Philod.
n, j,i,t., p. 13 G. (Henrichs, Cronad1, Ercolanesi 5 (1975), 12); Diod. 4.25.1 in
conncction with Heraclcs' ini1iation at Eleusis (perhaps from Mattis of Thcbes,
f"CrHist 39, cf. Graf, 12); and in severa! later pocms (fr. ::i71, 285; Kraúr (lhe
later one', I aasume) ap. Serv. on Virg. ,f_ 6.667; ~,pol. 1, Arg. 310, ai.). Thc
young man who writes down the words uttercd by Orpheus' scv<:red hcad on a
5th-century cup in Cambridge (ARV• 1401, No. 1) has sometimes becn assumed
to be Musaeus (see Graf, 11), but thcre is nothing to show it.
42 SOME MYTHICAL POETS OTKER THAN ORPHEOS
context, and to refer to the Eumolpia the various title-less frag-
ments concerning divioe and human gencalogy. Their substance
may be summarized as follows.
The 6rst divine principies were Tartarus, Night, and Aer. u
ln the time of the Titans there were already Muses to record
events. 1 • The function of the later Helios was discharged by
Hyperion. 15 When Zeus was born Rhea entrusted him to
Thcmis, who gave him to Amalthea. She nourished him in
a Crctan cave on the milk of a goat, who was a daughter of
Helios anda prodigy. Zeus grew up and vanquished the Titans,
using the goat's skio as an invinciblc shield which doubled bis
strength; hc was advised to do this by an oracle. This skin was
the aegis, and because of it he is lmown as thc aegis-.bearer. 16
The younger Muses were born from Zeus and Mncmosyne
(B 15). Zeus also had iotercourse with Aste.r ia bcfore she
marricd Perses, so that Hecate was really his child; 17 and he
gavc birth to Athena when his head was split by Palamaon.18
Apollo had a son Dios, who became thc father of Melite,
the cponym of thc Attic dcme (B 9). Oceanus and Ge gave
birth to Triptolcmus (B 10). Oceanus and Aithra gave birtb to
thc Pleiades and Hyades (stars in general ?). 19 Argos and the
Atlantid Kelaino ('Darkic') gave birth to four Aethiop kings.10
The emphasis on Attic and in particular Eleusinian mytho-
logy (Daedalus?, Melite; Hecate, Triptolemus) is unmistak-
u B 14, with lhe more complete tcxt of Philodcmus givcn by A. Hcnrichs in
GRBS 13 ( 1972), 77,
•• B 15. Probably childrcn of Uranos and Gi:, as in Mimncnnus 1 g and Alcman
5.2 i 28 and 67.
u Philodcmus in GRJJS 13 (1972), 72. Th.ia Jhows thc sarne kind of lhi11üng
•• the invention oí the elder Muscs.
16 B 8+sch. Arat. 156; cf. Triphlod. 567, The oracle may well be thc onc
mcntioocd in B , 1, uttercd by Chthonic and Pyrlcon at Dclphi.
" B 16, adapting the Hesiodic vcnion in which Hecate is the child oí Penn
anel Asteria (TA. 409).
11 B 12. Usually this service ia p,,rfor ~ by Hcphacstus, and Palamaon may
bc simply a name for Hcphacstus. Thc namc occun elkwherc only in Paus. 9 ,3.2,
a, the father ofDacdalus in Athens; perhaps thia too carne from Musacus.
n B 18. lt ia not ccrtain how much oí the contcxt is 10 bc anributcd to Musacus.
B 17, whcrc Musaeusiuaid to havehdd that metcon ("°"'l~s) comefrom Oceanus
and are cxtinguisbed in the aither, loolcs as if it is based on an allegorical inter•
prctation of the sarne picce oí Musaeus.
20 B 13. A further íragmcnt tclb or Cadmus bcing ahown the way úom tbe
Gesdi. d. antikm Pmhsopl,u (1969), 44. >♦ Hdt. 5.70, Arist. Atlt. Pol. 20.
" Plut. Sol. 12.10, D.L. 1.114, 115; cf. Paus. 2.21.3.
>' RJ,,,t. 1418a24 = F 1. The idea was not unconventional. The seer Calchas
lmew 'the present the future, and the past' (li. 1.70). Cf. my note on Hes. TA. 32.
" F 2 (from Oracula, T 8a); T 4 f; the contcxt idenrified by E. Maass, Aralta
( 18g:1), 344 f.
411 SOME MYTHICAL POETS OTHER THAN ORPHEUS
means that Epimenides is linking himself with Musaeus, who
was said to be the Moon's son, and what Epimenides and
Musaeus have in common is oracles. The reference to the
Nemean Lion, however, suggests that Epimenides is not content
to be tbe son of the goddess Selene in the way in which, for
example, Aietes is the son of Helios. He is claiming to have
actually come from the moon, and he mentions the lion as a
precedent for such a journey across space.
Hesiod's proem in which he recalls bis encounter with the
Muses takes the form of a hymn to them, a hymn such as
normally introduced an epic recitation down to the fifth
centu.ry. Epimenides' proem may also have been a hymn, for
Diogenes Laertius (1.112, from Lobon) says 'He composed the
Birth of the Kouretes and Korybantes and a theogony, 5,000
lines; the Building of the Argo and Jason's voyage to Colchis,
6,500 lines'. The birth of a god often formed thc main subject
of a prefatory hymn, as we see from the Homeric collection.18
Epimenides' visit to the birth-cave ofZeus on Mount Ida would
fit well in a bymn to the Kouretes. 39
The theogonic narrative began from Aer and Night giving
birth to Tartarus. From him came two Titans,•0 who produced
an egg, and more gods came from it. Presumably Earth,
Heaven, and Oceanus appeared before long. The distasteful
Hesiodic story of the castration of Uranos was apparently
eliminated, since Aphrodite and the Erinyes, whom Hesiod
represents as by-products ofKronos' unfilial act, remain associ-
ated with him but become regular children ofhis. The Harpies,
identified with the Hesperides who tend the golden apples,
appeared as children of G[e and ]nos (Uranos? Okeanos?
Kronos?). Styx appeared as daughter of Oceanus, wife of one
Peiras, and mother of Echidna.4' The birth of Zeus was of
course described, with the Kouretes no doubt dancing attend-
,. H. 1, 3, +, 6, 16-19, 26, 28, 31, 33; â. He1. 7l. 53 lf.
•• 'Kouretes and Korybantes' may bc an inaccuracy of latçr paraphraJC, or
it may imply lhe synthesis ofthe Cretan with tbe Phrypan Ida. There ia confüslon
bccwcen Kourete, and Korybante, (or KyYbante1) from thcir finr appcarance,
in literature, but the lattcr are more commonly aaociated with Cybelc and
Pbrygia, and with rite, and mysteriea.
•• This word ia an cmendation. 0n its justification .ee G. S. Kirk and J. E.
Raven, Tlw Pm0t:1atic Pllilou,Jwrs (19~7), ++; also below, p. 201.
•• F 4-7. Peiras ia probably thc penoni6cation of the cnds of thc earth, ,,,tp«Ta.
,-.l11r,
SOME MYTHICAL POETS OTHER THAN ORPl:IEUS 49
ance. After he became king of the gods Typhon attempted to
depose him but failed and was destroyed.42
The work was known to Aristotle and Eudemus, so it cannot
have been composed any later than the mid-fourth century.
On the other hand a date much before 500 is excluded by the
doctrine of the Nemean Lion's lunar origin. For this implies
that the moon is another earth, which is a typically fifth-
century idea presupposing the discovery that it shines by
reflected light. Parmenides is the earliest dated authority for
this knowledge; Xenophanes and Heraclitus still assume an
incandescent nioon. It is true that both in archaic Greece and
elsewhere we find the idea that gods and the souls of the dead
inhabit or visit the moon, and the sun too, with no implication
that these bodies do not shine by their own ligbt:0 If it were
just Epimenides that carne from the moon, we could not make
any inference about the date of the poem. 44 But with the lion
we have clearly moved beyond theological and eschatological
fancy to a stage where the moon is conceived as a planetary
body with its own physical geography, flora, and fauna. This
is just how it is conceived in the mid and !ater fifth century.
Anaxagoras and Democritus wrote of the moon's mountains
and valleys, the former also of inhabited places on it. Philolaus
taught that lunar creatures grow to fifteen times the size of
earthly ones, presumably because the lunar day is fifteen times
as long as ours. The historian Herodorus of Heraclea sbared
this opinion, and at the sarne time maintained the extra-
terrestrial (though apparently not lunar) origin ofthe Nemean
Lion.45
o Philodemus in F 8. Diels's supplcments are over-imaginative, but enough is
presetVed to identify the story. It has bcen conjected that 'Epimenides' mentioned
the tornb of Zeus in Cretc, which was celcbrated at least from Euhemerus on (scc
A. B, Cook, {,ur, ii, ~ . ili. 1173): Wilamowitz, Eur. Hipp. 2:24 n, J; Ma,us,
Aratta, 346, ln this c.ue Callimachus turm thc poct's 'Cretans, ever liars' against
hhmelf (H. 1.8), 0 Sec EGPO, 6:2-4, 66-7,
•• Pythagoras was thought by some to bc 'one of the daimooes who inhabit
the moon', lambi. VP 30, perhaps from Heraclides Ponticus, sincc he spolte of
a rnan falling from thc moon (fr. 115 W.) . Pythagoras is associatcd with Epimenides
in various ways (Burkcrt, LS 151 f.); Boltoo, Arist,iu, 156, 164,ff',, traces this to
• the dialogues of Heraclides. lon of Chios may have callcd Musaeus 'moon,fallen'
(c,,.\'l••C.,.)r;;: Philod. De pút., p. 13 G. (Hcnrichs, C,otllldu Ercola,usi 5 (1975),
12)). For shamans visiting the moon see Eliadc, Sltamanism, 292, 327.
•• Parm. 28 B 14- 15; Anaxag. 59 A 1 § 8, 77, Oemocr, 68 A go; Philol.
44 A 20; Hcrodorus 31 F 4, 21. The latter also held that vultures come from
50 SOME MYTHICAL POETS OTHER THAN ORPHEUS
There are other pointers to the fifth century. One is the egg
which played a part in tbe early stages of the theogony. Such
an egg appeared in an Orphic theogony whlch I shall argue
to have been composed about 500 BC. Otherwise the only pre-
Hellenistic parallel is the egg in the mock cosmogony of
Aristophanes' Birds.46 Then there is the identification of the
Harpies with the Hesperides who tend the golden apples.
Asserting the identity of deities or mythological figures that
went under separate names was a novel fashion in the fifth
century. This particular equation is attestcd for Acusilaus; at
least, it is implied by bis statement (2 F 10) that the apples
were guarded by the Harpies. Again, if it is right to assume
that the Epimenidean theogony was prefaced by a hymn to
the Kouretes, and on the basis of that to suppose that it
dcscribed their dancing after the birth ofZeus, this is something
unknown to Hesiod and to archaic lite.rature generally, but
familiar from about 430 BC. It is in and after Eurípides' Crttans
that we first find an awareness of and interest in the ancient
cult of the Cretan Zeus on Mount Ida, and the Cretan myth
ofhis birth in which the Kouretes play a role:•7 Ifthe theogony
was really composed by a C.retan, of course, he might have
brought in the Kouretes at any period. But since we cannot
regard it as being by the Epimenides whose name it bears,
tbere is no more reason to suppose that it carne from Crete
than to suppose that a poem ascribcd to Qrpheus carne from
Thrace.
ln the year 432/ 1 the Cylon affair, and thus Epimenides,
was recaUed once more to the Athenian public's attention,
when the Spartans tried to undermine Pericies by suggesting
that his Alcmeonid blood was polluting Atbens.48 That new
details wcre added to the Epimenides legend at about this
time is indicated by the story that it was one Nicias the son
anotber carth invisiblc to us (F 22). Thia ,was probably his vicw of thc Lion, as
tbc ,oura, says that his volumes 'proclaim an carth abovc and lhe descent from
it of thc lion that Hcraçles slcw' (F 4). The idea of the inhabited moon recurs in
Plato, Aristotle, and some !ater writcrs, but not in S\!Ch vivid forms. Cf. Guthrie,
His1qr,1 of Gruk Phi1-#.1 ( 1g62--81), ii. 3o8 n. 4; A. E. Taylor on PI. Tim. 41c5.
•• Epimcn. F 4; ..411. 695. See p. 111.
o E. fr. 79 Austin = 47,i Nauck (not preciscly datcd, but early on mctrical
grounds); then H,1psíp.,l, 1. iii, 2011'. (p. 28 Bond}, Bacch. 12011'. On Corinna
654.12 (yd ccntury, as I maintain) see CQ. li<> (1970), R83.
• 1 Thuc. 1. 12~7. Cf.Jacoby, FGrF/ist UIB, commcntary, PP• 315,321 .
SOME MYTHICAL POETS OTHER THAN ORPREUS 51
Linus
Linus first appears as someone lamented in a ritual song, or as
the name ofthe song. 7° From quite an early date he was reprc-
sented as a singer himself. ln one Hesiodic fragment heis the
son of the Muse Urania (we remember tbat Orpheus was also
the soo of a Muse), and in another that may well conneet with
it he is 'leamed in every sort of (poetic) skill' .71 Heraclides
Ponticus had him composing laments, because he was the
10 II. 18.570; Wilamowit:t,Ear. Htrllklu (imd ed., 1895), ii. 84 f.; Gow on Thcoc.
É'"'7,
(b) Paus. 8.18.1 (cf. fr. 11)
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6+ SOME MYTHICAL POETS OTHER THA N ORPHEUS
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3 Damasc. Prúu:. 25 bis (i. 4 5.12 R.) ov ycíp J.aTw ã, T1, à.M&
1rw, ã,, ws- Aívos Tf ~fYE K<U llv8ayópo.s-. lbid. 27 (i. 48. t 3)
l-r, -rolvvv •l -rO lJ, EJ<EÍvo 1r<Íll'Ta. JtrrL xal 1râv, W> Atvo~ ,,.~ "ª'
llu8ayópo.s t.ÀeyÉ1'7)v, KrÀ. Cf. D.L. 1 .3 de Musaeo ( = supra
t 3)
..J.. ,
't'º"ª' T(
·~ • \ \ ,
€~ €VOS' Ta 1T(Ul'T(l )'11'€UOQI KQI
, -ª ' ns-
, , \ ª"ª-
'7'0V'7'0V
,
ÀtÍ€o8a,.
2 c:odd. FP :z ó.\o• scripsi (PAilol. 110 (1g66), 155 sq.), cf. 3: .,.,; r i , FP
3 ÓMv Meineltc: ow FP ,z,. M Meincke: <lva, FP 4 fort. &,..,;; (tf. fr. 1)
1róvra -rda' FP: COCT, Cantcr 6 ,,u.,
Grotius ,.,...,;,,_.,, , .,..,,,. om. P
d8pij11°' Heercn 7 1r0.U,Lnr a• F: co.r r. Hccrcn 8 e.g. l,covr,
13 post 10 po5ui (Phi/ol. l.c.) ,,,,,• .,,,,.,.• F, lr a,t,,.,,.• P: ,,,,,..,.• ld• -r' Meincke
(l11To., Grotius): 1,,,,,,,., qv ,,.. tempt.avi (Philol. \.e.) 1 t ...U..,o-rpô,,o,r
Meineke; possi., +a•Taal,u,,w 8' "X'ÍI'"'"' Grolius 12 satisfacerct ,.a ,rpo .,.:;.
66 SOME MYTHICAL POETS OTHER THAN ORPHEUS
S,o Kal Alvos- ó 9EoÀ6yos- lv T<p 1'tp<>S" •yµlva,011 ÔE111'(~ 9EoÀo-
')'IK(p q,al,11ETQI ÀÉywv
TlaaapEs àpxal Ó.Ttaa, •• •
Tptaaofs ÔEaµofa(,} KpaTOW'l'CM.
Macrob. in Somn. Sdp. 1.6.36-39
Item cum quattuor sint elementa ex quibus cónstant
corpora, terra aqua áér et ignis, tribus sine dubió inter-
stitils séparantur . . . (37) et á terrá quidem usque ad
aquam spatium Necessitás ( = J411&y1n7) á physicls dicitur
... (38) illud uéro quod est inter aquam et áerem Har-
monia clicitur ( = •Apµovla.) ... (39) inter ácrem uéro ct
ignem Oboedientia dicitur ( = Jfo8w ?) .
4 Aristobulus fr. 5 ap. Eus. PE 13.12.16 et Clem. Str. 5.107.4
(ex Clemente rursus Eus. PE 13.13.34)
Alvos Sl ,/,,,a,11 ovrws-·
'Q<> - , ". • - \ , , ,
Et-ooµaT71 O "f/01 TETEI\EUJ-LE}/(l 1'/QIITQ TE'l'VKTQI,
,cal 1'1.ÍÀw
5 ,{3&,p:11 (4)1 áya9ota(, } ,cm ,f3s&µ.,,, (O'Tl ')'EIIÉfJÀ,,,.
KQI '
6
,ca.l
7 brrà.
• I
s, 'ITáVTa
\ .L. I
TÉTVKTQl
' t _\L
b ovpavíj> do-7-,pón•Ti,
' • •
(li KVKl\01O1 ,pu,VEVT E'IT,TEI\I\OjUIIOIS- &,avTOIS,
'O • ( • • \ \ H 11.,:
f,W wv 1)1'-ET•pwv arpa1rov 'Tl'EP• ffClVTO!i 0./\"f/v,1,
i/4pai; â1rwqC͵EVOS' 1ro.\vm,µ,ovas , a[ TE {JE{J~.\wv
t
õ,c.\ov ali<nwua, CÍTCllS' 1TEpl '11'11VTa 1TE8úl<7,
5 1TavTDla,i;, µ,op,/,wv à1rá'"]µ' ( ) lxovua, •
Tài; µà, â1rà ,J,vxijs Et~,v +v>.iuca«n vóo,o·
DV'TO!i yáp O'E t<aOapp),s MWS, 8,Kalws-t &<7,«xm, t
.r 1(0, à.\710El71 ,-uufii; à,\oàv ylvos à-rwv.
·-~ \ \ , , , .. 8 , • ,
"'l"IIV µEV 1rpwr10-T , aw,cpwv w-rE,pav a1ravrwv,
10 ./jv J-m0vµ.la ~!'WXEí' µápyo,111 ,ca.\avoí's-
11 Paus. 8. 18. 1
•tmr0t1]µtva oõv (/11'1V ma.ii8a. (Hes. Th. 36r, 383) 'DKEQJIOÍ)
Ovya-rlpa TTJV .Dníyci, ywaiKa 8t aôn)v t:lvcu Ilállavros-.
, , .,, I , \
E0IK0'T'Cl OE '71'E1T0ITJKEVC11 'TOVTOl!i KCll
A'<VOV y,u.O'&V'
I • 1 ., ,
E/JO• OE
~
• út'ph. frr. 147 and 173. Clcmcnt in fr. 149, Proclus in fr. 128, and Malaias
in fr. 6z use thc word dcscriptívely to mcan Orpheus' 'gencalogy of gods'. The
Neoplatonísts more often speak ofhis tluologia(i), and once ofhís tlrtomythia. Again
thcsc are nol formal titles.
• Prin&. 123-4 (i. 316-9 Ruellc) = Orph. frr. 6o, 54, 28.
THE PROTOGONO S ANO DERVENI THEOGONIES 6g
arranges a pla.ce for gods and men to live (89, 108). At some
point he sheds an abundant rain from the top ofhis head (84).
He produces his creations from a cave or adyton of Night
where he has his seat (97, 104, 105).
B
Phanes counts as the first king of the world ( 108, 107). He made
himself a sceptre (Procl. in 107, p. 171 K.), which, as it was
the sarne one that Zeus later bore (101), was of twenty-four
'measures' (157). He handed it on, voluntarily, to Night his
daughter (101-2, 107), and it must have been he too who gave
her the power of prophecy ( 103, cf. 99, 105). It was perhaps
following his abdication that he set out on the vast circle (71b)
where he rides for ever with car (?) and horses (78, 83). Night
handed the sceptre on to Uranos her son (107, 111)-again
voluntarily ( 1o 1).
e
Uranos marries Ge, and this is called the first marriage,
Phanes' union with Night being discounted ( 112). Ge gives
birth to the Moirai (Klotho, Lachesis, and Atropos), the
Hundred-Handers (Kottos, Briareos, and Gyges), and the
Cyclopes (Brontes, Steropes, and Arges). Uranos has heard
(from Night ?) that he will be deposed by his own children, and
when he sees this stern, lawless brood, he throws them into
Tartarus (57, 121, 126). Ge then, without his knowledge, bears
the Titans, seven females and seven males: Themis, Tethys,
Mnemosyne, Theia, Dione, Phoibe, Rhea; Koios, Kreios,
Phorkys, Kronos, Oceanus, Hyperion, lapetos (57, 114). Of
these it is Kronos who is specially nurtured by Night, the nurse
of the gods (129, 131, I06). Ge incites the Titans to castrate
Uranos; Oceanus alone is unwilling, and stays aloof (135).
When Uranos comes to lie with Ge, the deed is done (154),
and he is cast down from his chariot (?) (58). The Giants are
born from the blood as it falis on the earth (63). The genitais
are thrown in the sea, foam forms round them, and Aphrodite
is Qorn; she is received by Zelos and Apate (127).
Kronos is now king (107, 101), enthroned upon Olympus
( 117). The Titan brothers and sisters marry one another
7Q THE PROTOGONOS ANO DERVENI THEOOONIES
(Rufinus in 56).6 Iapetos' soo Prometheus stole fire for men
( 143). O ccanus is set apart and dweUs in his wondrous streams
(117). Kronos' rulc is tyrannical (1.01). (Hc releases the
Hundred-Handers and Cycl.opes from Tartarus, but then scnds
them back again (Apollod. 1.1.4-5).} He has children by Rhea
(including Hera and Hestia, 161, 163), but swallows at least
thc males (58, 132, 138, I 46). Zeus, however, is concealed in
the cave of Night and nurtured by the nymphs Adrastea and
Ida, daughters of Mclissos and Amalthca (105, 162, Apollod.).
Adrastea clashes bronze cymbals in front of the cave ( 105b,
152), and mother and child are further guarded by the three
Kouretes, who are themselves sons ofRhea (150--1). As mother
of Zeus, Rhea takes the na.me Demetcr (145). The stone she
gives to Kronos to swallow instead of Zeus ( 147) forces him
to vomit up the gods he has swallowed. Hades occupies the
lowcr world, Poseidon the sea, and Zeus, riding on a goat, is
carried to hcaven (56 cnd).
D
·1n the cave ofNight Zeus leam s from the ancient goddess that
he is destined to be the fifth king of the gods ( 105, 107), and is
instructed how to overcome Kronos (154). Zeus is modestly
overwhelmcd, and asks how hc can order the world, preserving
its unity as well as its individual features: Night tells him to
catch everything in aither, with heaven, earth, sea, and stars
suspended inside from a golden chain ( 164-6).
Rhea- Demeter arranges a banquet, procuring plenty of
honey (189). Kronos is made drunk with this and falls into a
deep slumber. Zeus ties him up ( I 48-9, 154) and castrates him
(137). H c takes over the sceptre (101, rn7, 157), and the
· Cyclopes, who must have been released again (cf. Apollod.),
give him the thundcrbolt ( 179). But hc still has need of tbe
dcfeated Kronos. He appeals to him for guidance, and
Kronos gives him dctailed instruction about the new creation
to come (155).
Again at Night's instigation, Z~us pounces on Phanes- she
points him out-and swallows hím, thus absorbing ali his powers
6 Thc birth oí Thaumas, Nereus, and Eurybia is not 10 be ...umcd Cor this
pocm from r 17- 18; see Holwcrda, 316- 18,
THE PR.OTOGONOS ANO DERVENI THEOGONIBS 73
(58, 82, 85, 87, 129). Everything is reunitcd inside Zeus: aithcr,
hcaven, sea, earth, Oceanus, rivers, gods and goddesses, past
and future, all becomc one in hls belly ( 167). By bringing it all
forth again in due order he becomes the creator of the prcscnt
world (168, p. 205 K., cf. 171, 2ra). Presumably he follows the
directions given hlm by K.ronos.
E
ln his dealings with the gods, however, Night remains hís
adviser. On her instructions he takes Nomes to sit at his side
( 160), and in his dispcnsations he is accompanied by Diltc,
thc daughter of Nomos and Eusebia (158-6o). He fathcrs
children by a number of goddesses (in what ordcr, we cannot
tel1):
1. With Themis; Night had prophesied that she would remain
a virgin until Rhea bore a son to Kronos ( 144). The childrcn
born are the Horai (Eunomia, Dike, Eirene, 181) and Moirai
(126, 162).
2. With Themis' daughter Eunomia, producing the Charites ·
(Aglaia, Thalia, Euphrosyne). Aglaia marries Hepbaestus
and gives birth to Eukleia, Euthenia, Eupheme, and Philo-
phrosyne (t 192, Hymn 60; 182).
3. With Hera, who is cqual in status witb him ( 132, 153, 163);
lhe children presumably include Hephacstus (179-82). ,
4. With Leto, producing tbe virgin Artcmis (187) and no
doubt Apollo.
5. He pursues Dione, but does not catch hcr in time, and
ejaculates in the sea. Aphrodite (the second) is boro,
attended by Eros ( 183-4). {Eros and Peitho seem to be
parents of Hygieia, 202; in Hymn 67.7. Hygieia is wifc of
Asclepius, and this may have come in the theogony.)
6. With bis mothcr, Rhea-Demeter. Being pursued by him,
she turns into a snake. Hc does the sarne and mates with
hcr, coiling in the Hcracleot knot. She gives birth to Pcr-
sephone-Kore, who has two faces, four eyes, and horns.
Rhea is so alarmed that she flees without feeding her, and
the child is thereforc called Athêlã ('unsuckled') (58, 153).
74 THE PROTOGONOS AND DERVENI THEOGONIES
7. With Kore, in Crete, again in snake form, producing
Dionysus (58, 153, 303).
From bis own head Zeus produces Athcna, also called Virtue,
to work his will (174-8). She becomes the leadcr ofthc Kouretes,
and they wear crowns of olive· ( 185-6). She is also associated
with Hephacstus as an artificer and pupil of the Cyclopes
( 17g-80).
Wben Rhea-Demctcr hands on tbc q ueensbip to Korc, shc
prophesies that Kore will mount thc bed of Apollo and bear
glorious children with fiery faces (194). Kore stays in hcr
mother's house, guarded by the Kouretes (151, 191), although
she has lost hcr virginity to Zeus. Shc weaves a Bowery robe,
and shc is just doing a scorpion on it when she is carried off
by Pluto ; the weaving is left unfinishcd (192-3, 195- 6). To him
she bears the nine Eumcnides (197, 360).
F
The infant Dionysus is receíved from Zeus' thigh by Hipta,
who puts him in a winnowing-basket on her head with a snakc
wound round it and hurries to Mount Ida and the mother of
the gods ( 199). There hc is guarded by the dancing Kouretcs
(34, 151), probably for fivc y,ears.7 Young as. he is, Zeus sets
him on his throne, puts the sceptre in his hands, and announces
to the gods that this is their new king (207-8, cf. 107, 218,
Nono. D. 6.165 ff.). The Titans,moved byjealousy,orprompted
by the jcalous Hera (210, 214, 216c, 220), whitcn their faces
with gypsum (Nono . 6. 16g) and deceive him with a mirror
made by H ephaestus, which he follows, apples from the H es-
perides, a pine-cone(?), a bull-roarer, a ball, knuckleboncs,
wool, and puppets; thcy also give him a narthex (34, 209,
Procl. on Hes. Op. 52). Then they slash him into seven pieces,
which they boil, roast, and taste (34, 35, 210b, 214, 220). But
Athena preserves tbe heart, which is still palpitating, and takcs
it to Zeus in a casket; there is lamentation (35, 210, 214). The
Titans are blasted with the thundcrbolt (35, 214, cf. 120);
Atlas is made to support the sky (215). Zeus entrusts Dionysus'
limbs to Apollo, who takes them to Parnassus and inters thcm
(35, 209, 211, 213, 240). But from the heart a new Dionysus
is given life (2 14, Proclus Hymn 7.14 f., Nonn. 24.48 f.).
1 Fr. a57 iJ 10 int~rprctcd by Lobcck, 554-
THE PROTOGONOS AND DERVENI THEOGONIES 7.S
G
The smoke from the blasted Titans deposits a soot from which
Zeus creates a new racc of mortais ( 140, 220, 224). There had
been a golden race of men created by Phanes, and a silver race
under Kronos that cnjoyed as long a life as the date-palm
( 140-2, 225). Zeus now creates animals, birds, and a foolish
human race that does not know good and evil (233). But though
their bodies are mortal, their souls are immortal, drawn from
the air, and passing through a series of human and animal
bodies (228, 224). Whcn a soul leavcs an animal's body, it
floats around until another one catches it off the wind; but
when it !caves a human body, Hermes leads it bclow the earth
(223), There it is judged: the good have the better fate, going
to the meadow by Acheron and the misty lake, whilc thc
wicked are led to Tartarus and the plain of Cocytus (2-22, cf.
123, 125). The Styx is also to be found thcre, a branch of
Oceanus and one of its ten parts ( 116). A god that swears
falscly upon it is punished in Tartarus for nine thousand (v.l.
nine) years (295). Souls spend three hundred years in the other
world and then are reborn (231). But their aim is to achieve
release from the round of misery. Zeus has ordered purification
ceremonies 10 go forth from Crete ( 156), and Dionysus has
been appointed with Kore to assist mankind to find thcir
rclease through regular sacrifices and rites (229, 230, 232).
No precise date has been given for tomb A, but the archaeo-
logical evidence from the site as a whole sug~ests that it is not
likely to be !ater than 300 BC. The date of the tomb is the date
when _the book was bumt. When was it made? Its script must
certainly be compared with the very oldest surviving book-
hands, like that of the Timotheus papyrus. Some have con-
sidered it older, perhaps of the mid-fourth century. Such
connoisseurs as Colin Roberts and Sir Eric Turner, however,
have favoured a less early date. 10 No one pretends that literary
hands can be dated except within rather broad limits, and
we must not expect the experts to tell us the answer to the
nearest decade. But perhaps we are entitled to conclude that
it was not a very old volume when it was put in the fire.
" Fragmcnh F g+a, G sa (cf. li. 3.~78 e., 19.~59 C.) ; cot.. i- ili. My oolumn-
oumbet'ing iJ híghcr by onc thao that uscd in existing publications.
u ''"' ~ a[J,oG ""ª" ,j] tró,,,.r 1 [o.lvt)l1-']t1TC<\3'ir. Cf. lC. 5 .,,.â[a]u T'III' "&.,"'"
"'IK TWI' 1tP4)1"'4TWV aMC<Ta,. Or hc may mcan poetry gcncrally. Cf. PI. Ale. B
147b, <CJT... Tl -yo.p ~.;,,.. "'"'"~,} """""" .,1..,,,...,T.:.81)f.
THE PROTOGONOS ANO DERV EN I THEOGONIES 79
it aJfects Orpheus' theology. He gives an etymology of the
name Kronos not for the sake of doing so but as part of his
philosophical interpretation. Ris: comments on Greek vocabu-
lary and idiom (xv-xvi, xviii, xx) are in the same spirit. He
has a preconceived system to which he is determined to fit
Orpheus and everything cise. The consequence is that his inter-
pretations are uniformly false. Not once does he come near to
giving a correct explanation of anything in his text. Such con-
sistent wrongness is of course inevitable when the allegorical
method of cxposition, which assumes as its fundamental postu-
late that the obvious meaning is not the true one, is applied to
a worlc written without allegorical intent.
Allegorical interpretation of poets, at any rate of Homer,
started with Theagenes of Rhegium in the late sixth century
BC, probably in response to a feeling that Homer's gods, with
their quarrcls, adulteries, and so on, were ridiculous and un-
worthy if taken at face value. Theagenes explained them as
representing physical elements, and their strife as the conflict
of elements in nature. When Empedocles carne to expound in
verse his theory of the mixture and separation of earth, fire,
air, and water, he called them by the names of gods- Zeus,
Hera, Nestis, Aidoneus-and identified Love and Strife as the
two great forces that govemed them. Later in the fifth century
Diogenes of Apollonia approved Homer for speaking of Zeus'
omniscience, on the assumption that by 'Zeus' he meant the
air; and Metrodorus of Lampsacus, a disciple of Anaxagoras,
extended the allcgorical principie to herocs such as Agamem-
non, A.chilles, and Hector. Plato is familiar with interpreters
who find hidden meanings in the poets' stories of Hera being
ensnared by Hcphaestus, Hephaestus being thrown out of
heaven for interfering when Zeus was beating Hera, or the
gods meeting in battle.•s
According to Isocrates (Busiris 39) it was Orpheus above ali
who dealt in improprieties of that sort. He might therefore
seem an obvious subject for the allegorists to exercise thcm-
selves upon; only he had nothing like Homer's classic status.
While not secrct, Orphic poems seem to have had a very
" Theagcnes DK 8 A a, Diogcnes 64 A 8, Metrodorus 61 A 2-+, PI. Rtp. 378d,
cf. Crat,lur, p,usim, Tlua1:1. 19-fC, Ale. B 1♦7b, Xcn. S.1mp. 3.6; R. Pfeilfer, HislQt.1
efC/assie4J $<Ml,mlijp, i (t g68}, 9-11, 35 f.
80 THE PROTOGONOS ANO DERVENI THEOGONIES
limited circulation. They were not a matter of general public
interest. They were not taught in school or recited for public
or social entertainment. We hear a good deal about pcople
who lectured or wrote on the poetry of Homer or Hesiod in thc
fifth and fourth centuries, but practically nothing of the sort
where Orpheus is concerned.m6 The Derveni allegorist is thus
something out of the ordinary. Although he does deal with
severa! 'improper' episodes and explains that their true meaning
is inoffensive, this does not seem to be his main purpose. He is
aiming rather to show that his own understanding of the world
is already to be found in the most ancient poetry. It is not
Orpheus that he wants to justify but his own theory. Chrysippus
was later to interpret Orpheus (among other poets) in lhe sarne
spirit. 17 We see something of the sarne approach in Plato' s
Cra~lus, except that there the ancicnt writers are cited sporadi-
cally and unsystematically (Orpheus js quoted in passing at
402b). We can find systematic interpretation of a whole poem
in a scction of the Protagoras (339a- 347a). But the Derveni text
is the only known example of a pre-Alexandrian book which
had such intcrpretation as its main subject-matter, or which
was formally laid out in the style of a commentary, with thc
verses to be discussed written on separate lines from thc sur-
rounding prose and marked o:ff from it.
The writer's philosophical outlook is Ionian, like his Lan-
guage. It shows particular affinities with Anaxagoras, Leucip-
pus, and Diogenes ofApollonia. He holds that matter has always
existcd, new entities being produced only through mixture and
scparation. Each thing is namcd according to whatcver pre-
dominates in it after it has been separated out. This presupposes
the Anaxagorean idca of countless different substances.•8 ln
the universe as a whole, air predominates, hence everything is
called Zeus. Air is the god now called Zeus; it has a mind
which consists of a pneuma and which governs past, present,
'' Apart from the statements of Jon of Chios and Epigencs on 1he authorship
of certain poems (above, pp. 7-9), tlherc is only a biographical romance by
Herodorus (31 T 12, F 4•2-.13) and a :monograph on Orphew by Nicomcdcs of
Ac:anthw (772 F 3), whooc: interdt lay in Macedonian and Thracian antiquities.
"SVFü. 316.12 , 16. CC Ckanthcs, i. 123.14.
11 P. Derv. xiü. 7, xiv. 3, xvi. 1, xviil. 9, 13; Anaxag. 59 B 12 end, 17. Thc
Dervc:ni writer's phrasc l • [lK]4.,,.o• "'J<[A~T)<n .;,..; ...,,; l,r,,cpaToõ.,..or (xvi. 1)
recalll Theophru~• formulation in Anaxag. A 41 (,c,mi -ro ,,,,Kp,,.-row).
THE PROTOGONOS ANO DERVENI THEOGONIES 81
and future events. 10 ln the universal air all the other substances,
divided in minute portions, were jostled together by Mind
until they met what went with them. 20 This is how the present
world was formed. The stars are suspended in the air, and are
held in their places by Ananke, because otherwise those of like
force would drift together. 2 •
With this physical system the author oddly combines a less
rationalistic kind of concern with religious enlightenment. He
writes about men being too devoted to pleasure to pay proper
attention to dreams and other signs which might warn them
about the perils ofthe other world; ofinitiates rightly sacrificing
to the Eumenides, who are really souls, and of daimones who
attend; ofpeople who participate in public or private rites but
fail to understand the meaning of what they see and hear in
them. 21 ln these passages he seerns closer again to Heraclitus.
It is not unreasonable to conjecture that it was these religious
interests that led to his acquaintance with the Orphic poem,
and that he was himself one of the initiates whose ritual acts
he knows and interprets. The Orphic poem may have been
a sacred text of theirs, and likewise 'the Hymns' from which
he quotes atone point (xix. Ir) the not very metrical verse
to P. Dcrv. xv, xví. 1-7; cf. i\naxag. B ,, 12; Diog. Ap. A 8, B 5; Dcmocr.
68 A 39.
•• P. Dcrv. xi. 4, 7, xii. 1, 8, xviii. 2; cf. Anaxag. A 42 § 2, B 1; Lcucippus 67
A 1 § 31, 10. Thc writer's expression ,cpoú,c,9,.. 11por &ll'l,\11 (Tà .;,,.,.11) is paralleled
in aecounts derived from Theophrastus of the behaviour of Leucippus' atoms:
67 A 1 § 31, 6, 10, 1'4; cf. 68 A 49, 50, 62.
21 P. Derv. xxií. 3-g; cf. Anaxag. A 12, 42 § 6, 71, Leucipp. 11.cc., Democr.
A t § 45, 83. " Cols. ii, iii, xvii
82 THE PROTOCONOS AND DER VENI THEOGONIES
Orphic, is itself unlikely to be earlier than the fifth century,
for that is when the identification of Demeter with Rhea or
the Mother of the Gods first appears. 23 His own language and
style suit the earlier fourth century rather than the fifth. On
the other hand, as Burkert has argued, 24 a man so untouchcd
by the influence of Plato, so 'Presocratic' in his outlook, cannot
easily be imagined writing as late as the middle of the fourth
century. He seems to stand in the sarne tradition as that other
Anaxagorean allegorist, Metrodorus of Lampsacus: not neces-
sarily as early, but scarcely generations later. We should
probably assume an inte.rval of some decades between the
composition of his work andl the making of the copy burnt
at Derveni.
•3 Mclanippidcs PMG 764, E. Htl. 1301 ff. (cf. PhM<. 685 f., Biu,h. 275 f.),
Tdesta PMG 8og. Thc oquation oí Hestia aod Ea.r th is attcsted for Sophodes'
Trif,IBÚltuls (+68 ac: fr. 615); cf. E. fr. 9,44 (Ana,cag. A 20b).
u A,,nú ud Ai,,,,,//4nd 14 ( 1g68), 99-100; Lu Étudts pl,üos~ 1970(4),
443-55.
•• S,1mp. 218b 1rá.,,,.,r yàp "'"º""'"'Í"mTf Tij$ i;,>.oaó;ov JA4Vla.f n KCU {Jt11<)(flar'
3,ô 1r&vrc( <ÍKoúo,a8, ... ol 6l olK,.,4', ,cal .r 'T~í áMor icrrl /Ufh,Ã&s 'H ,cal dypoo,or,
,rJÀM 1rcívv µ<yÓÃas TOis walv l11/9ca8• (printcd .by Kern as Orph. fr. 13}. Aristi<lc•
Or, 3. 50 also has ,rJÃ11r for thc usual 9.1pa.s.
THE PROTOGONOS AND DERVENI THEOGONJES 83
were forbidden to look. 26 By Plato's time, however, the doors
have become metaphorical doors which the profane are to dose
over their ears. One a_u thor who does ascribe the phrase to
Orpheus is Tatian. As a Christian apologist heis likely to have
known it from the Testament, but it is interesting that he cites
'Orpheus who tells the profane to dose their doors' for the
story of Zeus' intercourse with his daughter, which came in the
Rhapsodies. 2 '
There are two diffcrcnt versions of a first half for lhe line.
ln the Testament it appears as 'I will speak for those entitled',
,f,fJéyfoµ.a, ots IUJl,'s JcnL This form of the line is also known to
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who is not likely to have the Jewish
fabrication in mind, and to Aristides. 28 The alternative version
is 'I sing (v.J. will sing) for those of understanding', riE~w (or
aorist subjunctive riEíuw) fwn·oia,. 29 This gives a less natural
antithesis to 'the profane' and therefore looks secondary, but
it might still be of early enough origin to have stood in the
Derveni poem. What remains of the exegesis perhaps suits it
better than the other version. There is one piece of evidence to
suggest that it did stand in an Orphic theogony. Plutarch makes
one of the interlocutors in a jovial debate on the question which
carne first, the chicken or lhe egg, say with a chuckle, 'And
furthermore "I will sing for those of understanding" that
Orphic and sacred story which not only makes the egg older
than the bird but attributes to it comprehensive seniority over
everything.'J0 A cosmic egg appeared in at least two Orphic
theogonies, the Hieronyman and the Rhapsodic, and the words
'sacred story', lEpos À6yos, may allude to Hieros Logos as a title
of the Rhapsodies. The passage does not prove that 'I will sing
for those of understanding' carne in one of these poems, and
16 See Cal!. H. 6.3-6. The scboliasr on the passagc informs WI tbar the pro-
•• D. H. Comp. 194-5, Aristid., l.c. Lobock, 450 n., notes that ots 9l,,..s is
standard sacra! language.
•• Plut, fr, •202 (Stob. 3.1.199), Gaudent. Harm. p. 327.3 Jan, Olympiod. in
Categ. CAGxii (1).12.11, scb. S. OC 10; prínted by Kcrn as Orph. fr. 334. ln Stob.
3.41.9 the verse appears on its own under the name of Pythagoras, but tbis looks
líke a misundentandíng arising from lhe Plutarch fragmcnt which Stobaeus has
used earlier.
'º Q.um,,t. co,w, 636d, cf. 636e (holiness of the egg in Diony,iac orgies) , 635e.
8• T HE PROTOGONOS AND DER VEN I THEOGONIES
if it carne in the Rhapsodies it is surprising that the Neo-
platonists do not cite it from Orpheus; the only one of them
who does quote it, Olympiodorus, attributes it to some un-
specified priest of the past. But the association in Plutarch is
suggestive, and now that we find what looks like 'dose your
doors, ye profane' in the Derveni poem we must take it more
seriously.
At the top of column v the commentator quotes the verse
those who were born fr-om Zeus the [might)y king.
This is still the proem, for the birth of Zeus' children cannot
have been recorded till well after the events referred to in the
lemmata that follow. In forra the verse is exactly like Hesiod,
Theogony 1o6, '(Celebrate the family of the immortals,) those
who were bom from Earth and starry Heaven', and 111, 'and
tbose who were born from them, gods givers of blessings'. The
Derveni text in fact breaks off before the most important chil-
dren of Zeus are reached, but they must have been significant
for the poet. Presumably it was Zeus' divine children that
were meant, not heroes.
We must accept that the poem began with Zeus' rise to power
and not press it into conformity with a stereotype. The poet
knows and presupposes a complete account, differing from
Hesiod's, of the earlier part of the divine history, but his
interest is concentrated ·o n Zeus and the younger gods.
Why did Zeus take a glorious daimon into his hands, and
who was it? I am convinced that the text used by the commen-
tator was faulty. ln column x he quotes the verses
, J,tEV,
Z EIIS I t \ ~\
E1rEL o'l}
, t
1TO.T~ EOIJ
,. 1
1ro.pa 'JJ
[9E ..,.,,aT t OJCOIJUO.S''
t /
and the second passage (after some línes about the prophecies
ofNight) went
Zeus then, from the godlÍBss the prophecy having heard,
strength in his hands did take, etc.
It first so well because of the verb µ~oa-ro, and because the terms
in 'which the moon is imagined in the third line suit a pre-
Hellenistic text (see p. 49).•0 Another interesting detail about
the moon can be gleaned from column xxi. Orpheus called it
'equal from the centre in its bodily parts'; by which he probably
)1 Eros: Hes. Th. 120 (scc my note), Sappho 1g8, Parm. B 13, Acusil. 2 F 6,
Ar, Au. 700 1 Simmias Wings; Protogonos = Ero.• in lhe Rhapsodics, Parmenides:
below, p. 109. Emp. B 17.24 (= Philotes), 22.5, etc.; A. fr. 125 M., E. fr. 8g8.
it The t.ragcdian Chocrilus used a similar metaphor when he called rivers
'Earth's veins' (2 F 3). (Pindar usttl a di:ffcrcnt organic metaphor when be referred
to springs as 'thc leaves of Ouanus' (fr. 326), picturing thc underground channels
which conncct théffl to the main slrcam as 1hc hiddcn branchcs of a grcat trec.)
Achelous was lhe grcatcst ofrivcrs (cf. II. i11.194-5, Acusil. 2 F 1). For the use of
the namc to stand for water gcncrally see LSJ, and Dodds on E. Bacela. 625-6;
Servius ascribes it to Orphcus ( = fr. 344 K.).
•• Thc distinclion made betwecn the gods' and mcn's names for the moon has
no religious signilicance but is a poetic mannerism. Sec my note on Hcs. Th. 83 r.
THE PROTOGONOS AND DERVEN I THEOGONIES 93
meant spherical.•• The realization that the moon shone by
reftectcd sunlight (and was thcrcforc earthlike, inhabitable)
must have led to the realization:. that it was spherical, for only
a sphere would display the phases that we see in the moon.
But I do not know of any other refcrcnce to its sphericity in the
classical period. Orpheus also said that it shines for many
mortais on thc boundless earth. His use of 'many' rather than
'ali' struck the commentator, who took him to be thinking
especially of farmers and sailors who need to calculate the
seasons. But although civic calendars were based on the moon,
it was of no use to those who really needed to know the time
of year. They wcnt by the stars.41 If Orpheus' ' many' has a
point, I wonder whether he imagined that thc moon's phascs
werc different as seen from differcnt parts of the earth, so that
there were always some peoples to whom it was invisible. Such
a notion could not, of course, cocxist with any clear sense of
spatial geometry.
Mank.ind
We have excluded the Titans from the story of Dionysus, and
thus also the creation of mankind from the smoke they gave
off. But the story of the three races created in tum by Phanes
(golden), Kronos (silver), and Zeus must-unless it was an
innovation by the compiler of the Rhapsodics-come from the
tine of tradition in which there was a demiurge Phanes-
Protogonos before Kronos and Zeus. As in Hesiod (Op. 109-
201), the races differed in physical vigour. The silver race at
any rate lived longer than we do, as long as the date-palm. 53
With this must be assor.iated the information that Kronos' hair
never grows grey (fr. 130, 142). Possibly Proclus, who tells us
this, misconstrued a pronoun which really referred not to Kronos
himself but to his silver race: 'to it Zeus granted .. .' ( 142).
It remains to ask whether the eschatology of the Rhap-
sodies, the theory of reincamation and the rewards and punish-
ments in the oth.e r world between incarnations, corresponds to
anything in the Protogonos Theogony. It may be said at once
that it presents a distinctly old-fashioned appearance. There is
none of the picturesque embellishment that Plato puts upon
u According to the arithmetic of 'Hesiod', fr. 304, that would be equivalcnt
to 972 human gencrations.
THE PR OTOGONOS AND DER VENI THEOGONIES 99
such matters. No one would take it for Hellenistic; in any case
part ofit is pretty clearly cited by Aristotle.H There is nothing
about the sou! rejoining its kindred aither: good and bad souls
alike are led below the earth. It is all closer to Empedocles
than to anything else. 'fhere is the same preoccupation as in
Empedocles with the idea of relatives being reincarnated in
unrecognized forms (224a, cf. Emp. B 137). ln one detail it is
more archaic than Empedocles. Hesiod had said that a god
who swears falsely on the water of Styx is banished from divine
society for nine years. The Orphic poet kept to this quite
closely, except that it is not certain whether he made the period
nine years or nine thousand. Empedocles increases it to thirty
thousand, and although he still speaks of perjury, he no longer
mentions the Styx. 55 It looks as if this part of lhe Rhapsodies
comes from the fifth century, and from the first half rather
than the second.
We cannot, then, exclude it from the Protogonos Theogony
on grounds of anachronism. lt is not our method to include
whatever we are unable to exclude. I propose nevertheless to
include it, beca use if it is as early as it looks, it is too earl y for
any other Orphic theogony detcctable in the Rhapsodies, and
because its relationship to Hcsiod and to Empedocles is very
similar to what we shall find when we consider the affinities of
thc rest of the Protogonos poem.
ln fr. 232 somcone is telling Dionysus that
mcn will scnd hccatombs always in annuaJ scason
and pcrform thc ritcs, scclúng rclcase from thcir forcfathcn'
unrightcouaness; and you in powcr ovcr them
will frce thosc you wish from toiJs and endlcss frcnzy.
The speaker may be Zeus; but the author of lhe Orphic
Argonautica refers to 'holy oracles of Night about the lord
Bacchus', which must have stood in the Rhapsodies, 56 and
H Orpb. fr. 228ab, u3.4--5; Aris1. D., lfflmt4 410029 = Orph. fr. 27. Cf. also
Hecataeus oi Abdeno 264 F 25 § g6.5-6.
" Hcs. 771. 793-&4, Orph. fr. 295, Emp. B 115. ln Empedoclcs lhe god spcnd.s
the time passing through mortal incamation,. ln Orphcus lhe god spent howcver
many years it was in Tartarus; but it is possiblc that hc may bave undCt'gonc,
mortal incarnations as well, since Numenius was able to intcrprct the Orphic
Styx as an allcgory of spcrm (Orph. fr. 124, cf. EGPO 25 f,) . However, he seems
lO 'have donc likcwisc with Hesiod's Styx.
,, Arg. 28. The tine must bc transposed to a placc in thc passage conccrncd witb
the Rhapsodics (12-20); as it stands it brcab tbe link betwcen lhe Cabiri (<17)
aod úmnos and Samotbracc (29} (above, p. 37).
100 THE PROTOGONOS AN O DERVENI THEOGONIES
presumably carne there from the sarne source-poem as the
carlier oracles of Night, those in which she instructed Zeus on
how to take command ofthings. Oraclcs abouJ Bacchus were not
neccssarily addrcssed to him, but there is no rcason why an
account given to him of his future functions should not have
been so dcscribed.
" Acusil. ,:i F 6(b), ps.-Epimcn. 457 F 4, Ar. Av. 6g3, Orph. fr. ,:i8 (Eudemian
Theogony), Musaeus B 14, Cic. .ND 3.44, (= Acusilaus? Holwerda, MMm.• '1'1
(1894), 300), Hyg. Fab. praef. 1.
• 8 Th. 463, 475 ff., 891 ff. Night had an oracle at Megara. {Pau,. 1.40.6), and
she is na.med ín sch. Pind.P., p. ,i.6 Drachmann as thc fint occupant ofthe Dclphic
oracle; she sharcd it with Apollo in an Orphic poem mentioned by Plutarch
{see p. 12).
102 THE PROTOGONOS ANO DERVENI THEOGONIES
The bizarre story of the castration of Uranos and his suc-
ces.,íon by Kronos and Zeus is based on a myth that carne to
Greece from the Near East sometime beforc Hesiod. 59 One of
the two main rclevant oriental texts is the Babylonian poem
Enúma EliJ, dating from about the eleventh century BC. There
the two primeval parents are Apsu and Tiâmat, the mate fresh
water from which rivers have their source and the female salt
watcr of the sea. Their waters are mingled ín one body, and
their children and children's children are born wit.hin them.
These gods are obstreperous. Apsu says to Tiâmat,
Tbcir ways are verily loatlaomc unto me,
By day I find no rclicf, nor repose by night.
I will destroy, I will wrcclt thcír ways.60
There was Chaos and Night and 1;,lack Erebos first, and Tartarus'
broadness,
but no earth was, nor air nor sky. Thcn in Erebos' Jimitless bosom
as her first brood thc black-wingcd deity Night gave birth to a wind-cgg,
from which as the turning seasons revolved grew Eros the lovely,
with gold-gleaming wings on his back, the image of wind-spin swiftness.
Hc, secretly mixed with the winged Chaos in Tartarus' broadness,
hatched forth our avian race and first brought it into the daylight.
No race of immortals existcd till Eros mixed ali things together,
but out of thc various mixings the heaven was born, and the Ocean,
and earth and the whole deathless race of the blessed ones. (693-702)
• Wchrli, l.c.
• Mt14ph. 10711>27 = fr. 24 Kcrn; cf. 1072a8, and the 'ancicnl poets' in 1091b4
(Night and Hcaven).
THE EUDEMIAN ANO CYCLIC THEOGONIES 117
a beginning: it did not say that Night 'carne into being' (as
Hesiod says 'First Chaos carne into being') but that 'Night was
in the beginning' (as Aristophanes' birds say 'There was Chaos
and Night and black Erebos first'). The ruler of the world
was not Night but Zeus.
Plato in the Timaeus (4oe} summarizes a theogony which
comes from 'the offspring of gods, as they said'. He must mean
either Orpheus or Musaeus; he speaks of their claim to divine
parentage in very similar terms elsewhere.• Musaeus, however,
is unlikely, because none of Plato's or Aristotle's (or any earlier
writer's) mentions of Musaeus clearly refers to a theogony
under his name, and Eudemus does not seem to have included
one in bis survey. Hellenistic authors knew one, but we cannot
detect any points of contact between it and the divine genealogy
of the Timaeus.s On the other hand Plato does quote twice
elsewhere from an Orphic theogony (see below). The likelihood
is that the Timaeus genealogy is derived from the sarne poem.
It is also likely to be the sarne as the Orphic theogony to which
Aristotle and Eudemus alluded. What Plato knew, Aristotle
knew; and particularly where Aristotle turns aside to consider
philosophical implications in early poetry, he follows his
master's lead.6
The Timaeus genealogy runs:
From Ge and Uranos the children born were Oceanus and Tethys; from
these, Phorkys and Kronos and Rhea a,:id ali of that brood; from Kronos
and Rhea, Zeus and Hera and ali their brothers and si.sters we hear tel1 of;
and again from these more children.
The fact that Night does not appear at the beginning is no
obstacle to the identification of this poem with the Eudemian
Theogony. ln the Timaeus all gods are sprung from the great
Demiurge; and night cannot be a god, being merely something
produced by the earth's shadow (4oc) and a unit of time.
Plato is not concerned to do justice to Orpheus' scheme, he is
just taking what he wants from it. It is inconceivable that the
poem had nothing before Ge and U ranos, and there is nothing
against supplying Night there. There.is in fact a passage ofJohn
• Rtp. 364C/366b. Cf. Staudacher, 79 n. 14. Linforth, 109 is hypercritical.
• Cf. p. 42.
• Mttap/1. 9'13b28, M,~. 347a6 ~Cral. 402b, Thu.tt. tã2e; Mttt,p/1. 9'14~3 ~
S:,mp. 178b; g86b21 ~Soph. 242d.
118 THE EUDEMIAN AND CYCL IC THEOCONIES
Lydus where the first principies according to Orpheus are said
to be Night, Earth, and Heaven. This does not agree with the
only Orphic theogony current in Lydus' time, the Rhapsodics,
and the most likcly hypothesis is that he got it directly or
indirectly from Eudemus.1
We can accordingly put together a genealogy as follows:
Night
1
1 1
Urano• - Ge
)
I 1
Oceamus - Te1hys
"others
"/
Here are six generations; and in Pkikbus 66c ( = fr. 14 Kern)
Plato quotes a verse of Orphcus
Jn the si.xth gencration end the array of song.
This instruction must have been addressed to the Muses in a
proem in which they were told what to sing. 8
ln Crarylus 402b ( = fr. 15 K.) Plato quotes the verses
Occanus first, the fair-Ao,wing, initiated marriage;
he wu hu,band to T ethys, his own &Íster from one mother.
He quotes them in support ofa playful argumcnt that more than
one of the older poets anticipated the Heraclitean doctrine of
flux. The fragment is in accord with our genealogy to the
extent that the marriage of Oceanus and Tethys is put at an
early stagc, beforc those of Phorkys and K.ronos. But 'fint
initiated marriage' is problematic if Oceanus and Tethys werc
• Lyd. D, mmr. 2.8 = fr. 310 Kciro. Toe Eudcrnus hc cites in D, mau. 4.98
sccms 10 be anothcr. H.is othcr quotations from Orphcus come from thc Nco-
pythagorean Hymn to NumiH:r (frr. 309, 31,i, 316, probably abo !276), which cannot
be in question here.
1 Schustcr, 13; O. Gruppe, JoJ,rl,. f d. Phil., Suppl. 17 {18go), 694 n. 1; cf.
Hes. Tlt. 105 ff. 'ln the sixth gcncrstion' sbould not be t.akcn 10 mcan that therc
wcre only fivc gcncratiotls (Liníorth, 1-49) ; see Holwenla, g7 1 n. 1. ln my identifica-
tion of the six gencrations I follow Oruppe, 703, and E. Zcllcr, Die P/àlo.u,pllú tia
Gritdten (6th cd. rev. W. Ncstlc, t91g-20), i. 123 n. 2. I can sce no ground for the
idca of A. Dictcrich, Ahraxas (1891), 1!18 n. 2, and Moulinicr, !Ili, that human
generations ín a mytb of Ages are mcanl. Tbese are .,,,.,.,, in Hesiod, not y,waL,
and in tbe only known Orphic vcrsion (pp. 75, 97, 107) there wcrc only three of
thcm, nol six.
THE EUDBMIAN AND CYCL IC THEOGONIES 119
preceded by Uranos and Ge. It is quite artificial to say that the
union of Uranos and Ge was something cruder than a gamos;9
the Greck word can be used of any mating. If the meaning is
that Oceanus was thc first of his gencration to marry, 10 then
the qucstion arises what brothcrs or sistcrs he had bcsides
Tethys. Plato does not mention any-though he núght have
omitted figures such as Pontos, Sea (bom from Ge in Hcsiod)
in ordcr to concentrate on the maio line of descent. I shall
suggest another answcr presently.
It is clcar that this poem cannot be identified with thc Pro-
togonos Theogony. There too Night was the mother of Uranos
and Ge, but she was not the 6.rst deity of ali. There was no
intermediatc generation between Uranos and Kronos.
• Schuatcr, 9-11. 'From thc samc mothcr' carries no implication that they had
no father. Cf. Ar. }{ui,. 1371-ll, 'And ai once he started .orne Euripidean specch
about a brother who (Lord save us) scrcwcd his aister from the same mothcr',
with the acholium, •~ thc Athenians pcnnit maniagc with half-sis1cn from lhe
father, hc addcd "from 1hc samc mother" 10 cmphasize the outragc'.
10 Lobcck, 508; O . Kern, D, O,pllli Epimmidú Pllir")dis //reogoniis qr«uslío~s
TM Titans
The children of Oceanus and Tethys in the Orphic poem are
named as 'Phorkys, Kronos, Rhea, and ali the rel,t'. This is the
brood that corresponds to Hesiod's twelve Titans. But Phorkys
belongs in Hesiod to a different family, as a son of Pontos. The
other place where he appears as a Titan is in the Orphic
Rhapsodies (fr. u4), where the Titans number fourteen:
Hesiod's twelve plus Phorkys and Dione. It is tempting
to guess that in the poem known to Plato Phorkys and
Dione were counted among the Titans to make the number
up to twelve because Oceanus and Tethys were otherwise
accounted for.
lf Dione was a Titan, Aphrodite was probably made her
daughter by Zeus instead of being bom from Uranos' genitais.
Perhaps the whole story of the castration of U ranos was absent
from this poem, as the Titans were not bis children but his
grandchildren. As we have noted similarities between the
Orphic poet's system and that of the lliad, it may be worth
observing that Zeus and Dione are Aphrodite's parents in that
poem. 1 s ln the Rhapsodies we seem to have a compromise
between birth from a solitary ejaculation by Zeus (Protogonos
Theogony, p. 91) and birth from Dione: Zeus has the ejacu-
lation while pursuing Dione. 16
Rhapsodies Apollodorus
Uranos was the first kíng aftcr hü Uranos wu thc fint rulcr or thc world.
mothcr Night; hc and Ge contract the He marrics Gc.
fint rnarriage. Shc gives birth to the
Moirai; She gives birtb to
Kottos, .Briareos, Gyges (100-Handcn); Kottos, Bria.reos, Gyges (100-Handcn);
Brontes, Stcropo, Arges (Cyclop,s). Brontes, Stcropes, Argcs (Cyclopes).
,.,.,~
Uranoa has heard that he will b,c Uranos blnda them and throws thcm
deposed by hls own children, and whcn into Tariarus, which ;, as far below
he secs this stem, lawlcss brood, he the earth as earth is bclow heaven.
throws thcm into Tartarus. Ge is angry,
and secretly gives birtb to the T itans He fathers more childrcn on Ge:
and Ti tanides: the Titans and Titanides:
Themis Tethys Mncmosyne Thcia Tcthys Rhca Thcrnis Mnemosync
Dion, Phoibc Rhca+ Koios Krcios Phoibe Dione Thcia+Oceanus Koios
Phorlr.ys Kronos Occanus Hyperion Hypcrion Krcios lapetos Kronos.
lapctos. Krooos is spccially nurstd by 1.1.2-3
Night.
Ge, a ngry, incites the Titans 10 castrate
Ge incites thc Titans to castra te Uranos. Uranos, and g;vcs Kronos an adaman-
O ceanus alone is unwilling and tinc sickle. Tbey a nack Uranos,
stays aloof. The dccd is dome when Oceanus remaining aloof. Uranos is
Uranos comes to lie witb Ge. Urano,s dcposcd a nd the imprisonrd brothers
i$ cast down from his car (?). The relcascd. The genitais are thrown in
genitais are thrown in the sea, foam lhe sea.
forms, and Aphrodite is born; she Is From thc blood the Erinycs are boro,
received hy Zelos and Apate. From the Alccto, Tcisiphone, and Megaira.
blood thc Giants are born. t.1.4
Za.s, howeve,-, is concealcd in the cave Rhea, angry, gocs to Crctc whcn
of Night, and nurscd by the nymplu prcgnant with Zcm, and he is bom in
Adrastca and Ida, daughten of Mclwoe a cave on Dictc and nuncd by the
and Amahhea. Adrastea clashes bronze Kourctes a nd thc nymphs Adrastea
cymbals at the cave entrance, and and Ida, daughtcrs of Mcllueus, who
mothcr and child are also guardcd by rear him on tbe millr. of Amalthea.
THE EUDEMfAN ANO CYCLIC THEOGO NIES 1,z3
thc three Kourctcs, who are themselvcs Thc Kourctcs guare! him, clashiog
sons of Rhca. /u mother of Zeus Rhca tpcars oo shields. Kronos is givco a
becomcs 'Dcmcter'. Shc givcs Krooos swaddlcd stooc to swaUow. 1. 1.&-7
a swaddlcd slOIIC to swallow, which Oo maturity Zeus takcs Mct.is as his
makcs him vomit up bis childrco. hclpcr; shc gives Kronos a drug which
:makes him vomit up the stone and bis
childrco. r.•.
1. 1
1° Cf. , howcvcr, Enúma Elil (p. 102), where Apsíl opprcsscs severa! gcnerations
of his desccndants togethcr and is ovcrc:ome by his great-grcat-grandson Ea.
11 Cf. Apollod. 1.1.2- 4 with Hes. Th. 139-53, 720, 161-6, 176-Sg. We may
surcly add from Rhapsodics fr. 154 the dctail that Uranos was cas1ra1ed whcn hc
ca.me down ín bis dcsire for scx with his wife (- Hcs. 71t. 176--8).
THE EUDEMIAN ANO úYCLIC THEOGONI ES 131
condemned them to Tartarus ali over again. No motive for
this volte-face is giveri, but thc reason is obvious: they have to
be in Tartarus so that Zeus can rclease them to help him against
thc Titans. ln the Eudemian Theogony the war betwecn the
Titans and the younger go:ls was probably absent, as I shall
argue later. lt may have been prcsent in the Protogonos Theo-
gony, as thcre is evidence for it in the Hieronyman. Thc re-
imprisonment may thereforc come from there. Alternatively it
may have been an innovation in the Cyclic Theogony to accord
with the following TitanDmachy.
Apollodorus' account of the Titans' marriages and thc
desccndants of Ge and Pontos in 1.2.2-1.3.l cannot be based
wholly on Orpheus, since Phorkys here appears among Pontos'
sons, as in H esiod, instead ofas a Titan. Pontos himselfhas not
bcen accounted for in the prcceding ' Orphic' section. There is
such extensive agreement with Hcsiod here that it looks as if
Apollodorus has switched to him as his main source. Thcre
are some divergent details which may or may not come from
Orpheus. Iapetos' wife is Asia31 instead of Clymene; the birth
of Chiron from Kronos and Philyra is recorded (cf. p. I 26);
and the catalogue of Nereids differs from Hesiod's.
&capitulation
We began from Eudemus' and other fourth-century Athenian
writers' refercnces to an Orphic theogony. Thcn we identificd
a theogony used by the Hellenistic editor of the Epic Cycle
(and hence rcflected in Apollodorus' Bibliot/rua), and found
that its author drew partly on the Eudemian, partly on thc
Protogonos Theogony. This helped us to fill out our rather
skeletal picture of the Eudemian Theogony. For the last and
most important section of the poem, which was omitted from
the Cyclic version, we had to rely on the Rhapsodies and on our
ability to distinguish the constituent strands in that composite
narrative and assign them to the right source-poems. But the
necessary decisions seemed easy enough.
The Eudemian Theogony, as reconstructed by these methods,
may be summarized in outline as follows. ln the beginning was
Night. From her carne Uranos and Ge; from them Oceanus
and T ethys; from them the twelve Titans. Rhea borc children
to Kronos, but he swallowed them as they were born. Zeus,
however, was born secretly in a cave in Crete (ldafDicte),
nursed by nymphs, and guarded by the Kourctes. Kronos was
given a stonc to swallow. When Zeus was grown up, Rhea
make Kronos drunk with honeycombs, whereupon Zeus tied
him up, castratcd him, and with the help of Metis induced
him to regurgitatc his children. His three sons drew lots, and
Hades took the lower world, Poseidon the sea, and Zeus
heavcn, whither he proceeded on a goat.
Zeus fathered children by several goddesses, and others of
•• Fr. 75. For the Di01Curi as armed dAnccn d. PI. 4. 7g6b, Luclan 45. 10, ,eh.
Pind. P. 2. 127, etc. For their similarity to Kouretcs or Korybantcs cf. Paus,
3.114-5, 10.38.7, Orph, H,11M 38.20 fl'. Both K()IIT-4/4S and Di,,s-ko11TOi are essentíally
k<nirai; and Athena was D.os k,,,at (,j 1'ap' ,jl''" dri ,cal 31,nrou,.,, PI ., l.c.). For
Athena in association witb Dioecuri cf. E. Gerhard, Elru.ki.sdu Spug,I, v ( 1884~7),
Plt. 79-&, and Paus. 3,17.2, 24.5, 24.7.
•• PI., 1.c.; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rmn. 7.72.7.
THE EUDEMIAN ANO CYC LlC THEO CONlES 139
thc younger gods also had families. Persephonc borc Dionysus
to Zeus in Grete. There followed the story of thc murder of
Dionysus by thc Titans and his rcstoration to lifc. The Titans
were blasted to Tartarus, and mankind carne into being from
thc sooty fall-out. So theirs is a bad inheritance; Dionysus,
however, can bclp tbem by his purification rites, which were
first established in Grete but soon spread everywhere.
The earlier part of the theogony was partly based on a line
of tradition which has lcft echoes in the Riad. The account of
the birth of Zeus incorporatcs some Cretan mythology in a
confused form, with certain Asiatic elements. The story of
Dionysus and the account of the origin of man remain to be
díscussed in the chapter that follows. At the end of that chapter
I shall venturc an opinion on thc date of the theogony and its
place of origin.
------- - -- - -
I
THE DEATH AND REBIRTH OF DIONY SUS 1+1
'
THE EUDEMIAN THEOGONY
death and resurrection (and nowhere cise so far as we know)
the god was referred to by the name Oinos (Wine; or Vine
[oine] masculinized).8 I shall argue in Chapter 7, however, that
this explicit allegorization of Dionysus was introduced by the
compiler of the Rhapsodies and does not belong to the Eudem-
ian Theogony.
The interpretation was revived in the present century by
Robert Eisler, who adduced much evidence for the popular
personification of the corn or thc flax, and for working songs
that represent the processes to which these things are subjected
as the expcriences of à sentient being. He quoted Burns's
ballad of J ohn Barleycorn as a literary example. As the basis
for the Orphic story he postulated a song of the wine-press in
in which the sufferings of the vine or the grape were rclated in
this manner.9 The existence of what sounds just like such a
song is in fact attested, though only by a Byzantine source. 10
ln principie the typc of personification in question is perfectly
Hellenic, at least in sophisticated literature. Timotheus, for
example, described bow Odysseus mixed for Polyphemus 'the
blood of Bacchios with the Nymphs' fresh tears'. 11 But the
Orphic story contains nothing that points to this interpretation
(if we leave aside the fragments wbich name Oinos) and many
details that it fails to account for. Why is Dionysus a child?
Why do the Titans cover their faces with gypsum? What is the
significance ofthe rnirror, the bull-roarer, and the other objects
with which Dionysus is deceived? Why do they cut him up?
Why do they roast him as well as boiling him? What does his
heart represent?
1 Frr. 216a-c.
• Orphisc!,.tlion.:,sisclu M:,st,ri,ng,tianlc•n in dtr d,rislli(/oen Anrik, ( 1~5), 230 ff.;
Man inkJ Wolf (1952), 40.
•• A scholium of Arcihas on Clem. P,,otr., i. 297-4 Stãhlin (overlooked by Eisler),
' únai{Ütg poets: a rustic song sung at the wine-prcs., which comprised thc rcnding
of Dionysus'.
" PMG 78o (cj.), Cf. lon dtg. 26.4 e::; Eucnuuug. 2 (A.P. 11 .49); Phanodemus,
325 F 12. Ampeloo ('Vinc') appean as a penon~le from Dionysus, who
lovcd hím-in and after thc Hellenistic age: Ov. F. 3.407-14, Nonn. D. 10.175-
12.291 ; !JCe G. D'lppolito, Stadi Nonniani (1g64), 132 H'. (Later still a ,imilar myth
about Kalamos and Karpos was invcnted : Serv. Dan.&/. 5.48, Nonn. D. 11.351-
485; D'lppolito, 146 H'.) For an Arabstory about lamenting thc dcath ofthcgrape-
clu,ter with protcnation, of innocencc, ,ce Frazcr, TIi, D,1int God (1911: TJi,
Goldm Bough•, i.ü) , 8; A. Taylor, Waskinz""' Univmity Shldús (Humanistíc Series)
10 ( 1922/3), 7.
T HE DEATK ANO REBlRTH OF DlONYSUS 143
The sarne difficultics face us if we attempt to derive the myth
from the widespread European spring-time rite of destroying
an effigy of straw or other material, identified in historical
times as 'Death', 'Carnival', or 'Shrove Tuesday' and cere-
monially buried, burned, thrown into water, or scattered ovcr
the fields. 12 ln these customs, or in some of them, we can
indeed find dismemberment and burial ofa supra-human being,
but beyond that nothing which relates to the particular features
of the Orphic story about Dionysus. The carrying away and
destruction of the effigy are commonly followed by a return of
vitality in the form of 'Spring' or 'Summer' (or simply 'Life'),
which is carried in in tbe shape of a young tree, suitably decor-
ated, or branches. But this can hardly be construed as a resur-
rection of the figure that was killed. The new arrival bears
a different name from the destroyed effigy and indeed repre-
sents its antithesis.
information sce Wcbstcr, op. cit., 20-,48, 191- 2111, al. ; A. van Gcnnep, ús Rius
• /JdSSl!I' (1909), 93- 163 = 11il Riw of P--,. (1g6o), 6,s- 115; Frucr, &Jder IM
Btatiftd, ii. 225- 78; H. Jeanmairc, Ontroi ti Owr&s (1939), 147-223; M. Elia&,
Birtl111nd luhirtli (195'3) = Rit&t olld S:,mbols of /,rilWiolt ( 1965); C. J. Blcckcr (cd.),
lniliotion (Nrmwt Suppl. 10, 1965); A. Brclich, Paid,s • PMllltt111i ( 1969), 14-rn1;
V. Popp (cd.), lniliolio,r ( 1969). Thc rdcvancc of initiatioo ritcs to tbc Orphic
myth has bccnsccn byJ. E. Harruon, BSA 15 ( 1go8/9), 322-8, and Tllmtis (2nd cd.,
1927), 13-27;Jcan mairc, op. cit., 196 n. 1, s8o; G . Thomson, Audtyl,u tl1lli Atbnu
(2nd cd., 1946), 97- 113.
THE OEATH ANO REBIRTH OF DIONYSUS 145
systcmatic instruction from older shamans, and among some
tribes he is consccrated in a public ceremony or a series of
ccrcmonics at which hc demonstrates bis powers, for example
by climbing to heaven up a tree-ladder and conversing with
the gods therc.•s
How the shaman's mental dismemberment might itself be
given a ritual setting in a more sophisticated rcligious frame-
work is indicated by the Tibetan tantric rite called clwd, in
which
To the sound of the drum made oí human skulls and of the thighbone
trumpet, the dance is begun and the spirits are ínvited to come and feast.
Tbc power of meditation evokes a god.den brandishing a naked sword; she
springs at the hcad of the sacrificcr, dccapitates him, and hacks him to
pieccs; then the demons and wild bcasts rush on lhe stiU-qulvcring frag-
ments, eat lhe ftesh, and drink lhe blood. Tbe words spokcn n:fcr to ccrtain
JãJakas, which tel1 how tbe Buddba, in the counc of bis earlicr lives, gavc
bis own ftesh to starving animais and man--cating demons. 16
Here, as in some other tantric meditations which clearly go
back to shamanistic origins, the complete dismantling of the
physiçal body has become a spiritual exercise, which is assisted
by drumming and dancing.
The story of Dionysus seems to show elements of both the
types of initiatory death that I bave mentioned. The fact that
he is cut in pieces by evil gods who proceed to boil him and
eat his flesh corresponds to the typical shaman's ordeal, which
is a subjective religious experience, not a concrete ritual. But
the refercnces to the coating of the Titans' faces with gypsum
and to a collection of objects with which thcy dcceived Dionysus
-objects that actually, as we shall see, played a significant
role in some mystery rites-strongly suggcst that the myth
rcfl.ects a ritual in which the death-dcaling ancestral spirits
were impersonatcd by men, that is to say an initiation of the
tribal or secret-society type. 17 There is not ncccssarily a con-
tradiction here, for in tribes that have both magico-religious
" Again I have picked out the b=t essentiab. Scc T. Lehtisalo, Joumol de
la Soeiltl Finno-OutrimM 4,8(3) (1937}, 3-34; A. Friedrich and G. Buddru!IS,
Scltaf1U111111111tltidllm IJIIJ' SilJirim (1955); Eliade, S""""'1rimt, 3-45, 110-211.
•• R. Blcichsleiner, L't1lis1 ja111U (1!}37), 194 f., as translatcd in Elíade,
SNllltllllÚJII, 436 (q.v.). The drum is the typical instrument of the ahaman.
11 "The motif of disrnembenncnt .is hardly known in tribal initiati.on, though cL
Praur, &úllr 11v 8-Jif,J, ii. 227; G. Thoma,, Ouat1i4 2 (1931/11), 230 (Pororan,
Solomon Wandt) .
146 THE EUDEM IAN THEOGONY
fratemitics and prominent witch-doctors, the former are natur-
ally dominated hy the latter, and becomc thc pool from which
ncw witch-doctors emerge.••
Is shamanism rtlevant?
Havc thc hallucinations of medicine men in Siberia or the
Altai really anything to do with Greek myth? I think so. There
is reason to believe that in classical times shamanistic practice
and ideology extcnded across the steppes into the northern
tcrritories of the lndo-European tribes, from north-west India
and Bactria to Scythia and Thrace.1 • ln Grcece, while we
cannot speak of shamanism as a living institution in the bis-
torical period, there are clear traces of it in myth, and even
in stories attaching to certain historical persons. 20
They scem to lie along certain geograpbical lines reaching
down from the north. Orpheus, whose many sbamanistic
features (including dismemb'!rment) were noted on p. 4, is
fir mly located in Thrace. From Thrace it is not far to Pieria,
the region north and east of Mount Olympus. This is tbe home
of the Mu$e3, the divine beings with whom the ÍPspired singer
converses, who give him an almost mantic knowledge of 'past,
present, and futurc', and who convey him in a psychic 'chariot'
on 'paths' of song, as far as he desires to go in this world or the
othe.r .21 The fact that they are nine daughters of Zeus is sig-
nificant in view of the fact that the most important of the
Asiatic peoples who practise shamanism
lmow and revere a celestial Grcat God ... Somctimes lhe G rcat God's
name evcn means 'Sky' or ' Hcaven'; ... Thu celestial god, who dwells
in thc highest sky, has severa) 'sons' or 'messeng1:rs' who are subordinate
to him and who occupy lowcr hcavens .. . sevcn or nine 'sons' or 'daugbters'
are commonly mcnrioned, and the sha.m an maintains special relationa with
some of them."
One of the very few places where we can trace an early cult
of the Muscs is Delphi, which had special religious links with
" See Wcbster, Primitiu# S,mt Socitlks, 173 ff'.
19 Meuli, Hmnu 70 ( 1935), 121 ff'. = C.S,,mnu/ú Schrifun 817 ff.; Eliade,
~ . 390-1, 394- 4,.u .
•• Cf. Dodds, TM Gr1tks olld IM IrralÍDNÚ, 140-7; Eliadc, 387-94 ; Burkcrt,
Rh. Mw. 10s (19!n), 36-55 and LS 141-65.
21 et: Hes. 71. 32 with my note; EGPO 225 n. 4-
two more stories of children who were cut up, stewed to make
a meal for gods, and then resurrected: Pelops, and the child
(variously identified) slaughtered by Lycaon.26 This western
,. Thesc myths are studicd in dctail by Burlcert, Ht1m0 NtUIIIS, g8-119. The
motif or cooting children is rcpeated in thc story oC Pelops' sona Atrcus and
Thye11e1, but Thycatca' childrcn dld not turvive the expericnce. Medea ma<k a
numbcr or people young again by cutli.ng lhem up and boiling them: Aison,
Juon, thc nursea oí Dionysus and thci.r husbands. (There is abo Peliu, whoae
daughtcn she maliciously persuaded 10 subjcct him to the sarne trcatment.)
Severa! other dismembercd penon1 are connectcd with Dionysus; they are bis
enemies or rivais (Pentbeus, Lycurgus, Actaeon), or cise they are infanta toro
uundcr by frenzied maenads. The three daughten oi Minyas at Orehomenoo
toc'C up a child belonging to ooc of them; the women oC Arp bcgan to kill and
eat tbcir own children in coruequence ot a madneas which bcgan witb the three
da..ghten of Proitoa. Botb oi thesc myths were linked with thc Doirian festival
Agrionia or Agriania, and show analotries with lhe myth of Penthcut and the
THE DEATH ANO REBIRTH OF DIONYSUS 149
side of Greece, from Ambracia and Acarnania through Elis
to Messcne, is the main homeland of seers in legendary and
historical times. 27 Historical seer.s do not go into ecstasy like
shamans, but mantis means by etymology one who practises
madness, and some of the seers of mythology are credited with
shaman-like accomplishments such as changing sex (Teiresias),
understanding the language of animais (Melampous), and
bringing the dead back to life (Polyidus). 2ª
Returning to Thrace and taking a more easterly path we
arrive in lonia and the Pontic region. It is in these parts that
we find the principal archaic Greek 'shamans' (except for Abaris
the Hyperborean): Aristeas of Proconnesus, whose links with
the north are palpable in his Arimaspeia (pp. 54 f.); Hermotimus
of Clazomenae, whose soul went on journeys while his body lay
in a trance; Pythagoras of Samos, who claimed to be the
Hyperborean Apollo, and shows many shamanistic traits. It is
also in fonia that we located the development in the sixth
century of an ecstatic Bacchic cult which adopted Orpheus
as its prophet (as also did Pythagoras). And we saw that this
cult flourished right on the northern shore of the Black Sea,
at Olbia, where a Scythian king participated in it (pp. 17-18).
One is led to wonder how much of the shamanistic influence
which we detect in the culture of the archaic Ionians carne to
them in fact from their own Pontic colonies. and the direct
contact with the Scyths which they had there.
The last trail leads from fonia over to Sicily and Italy.
There Pythagoras found greater acclaim; Parmenides used
shamanistic imagery in his philosophical poem, speaking of a
cosmic chariot-journey of the will, through the gates of Day
and Night, to consult a goddess; and Empedocles strutted
about in holy garb offering prophecies, cures for diseases,
control of wind and rain, and the ability to raisc the dead. 29
daugh1ers of Cadmus. There is also tbe story that Procne and Philomela, celebrat-
ing the tric1cric ritcs on Mount Rhodope, killed II}'$ and made him into a meal
for Tereus. ln the case of Pentheus an initiatory background might be suggested
by the way in which he is shown moving towards his death in Euripides' Bacchll4,
fitted out in Dion)>$iac costume and expecting to leam the secrels of lhe cult.
(This is worked out at lcngth by R. Seaford, CQ.31 (1981), 252 ff.)
27 I. Lõffler, Die Melampodie ( 1963), 25-9.
" Cf. Burkcrt, LS 163 f.
•• Parmenides, DK 28 B 1; Empedodes 31 B 111, 112.
THE EUDEMIAN THEOGONY
A full exploration of shamimistic elements in Greek culture
would rcquirc a chapter to itself, if not a book. But these
sketchy hints may suffice to indicate a pattern: relics of a prc-
historic sbamanism brought down from Tbrace to northern,
central, and western Greece, and a !ater current of influence
from eastern Thrace and Scythia affecting fonia and the
n orthern colonies. Within this pattern we may seek to accom-
modatc the Orphic myth about Dionysus.
What the myth itself suggests is a ritual of initiation into a
society- presumably a Bacchic society-which has taken on, at
lcast at the mythícal levei, the special form of the shaman's
initiation. Bacchic societies, and in particular those which
embody their !ore in O rphic poems, belong uncquivocally to
the right-hand side of our pattern, the Ionian. This need not
mean that the Eudemian Thcogony is an Ionian poem, but
it means that the ritual presupposed may be conjectured to
have Jonian antecedents.
Dionysus at Dtlphi
There is, however, one detail of the story that points in the
other direction: thc detail that Dionysus' mortal remains were
buried by Apollo at Delphi. This is, I believe, the r esult of a
secondary combination. It is not to be taken as a ground for
locatlng at Delphi the society whosc ritual is reflected in the
myth as a whole.
Dionysus was second only to Apollo in importance at Delphi.
Both of them were seasonal gods there, that is to say, there was
a blank period for each of them in the festal calendar followed
by a ceremony in which they were brought back. Apollo carne
in early spring, on the scventh of the month Bysios, as if return-
ing from a stay abroad (with tbe Hyperboreans, or wherever).
Dionysus did not go abroad but was 'rouscd up' as Dionysus
Liknites by the Thyiades, the official Delphic maenads, perhaps
in the month Daidaphorios (November/December). What he
was roused up from was probably said in the classical period
to be slecp. 30 l o earlier times, however, he may have been said
to die, like certain others among the many seasonal gods of the
Acgean and Near East. Certainly there was a tomb at Delphi
which was gcnerally held to be the tomb of Dionysus. It was
10 Cf. Orph. H:,mn ~3·3 ff.
THE DEATJ{ AND REBIRTH OF DIONYSUS 15 1
,?,agreus
Thcre is anothcr sign of his independence in bis use of the name
Zagreus for the 'chthonic' Dionysus who was soo of Ze1,1s and
usually treated u having gone ovcrseas, dc:scended in10 the carth, or concealed
hinuclf in ti-.., locality.
'' Is.Os. 365a. Thcrc are pasaUels for thc intcrment of animal victims; it is
conncctcd with 1hc idea of regcncration. At Pouúae in Boeotia young pig, werc
lhrown inlo undcrground chambers at a festival of Demelcr and Kore, and it was
said that in the following year they rcappeared ative ,u Dodona (Paus. 9. 8.1).
At thc Attic Thcsmophoria thc same thing was done, but wbat happcncd tbc oext
year was 1hat the dccaycd remoants werc drcdgcd up again, mixcd with tbc sced
corn, and spread over lhe llclds. Toe original idea was probably 10 auist the
multiplication of animais by sowing thcm, as one does with plants. Cf. Meuli,
Guamwu/te Sdvifl.,,, 956 tr., on thc careful trcatmcnt of animal rcmains in early
hunting societics with a view to their regcncraúon.
" Frr. 2()!rl 1; a slightly abridged vcnion is given by Clcment and Amobius
in frr. 35, 34, without thc mediation of Athcna.
,a Cf. Pfcifl'er on fr. 517.
THE DEATH AND REBIRTH OF DIONYSUS 1~3
ever since I became an initiate of Idaean Zeus, and after celebrating the
thunder of night-roaming Zagreus and the raw feast, and holding up
torches for the Mountain Mother, and being consecrated (in lhe armed
dances} of the Kouretes, 1 received the title of bacchos.••
•• Cf. H. Frisk, Gri.t,h. Etymologisches Wõrurh~h s.v. Z<>yp<IÍ;. (&yp'] survivcs only
in Hesychius, with an Ionic cnding; some poet writing in Ionic must have taken
over the dialect word, probably as a 1echnical religious term. Anothcr thcory is
that Zagreus is a prc•Greck name, to be compared with that of the Zagros moun-
tains between Mesopotamia and Media; but one wants some lcss remotc parallcl.
M. C. Astour, Helk~osemitica (1967), 202 f., derives Zagreus -from Ugaritic $ir
(1agr11?), 'the Young Onc', a title applicd to the son of Baal and Anath, On
alleged sightings of Zagreus in Linear B see W. Fauth, RE ixA.2230.
•• Alcmaeonis fr. 3, p. 77 Kinkcl, cf. Thuc. 2.102.5; Moulinicr, 65 n. 3; G. L.
Huxley, Gr1tk Epiç P~tr:, ( 1969), 52.
•• A. fr. 377 M. = 228 N., cf. 121 M. = 5 N.; E. fr. 79.9-15 Austin = 472.9-15
N. ln 14 I supplemcnt "41 Kovp,rrw• (t.Ó,rM>,o, xoPo•s>,
154 THE EUDEMIAN TKEOGONY
that he played a part in mysteries which claimed a Crctan
origin. If his real home was Delphi, we have a complex
(Crete) Idaean Zeus/Mother/Kouretes
{(Delphi) Zagreus/dismem bcrmen t
which is to some extent analogous to the Orphic mythical
complc:x. ln any case Euripides' Zagreus invites cquation with
Dionysus, and in Callimachus it is 'Dionysus Zagrc:us' that
Persephone bears to Zeus. (Thcrc is some rcason to suspect
that Callimachus locatcd the birth in Crete, but this is less
than certain.) Plutarch refers to Dionysus' being called 'Zagreus
and Nyktelios and Isodaites' in connection with his dismembcr-
ment. This is an important refercnce, because it is clearly cult
that Plutarch has in view, not literature, and the context
rather suggests Delphic cult, though it does not impose this
location.41
Nonnus applies thc name Zagreus freely to the Dionysus of
the Orphic myth, the Dionysus who is dismembcred by Titans.o
For the details of the story itself he clcarly used thc Orphic
Rhapsodies. But he probably took Zagreus' name from Calli-
machus, whose phrase Zay~a ')1(1vo.µlvr/ he reproduces at D.
6. 165. This raises the suspicion that Callimachus had used the
name in the context of Dionysus' dismemberment as well as
in the context of his birth-and did so knowing both the name
and thc story from Delphi. 44
66 Julian (176a) says that applcs are not to be consumcd because thcy are 'holy
and goldcn and symbols oí secret mysttc ordcals' (dpp,jTw• &:9Àa>• ,.,.i T<ëm1<w•
,z..&"4S) , (Bidc:z undcrstands thcsc golden applcs to bc quinocs.) On lhe chest of
Cypsclus as de:scribcd by Paus. 5. 19.6 Dionysu., wu shown reclining in a cave
,urrounded by vincs and pomegranate- and applc-trces. For bis conncction with
applcs sce also Philct.as fr. 18 Powcll, Theoc. 2.120; Rose/ter, i. 1059.
67 Burkert, Hom,, N«a,u, 294--7; N. J. Richardson on Hymn. D,m. 192 ff.; cf.
abovc, p. 17. Epiphanius (Kern, p. 110) mention• spun wool among thc sacrcd
=
articlcs of1he Elcusiniancuh . Cf. Clem. Strom. 7.26.2, Phol,s.v. ,q,ot<oGv ( Bekkcr,
Anecd. 273.25), Et. Magn. s.v. ~,upot<o.Mlr (Lobcck, 702).
•• Pht,,ed. 6gc = Orph, fr. 5 - 235. Baahoi bcrc presumably means thOIIC who
anain tnte ccstasy, or a highcr initiatory grade.
16o THE EUDEMIAN THEOGONY
Dionysus renovated
T here appears to have been a significant difference between the
Orphic narrative and the non-Orphic account followed by
Diodorus, Philodemus, and Cornutus (p. 151) over the manner
,. Henrichs, Di, PlioimlciJu, du Loliimw, 67 f. ; Burltert, HOfll!J /(IWIS, 104 with
n. 29; cf. M. Oeúen~ , Dum,= SI,,;,, ( 1979), 74ft'.
" Ps.-Arist. Probl. • :3-43 Bussemakcr (Didot Aristotlc, iv. 331); lambi. YP 154;
cf. Alh. 656b.
16 On lhe general mythical motií of regcncration by boiling sce A. B. Coolc,
Z111t, ii. 210 ff. with literaturc;J. G. Frazcr, Af,olwdorus ( 1921), 1. 121-3 (on, 1.9.27),
ii. 359--0:1; Stith Thompson, Motif-/11.Jex of Follc Literan,r,, D 188.5. ,, E 15.1.
THE EUDEMIAN THEO GON Y
in which Dionysus was restored to life. ln the latter his limbs
were fitted together by Rhea- Demeter and he was reborn (as
it seems) in the same body or at least oo the sarne skeleton.
But in the Orphic version it is clear that he was remade from
the Living heart which Athena saved: the rest of his limbs, in
so far as they were not eaten by the Titans, were interred by
Apollo ín the tomb at Delphi.
H is heart was still beating when Athena carried it away.
It was from its palpitating (11&:M,118a..) that she got her name of
Pallas.n It will be recalled that she was represented a little
earlier in the poem as leader of the K ouretes, perhaps as the
piper for their dance. She was, therefore, a figure who was
present throughout the initiation sequence. Firmicus Maternus
(p. 234 Kern) even makes her a participant in the Titans' crime.
Special treatment of the heart was a feature of some Greek
sacrificial rituaJ.18 l t was pulled out at the earliest possi ble
moment, often before the animal was dead, and laid on the
altar. ln some cases it was burned there after being wrapped
in fat. Burning the heart, however, is expressly forbidden in
a set of Bacchic cult ordinances contained in a second-
century inscription from Smyrna, a nd there was a Pythagorean
prohibition against eating it.79 It was evidently not eatcn in the
ritual upon which thc Orphic narrative was based. What was
eaten was those parts of the animal corresponding to the parts
ofDionysus which the Titans a te. The hcart was removed from
the sceoe in a casket. This must correspond to a holy casket
used in the ritual.
There are two different accounts of what was done with the
heart to restore Dionysus to life. According to H yginus it was
minced and made into soup, which Zeus gave to Semeie. She
drank it and becarnc pregnant, and in duc course Dionysus was
born again from her as she died by the lightning stroke. 80 This
version is clearly not Orphic. lt is d esigned to reconcile the
77 Fr. 35, cf. sch. Lyc. 355 (p. 137.18:--.l2 Sch.), sch. O li. 1.200 (Eust. 13+43).
11 See Hcnrichs, Ou Plioiltikika dos LoJJiano,, 71 f.
'º Sokolowski, Loi., sat:rle, tk l'Asú mineurt, No. '4.13; Arist. fr. 194, D,L, 8.19,
lamb i. VP 109; scc also Octicnne, Dum,so, Slain, 85.
•• Hyg. Fab. 167 ; cf. Lucian 45.39, Procl. H.:,m,t 7. 11-15. For 1he motif cf.
A. Erman, n, Liúrolurt o/ IM AJldml E,:,p1111Ar, 1 s9. f can find no aulbority for
H. J. R ose'• note at H yginus, l.c. (cf. h,is Hrwlbook o/ Gruk M:,tholao ( 1928}, 51),
'cor Bacchi plerumque non ah Semeie uerum ah ipso Ioue uoratum dlcitur'.
THE DEATH ANO REIHRTH O F DíONYSUS 163
story that Dionysus was the son of Persephone, killed by the
Titans, with the story (ignored in the Orphic theogonies, so
far as we can see) that he was the son of Semeie, born amid
lightning. The other acoount is that of Firmicus Maternus, and
there is some probability thafit is the Orphic version. Firmicus
says that Zeus made an image of Dionysus out of gypsum and
placed the heart in it. The choice of gypsum as a material is
intriguing in view of its use by the Titans to disguise them-
selves and the cvidence for the use of such disguise in Dionysiac
mysteries. Hcre, surely, is another genuine reflection of ritual.
But what would be the point, i.n the context of initiation ritual,
of putting an animal's heart in a human effigy? I t can only
have to do with the reanimation of thc candidate who was
supposcdly dead.
Imagine, for instance, a noctumal ceremony, torchlit. A boy
is to be initiated. He sits bravely on the throne. The Kouretes
or Korybantes dance round him, round and round, noisily
clashing their swords on their shields. A priestess plays end-
lessly on the raw-toned pipes. After a time the circle is pene-
trated by lhe ghastly white-faced figures of the Titans, man's
ancestor11. They prowl about the boy, flashing a mirror before
his face. He follows it as if hypnotized. The music goes on,
becomes wilder, with drumming, and the uncanny braying of
bull-roarers. Knives glint over there in the gloom, there are
inhuman screams, haclcing and wrenching of limbs. The holy
casket is carried round, and everyone sees the hot, bloody heart
it contains. There are smells of roasting flesh. Presently there
will be meat to eat; meanwhile we all bewail the savage murder
of that innocent child. By way of consolation an effigy is pro-
duced, made of or coated with gypsum. The heart is inserted
into its chest. Stark, white and lifeless the thing stands there
in the flickcring light. Then the mi:racle. ln a moment ofblack-
out-or dazzling light- the place of the effigy is taken by the
new initiate, himself now covered with gypsum like his former
murderers, and he springs up alive and well, rcady to enter
on his new life.8•
•• Among thc Nisl<a lndians of British Columbia, when somcone was initiatcd
into a certain secrct society, 'hls friends drew thcir knives and pretende<I to klll
bim. ln reality tbey let him slip away, whilc they cut off the head of a dummy
which had becn adroitly substitute<I for him. Tben t.hcy laid the decapitated
164 THE EUIJEMIAN THEOGONY
The origin of man
The Titans are by definition the banished gods, the gods who
have gone out of thls world. According to Hesiodic tradition
they fought a long war against the younger gods and were
defeated and sent to Tartarus before Zeus was made king. Jn
the Orphic poem there is no room for such a war: the Titans
must remain in the world long enough to kill Dionysus, and
that is made the occasion of their climination by thunderbolt.
Proclus in fr. 215 says thcy were assigned various stations, pre-
sumably in Tartarus, and that at the sarne time Atlas was made
to support the earth. Atlas was not one of the fourteen Titans
listed in fr. 114, but the poet seems to have takcn the oppor-
tunity to supply grounds for the hcavy task imposed on him,
which H esiod failed to cKplain.82
He also took the opportunity to account for the origin of
mankind. The smoke from the scorched Titans deposits a soot
from which man is created (fr. 220, cf. 140,224). Olympiodorus,
wbo records this as Orpheus' story, goes on to find a deep
thcological significance in it. It m eans, according to him, that
we are part of Dionysus, because the Titans had eaten of his
flesh; and his division into many parts symbolizes tbe plurality
of the ethical and physical virtues which his reign stands for,
and tbe plurality of thc pbenomenal world. 8J This is merely
Neoplatonist interpretation and is not to be attributed to thc
Orphic poet.84 Far too many scholars, however, have been
misled by it, and not content with reproducing what Olympio-
dorus says, they have dcveloped intcrpretations supported by
no ancient source. A typical modem statement of Orphic
doctrine rcads: 'Man, in so far as he consists of the substance
of the Titans, is evil and ephemeral; but since the Titans had
partaken of a god's body, man contains a divine and immortal
dummy down and covered it over, and the womcn began to mourn and wail.
His rclations gavc a funeral banquet and solcmnly burnt rhe cffigy. ln short ,
thcy hcld a regular funeral. For a wholc year the novice remaincd abscnt and was
sccn by none but membcrs of the a<:cttt society. But at the end of that time hc
carne back ative, carricd by ao artificial animal which represented hi.s totem'.
(Frazcr, &ldrr tJv &twlifal, ii. 272.)
u Hi.s association with the T i1am a1so apperus in Diod. 3.6o, Hyg. FaA. 150,
Myth. Vat. 2.53.
IJ l,n Pluudotwm 1.3, 5, pp. ,p-5 We.tcrink; pp. 238 and 172 f. Kem.
" Scc Linforth, 317-31.
THE DEATH AND REBIRTH OF DIONYSUS 165
spark.'85 But the Dionysus who now exists grew from what the
T itans did not eat. What they did eat cannot easily be imagined
to have affected the quality of the puff of smoke that stayed
hanging in the air when they were smashed into Tart~rus.
Nor is there anything to show that the poet had any such notion
in his head.
Myths about the creation of man often show the desire to
reduce him to some commonplace material, clay for example,
but then, to account for the miracle of life, they postulate a
contribution from the gods. Yahweh has to put some of his
breath into the clay to make Adam live. ln several Babylonian
myths gods are slain in order to create mankind from them,
their blood being especially important for this purpose. 86 There
was a Greek myth according to which mankind sprang from
drops of blood shed by the Giants or the Titans in their battle
against the gods. 87 It is not definitely attested before the Roman
period, but it may be much older ; we know very little of early
Greek myths about the origin of man.ss ln the Eudemian
Theogony there was no place for either a Gigantomachy or a
Titanomachy, but the creation of man is explained on similar
lines: he comes from something extracted from the Titans at
the moment of their incapacitation. I tis soot, not blood, because
the thunderbolt is the only weapon involved. The blood version
must be the older, because the point of the original myth
a, H. and H. A. Frankfort, Bifor, PJoilasoj,h:, ( 1946), 248 f. This kind of mis-
representation had already bcen exposed by Linforth, 359 f.
16 W. G. Lambert and A. R . Millard, Atra-(fans, 9, 21-2, 59; A. Heidel, Tht
llah:,lonian Ce111si.r (2nd ed. 1951), -f6 f. ( = Enjima EüJ, vi}, 68 f.
87 Giants: Ov. M . 1.156-62, and probably Orph. Arg. 19. Titans: Dio Prus.
30.10 (ii. 297.14 Arnim), Opp. H. 5.9 wit h schol. Thcre werc also similar myths
conceming thc origin of particular nations (Ale. fr. 441 ., Acusilaus 2 F 4, Lyc.
1356 f.) and of venomous creaturcs (AcwiJ. 2 F 14, A. S~pl. 265 f., A.R. 2.
1209-13, 4. 1513-17, fr. 4, Nic. Th. S-c2 ( = Hes. fr. 367), Ov. M. 4.617-20,
Lucan 9.61~, cf. Ael. fr. 8g) from thc blood ofUranos, the Titans, the Giants,
Typhoeus, or Medusa.
81 In thc Homcric Hymn to ApoUo (336) botl\ mcn and gods are said to be
descendcd fr.om thc Titans, but thc expression is no more informative than 'Zeus,
fathcr of mcn and gods'. 1t does not in itself suggest such strikingly dilferent forms
of desccnt for gods and men as the bJood.drops myth entails. Thc obscure allusion
in Plato, Lg. 701c, to an 'ancient Titanic character', which is exhibited and
imitated by men in thc Iast stage of social permissiveness when thcy disregard
oaths and trusts and cvcn the gods, by no mcans suggests that mankind was crcatcd
from the TitaN. Scc Linforth, 339-45; Moulinier, 50 f. Plato may bc assimilating
thc Titans to thc Giants, with whom they tcnded to be confused from at least thc
5th ccntury se. On Xcnocrates frr. 1g-iio see p. 21,
166 THE EUl>F.MlAN THEOGONY
depcnded on the fertilization of the carth by a divine · lifc-
substance. With the substitution ofsmoke and soot this ratiooale
is lost.
Although Olympiodorus' interpretation of the Orphic myth
is to be rejected, there is no denying that thc poet may have
drawn some conclusion from it about man's nature, just as
Ovid says that the human race is impious and bloodthirsty
because of its origin from the blood of thc Giants, and as Dio of
Prosa says (or rathcr reports a theory) that the gods are hostile
to us and make our life a penance because we are sprung from
the blood of the Titans. But as tbese parallels suggest, any such
conclusion is likely to have concerned thc burdcns of our
inheritance. The fact that the Títans had eaten Dionysus was
merely evidence of their ·wickedness, it did not introduce a
saving element into our constitution. It is to the living Dionysus
that we must tum for salvation.
Child initiation
If both the Kouretic and the Bacchic myths reflect initiatory
ritual, the implication would seem to be that the societies in
•• Cí. Frazer, ~62; H. Webster, Ta/,oa ( 1942), 93-4 , 322-3; Eliade, Ritu 1J11d
S,1mbols of Jnitiatton, 12, 14- 15, 33, ai.; Brelích, op. cit., 69 n. 58.
THE DEATH ANO REBERTH OF DJONVSUS 16g
question made a practice of initiating young children. The
legend in Istros, if I have interpreted it correctly, points the
sarne way. Child initiation is something that Nilsson regarded
as a Hellenistic development peculiar to the Bacchic mysteries.9 •
Certainly there is abundant evidence for the initiation ofyoung
children and babies in the Imperial period, but we cannot
exclude it for earlier times. Theocritus {26.29) has an obscure
reference to a fate worse than Pentbeus' suffered by an enemy
ofDionysus aged nine or ten, which has reasonably bcen thought
to have some ritual significance. We recall that Theophrastus'
superstitious man took his children to the Orpheotclestes each
month. Thc girls who became 'bears' in the service of Artemis
at Brauron in Attica-another ritual with typical initiatory
features-did so between tbe ages of tive and ten. 9 s Other
facts from cult could be cited. Among primitive peoples
various examples are recorded of initiatory rites undergone by
children in the age-range 3 to I o, and even of unweaned
infants.96 lnfant and child initiation in Bronze Age Greece is
suggested by many myths, especially those in whicb a child
is cut up, cooked, and subscquently restored to life {p. 148
with n. 26).
I do not exclude other explanations. The relationship
between myth and ritual is not always straightforward. Some
factors which may have been relevant are: thc age of the
animal sacrificed as a counte.r!feit of the initand's death;
the idea (acted out in some modem tribal initiations) that the
initiate is rehom in a state ofinfancy;97 the potency as a purely
mythical motif of the idea of child slaughter.
.•. having what hc finds 1 •.• (Lct him) collcct thc raw piece. 1 ••• on
account oí lhe sacramcnt:
'Accep]t ye my (offcring] as the paymcnt (for my lawlcss) íath(cn].
Savc me, gr[eat] Brimo [
And Dcmeter (and ?) Rhca [
And lhe armcd Kourctes; let us [
] and we wiU makc fine sacrificc.
1a raro and a he.goaL
) boundless gifts.'
... and pasture by the river 1 ••• [La]king oí lhe goat 1 • •• Let him eat
thc rest oí thc mcat 1 ••• Let x noL watch 1 ••• consccrating it upon thc
burnt-up 1 • • • Prayer oí tbc [ ]:
'Let [WI] invoke [ ] and EuboulcW1,
And lct [w) call upon [Lhe Quccn] oíthe broad [Earth],
And the dcar Í Js. Tholl, baving withercd lhe (
(Grant Lhe blessings] of Dcmcter and Palias unto us.
O Eubou]lcus, Eri.kepaioa,
Save me [ Hurler oí Light]ning!'
THERE IS ONE DIONYSUS.
Tokens i ••••• GOD THROUGH BOSOM I ....• I have drunk. Donkey.
Oxherd 1 ••• password: UP ANO DOWN to thc 1 •••• and what has been
gjven 10 you, consume it l . , .. put intG thc baskct l ... [c]onc, bull-roarer,
knucklebones i •••• mirror.
in agrccment,
••• 45· 79, cf. 39·
••• Is. Os. 364f, cf. D, E 38ga. Nilsson, op. cít. 138, i.s wrong 10 finda rcference
in the Smymaean inscription cittd above, n. 79, to e1tpounding tbe Otphic myth
:ibout lhe Titans to initiatcs. Tbc pauagc is corttetly cxplaincd by A. D. Noclt,
ffan,. Slltd. 63 (1958), 415 f. = Essa,:µ o.n Rtliticn iuul 1N Anàffll World, 8,.S.
THE DEATH AND REBlRTH OF DIONYSUS 175
sprinkled with some dry substance (which also has sacrificial
overtones). The Corybantic initiations with their enthrooements
and dancing are mentioned by Plato in his Euthytkmus.
The society for which the Eudernian Theogony was composed
was, I suggest, Athenian. I ts rites had very ancient origins, and
were probably not native to Attica: thcy came from Ionia, or
who knows where, like much else in the Athens of that time,
and at Athens they were amalgamated with others that had
Cretan associations. With thesc rites went a myth about
Bacchus and the Titans, which at some point was brought into
connection with the entombcd Dionysus ofDelphi. Thc achiev~
rnent of the society's Orpheus was to give the myth poetic form
and to construct a whole theogony in which it could take its
place.
VI. THE HIERONYMAN THEOGONY
Athtnagoras' evidence
Kern places several other texts under the beading 'Hieronyrni
et Hellanici Theogonia' (frr. 55-9). As the Damascius passage
is the only one where this theogony is specified, we can only
assign other fragments to it if they show or presuppose some
feature which Damascius' evidence indicates to be distinctive
of the Hieronyman Theogony. What he attributes to it, how-
ever, agrees very largely with what was to be found in the
Rhapsodies. He himself comments on some of the agreements.
There are some details which are not attested in authors
certainly dependent on the Rhapsodies but which may very
well have stood in that poem: details of the physique of the
Time-serpent and of Protogonos, details about Ananke, and
the detail that one of Protogonos' names was Pan. The only
thing which definitely distinguishcs the Hieronyman Theogony
from the Rhapsodies is that it began with water and mud,
from which the Time-serpent appeared. ln the Rhapsodic
Theogony (Damascius tells us) the water and the mud were
absent. Now thcrc are only two other texts which reflect the
Hieronyman version: a passage ín the Christian apologist
• On Damascius' interprctation of thc Orphic cosmogonics scc R. Strõmberg,
Erarws 44 ( 1946), 180-4.
THE HIERONYMAN THEOCONY
Athenagoras, and a scholium on Gregory of Nazianzus which
is evidently dependent on Athenagoras. 9 There are quite d ose
verbal similarities between Athenagoras and Damascius, as
Schuster observed . 10 But we cannot follow Schuster in his
suggestion that Damascius was dependent on Athenagoras, for
Damascius' acco11nt is the more detailed of the two, and names
a source which Athcnagoras does not nam e. Both writers must
be drawing on thc sarne source. 11
The Athenagoras passage reads:
The gods, as thcy (lhe Grecla) say, d id not cxist from the beginning, but
each of them was born just as wc are born. And this is agreed by them all,
Homer saying
O ceanus the genesis of t he gods, and mothcr Tethys
(R. 14. 201), and Orpheus-wbo wa.s tbe original invenlor of the gods'
namcs and recountcd their births :ancLsaid what they have ali done, and
wbo cnjoys some crcdit among them as a true thcologiao, and is gcoerally
followed by Homer, above ali about the gods-also making their first
gencsis from water:
O ceanus, who is the gcnesis of them ali.
For water was according to him the origin of cvcrytbing, and from thc
water mud formcd, aod from the pair of them a living creature was genera-
tcd, a serpent with an cx.tra head girowing upon it of a Jion, (and anothcr of
a buli,} and in t.h e middle of tbem a god's countcnance; its name was
Heracles and Time. This H eraclcs gcneratcd a huge egg, wbich, being
fillcd full, by lhe force of its cngeoderer was broken in two from friction.
Ita crown became the hcavcn, and what had sunlt downwards, earth. Thcre
also carne forth an incorporeal god. u
" The Theolog, of llu &ri., Crul. Philosophns (1947), 220 n. 57.
16 Scb. AD li. 14.201 (Hesycb., Suda, Et. Magn. s.v. T11iliír); lo. Diaconus in
Hes. Th., p. 3o8.17 Flach; cf. Procl. in Tim., iii. 186.~5 D. (p. 179 Kem).
t1 ln Me14ph. 10911>4-8, CAC i. 8~1.5 ff. = fr. 107 K.
•• Uni=, as some think, Syrianus copied thcm from 'Alexander'. For brief
slatcmcnts of díffcrent viewpoints on the question sce M. Hayduck, CAG i. (18g1),
v-vi, and G. ( = W.) Kroll, ibid., vi. 1 ( 1902)1 vi.
THE HIER O NYMAN TH:EOGONY 18~
positing changes of ruler. The poets Aristotle has in mind are
no doubt Orpheus (Night and Uranos, cf. pp. 116 f.) , Hesiod
(Chaos), and Homer (Oceanus). 'Alexander', howcvcr, states
unhesitatingly tbat Aristotlc is alluding lO Orphcus alt;me, in
whom first Chaos carne into being, then Oceanus, thirdly
Night, fourthly Uranos, and then the king of the immortals,
Zeus. When he comes to the clause about changes of ruler, he
illustrates jt with a group of quotations from the Rhapsodics
(frr. 108, 102, 111), in which thc successive tenure of royal
power by Erikcpaios, Night, and Uranos is made explicit.
The sarne group of quotations, one of them in a foller form,
appears in Syrianus' commentary, and this appears to be one
of the places where 'Alexander' has drawn on Syrianus.
Syrianus was a keen studcnt of the Rhapsodies (see p. 228),
and he cites them elsewhere in his commentary on the Meta-
physic.r. 'Alexander's' first statement about the Orphic theogony,
however, does not correspond to anything in Syrianus, and does
not agree with the Rhapsodies (or, as it stands, with any other
poem ofwhich we have knowledge). Some scholars dismiss it as
a fabrication based on Aristotle's words. 19 It is true that the
commentator speaks of Chaos, Oceanus, Night, and Uranos,
and no oth ers before Zeus, because those are the powers men-
tioned by Aristotlc; but that does not mean tha t his reference
to Orpbeus is mere bluff. He has Chaos, Night, and Uranos
in the right order for either the Hieronyman Theogony or the
Rhapsodies. The only problem is the position of Oceanus
between Cbaos and Night. I t is hard to conceive of a theogony
with such an cxtraordinary sequence. One is thus led to suspect
that 'Alexandcr' has misplaced Oceanus. If the Orphic poem
in question was the Rhapsodies, Oceanus ought to come after
Uranos. But we must also reckon with the possibility that it
was a. different, earlier theogony.10 If, as has been suggested,
the H ieronyman Theogony began with Oceanus, and if this
was the poem on which the commentator's statement was based,
we nccd only assume an inversion in thc first two itcms of his
Kcrn undcr frr. 55 and 56, and from the brief ráumê of the Rhapsodics in the
Orphíc Argoruwtica, 12 lf. (quoted bclow, p. 231); cf. Orpheus' ,ong in lhe sarne
poem, ~1 lf. (p. 100 Kcrn).
u Or. 31.16, Palr. Or. nxvi. 149 - fr. 171 K .
., Sce frr. 135, 117; p. 130.
THE HIERONYMAN THEOGONY 187
>• Trans. J. A. Wilson in ANET 3; cf. Budge, 7M &x,/r. ofllu Dtod, 376.
" TranJ. Wi.lsoo, ANET 9,
,. C.,,mpare tbc serpenll which crowd around the 1un's nightly path and try
10 obstrue! hiJ re-cmcrgcnce. Some of them are winged aod havc two or three
beads.
,, Budge, 163; K. Set.he, Ablo. &ri. AA:. 1929(4); S. Morem in Au.t A11tih ,wl
O,iml {Festschrift W. Schubart, 1950), 8o;j. A. Wilson in H. and H. A. Frankfot't,
Bifor, Phwlsoph:,, 61.
•• Staudachcr, 94 f., suggests 1hat Hicronymus added them, preciscly in order
to bring Orpheus into line witb Phoenician and Egyptian cosmogonies. &hustcr,
97, makes Hellanicus ruponsiblc: he (a) identifies Damascius' HeUanicus with
Hcllanicus the fathcr of Sandon the writcr on Orpheus, {b) identifies this Sandon
190 THE HIER ONYMAN THBOGONY
reasonable to assume that the cosmic deities which Hieronymus
so interpreted-Oceanus and Tethys, or whoever they may
have been-already occupied this place in the original Pro-
togonos Theogony. It is understandable that the original
schcme should )ater have bcen modified so that Time existed
from the beginning, either bcside the first material principies,
as in the Sidonian cosmogony cited by Eudemus and onc form
of the Zoroastrian cosmogony,35 or before them, as in other
Iranian accounts36 and in thc Rhapsodies.
Chronos-Heracles
The serpent form of Ghronos may have its origins in Egyptian
fantasy, but in Orphic poctry il took on a symbolic significance
which justified its retention and elaboration. Chronos was
represented, we are told, as a winged serpent with additional
heads of a bull and a lion, and betwcen them the face of a god.
How is this to be imagined? The detail that the wings were 'on
his shoulders' suggests that the whole upper part of his body
was of human shape apart from the wings and extra heads.
This is also indicated by the fact that bis consort, who was 'of
the sarne nature', had arms. Ifthe couple are mainly anthropo-
morphic abovc the waist and snakelike below, they are reminis-
ccnt of Echidna (Hes. Th. 298-9, Hdt. 4 .9.1), and even more
of hcr consort Typhoeus as he is represented on a wcll-known
Chalcidian hydria in Munich:37 he has a human hcad and
trunk, but bulis' or horsc::s' ears, and wings on his shouldcrs,
while below the waist hc divides into two long serpcnt tails
which twinc gracefully in a loose knot. ln other archaic rcpre-
sentations there is no division but a single long serpent tail.J 8
wilh Sandon thc fathcr of the Stoic Alhenodorus Cananit,. (Strabo 14-5. 14,
p. 674}, (e) suggests that Hcllanicus, tharing bis grancbon's phifosophical orienta•
tion, adaptcd the thcogony to Stoic theory; a hoU$C of carnsif cvcr therc was one.
" EGPO 30. Cf. Pherttydes B 1, 'Zas and Chronos always cxistcd, and
Chthonie'. •• EGPO 30, 32.
I? Muscum Antiker K lcinkunst, 5g6; E. Gcrhard, Aus11/em11 grilehiselu Ya11i,.
bild11 ( 1840-58), iii, PI. 237; P. E. Arias- M. Hirmer-B. B. Shefton, Histo,y efGrttlc
V1111 Painting (19fü), PI. xxv; e. 550-530 JIC.
JS From the 4th century thc Giant> are sometimes shown as becomíng single
or doublc scrpents below thc wailt. On the artistic type ~e Ro.,wr, v. 1449 f.;
E. Kun:te, Archaisdle Scliildbiindtr (Olympi.sche Fonchungen, ii, 1950), 82 ff.;
F. Vian, Rtperl4in tús Gig1J11l~s fi,urlts dans l'art grec et romain ( 195 1) (ca calogue,
platcs) ; IA GimTt des Gúmis (1952), 12- 16.
THE HIERONYM AN THEOGO NV
To this extent wc may say that Chronos is conceived in lhe
spirit of archaic Greck art. A p ainter of the time of the Pro-
togonos Theogony could have depicted him without much
departure from familiar designs. The motives for so depicting
him are not difficult to work out. The snake was an ancient
and natural sym bol of eternity b eca use of its habit of sloughing
its skin off and so renewing its youth.Jo It may also be relevant
that the serpent with human head and arms is the regular
shape of river-gods.40 The idea ofTime as a river is present in
at least one passage of tragedy;• 1 and it would be assisted by
the fact that Oceanus is usually the father of rivers, if in the
Orphic poem Chronos was rcpresented as born to Oceanus.
River-gods are not usually fitted with wings, of course, and
would have no use for them. But they are a natural adjunct for
a cosmic serpent with no carth to glidc upon. We may compare
the wings of Phcrecydes' world tree, and in art lhe wings of
the sun's horses. ln a wider contcxt, wings are freely bestowed
by archaic artists upon ali manner of divine beings, and fabu-
lous monsters such as sphinxcs and griffins are also winged ;
the type of the winged Typhoeus has its place with them. 4 2
That Time should be winged is something in which it is easy
to find symbolic meaning.
The additional buli and lion heads fit less wcll into an archaic
Grcek stylc. Thcrc are threc-headed figures such as Cerberus
and Geryoneus, but for a mooster with heads of different
spccies we can only refer to the C hímaera, an animal of oriental
provenance who falis out of favour with artists before thc end of
the sixth century. The fact is that such composite creatures are
at home in Babylonian and Assyrian art and found only a
limited, discriminating reception in Greecc. The best parallel
'º J. G. Frazer, Follilort in ti,, O/d Testa,mnl (1919), i. 50. ln late antiquity the
aerpcnt biting its own tail is a wcll-attcsted symbol of time in its cyclical aspect.
Cf. F. Cumont, Festultrifl Bmndo,f (t8g8), <291 ff.; W. Deonna, Àrtibus Asiu 15
(1952), 163-70; NilS10n, Cr. R,l. ü. 50<2.
•• Serpents and rivers are oftcn compucd with one another in poctic similc,
e.g. 'Hcs.' frr. 70.<23, 293, Virg. C. 1.245.
•• Critias 43 F g. 1-3 'Tirel..s Time with bis ertr-flowing stream runs full,
rcborn from himsclf'; cf. S. OC 930 'Time in its fullncss' (1r.\'18t!wv) and 6og 'Time
all-powerful confouncls (auyx•t) everythin.g cise', Hcraclitus' imagc of the river
into whlch one cannot step twice is a rclatcd idca,
o Cf. Wilamowit1., Cltwbe, ii. 7; Nilsson, Minoon-M)ICtntUan Rtligi"", 507 f.; in
mool dctail S. Bitrem, RE viA.886 f.
192 THE HllrnONYMAN THEOGONY
for Chronos' heads is perhaps to be found in the Cherubim
which Ezelciel saw at Babylon in 593 ac: 'Each had four faces
and each four wings ... ali four had the face of a man and the
face of a lion on the right, on the left the face of an ox and the
face of an eagle.' 43 Lion, ox, and eagle are the embodiments
of supremacy and might. Chronos' lion and bull hcads are most
naturally understood as pictorial cxpressions of the conccpts
of 'all-mastcring' and 'tircless' Time that we find in fifth-
century poetry.H
ln the Orphic poem his epithet was 'unaging'. The sarne
predicate is applied to his Iranian and Indian counterparts,
Zurvãn and Kãla. 45 It cnjoys a ccrtain vogue in sixth- and
fifth-century Greek cosmology: Anaximander describcd his
Boundless as 'eternal and unaging', while Euripides spoke of
the 'unaging array (kosmos) of undying nature'. 46 Ordinary
historical time could be said to 'age' as events moved on and
the world changed. 47 Time that is 'unaging' is accordingly a
higher, supra-cosmic Time, standing in the sarne sort ofrelation
to everyday time as 'Time Unlimited' does to 'Time for Long
Autonomous' in lranian theology ,48
Athcnagoras and Damascius both record that the wingcd
serpent Chronos was also called Heracles. Why? What was
there about Herades that enabled him to be identified with
a creature of such physical monstrosity and such cosmic
importance? Only one plausible answer has so far been sug-
gested.•~ ln the legendary cycle of twelve labours, in the course
of which Heracles ovcrcame a lion, a bull, and various other
dangerous fauna, some allegorical interprcters saw the vic-
º E:z.ck. 1 :6-10, cf. 10: 14.
., All-mas1cring: Simon. 531.5, Bacch. 13,!I0!h Pind. fr. 33, S. OC 6o9, cf. Aj.
714. Tirdc:ss: Critias 43 F 3.1, cf. S. Am. 6o7. Attempu to find an astronomical
(zodiacal} significance to thc buli and the lion (Eblcr, Weümmallld rmd Himm1l~ 1lt.
395 f.; applicd to the Olcrubim, F. Dornscilf, Anlw 1111,I a/Jn Oriotl, 372) canno1
bc sustaüw:d wbcn tbc:se an.imals appcar in isolation or coupled wi1h an eaglc.
o Minôk-i-Xral 8.6 (cf. R. C. Zac!mcr, Zul'IHl/J ( 1955), 368; The Dawn dlld
Twilight •f Zorqastrianism (1961), 209); A/JuJrva111da 19.53.1; cf. ECPO 31, 33. Rc(
is called 'thc a~d onc who rencwcth his youth' (Budgc, Tht Bookoftht Dead, 112).
•• Anaximandcr 12 A 11. 1 (ECPO 79 n. 1}; E. fr. 910.5, cf. e/,igr. 1.1 Pagc,
Zeus is a rulcr unaged by time in S. Ànl. 6o8.
., A. E11111. [286), cf. A.f. 984; fA .] PV 981; S. fr. &.t; Trag. adcsp. 5o8; 4 Eua
14:10; [Lucian] 49.12.
•• ECPO 3of.
•• Cf. Lobcck, 485; Schuster , 97; Scbwabl, 1482.
THE HIERONYMAN THEOGONY 193
torious march of the sun through the twelve signs of the zodiac. so
Time is measured by the sun and the solar year. It is thus that
Heracles-Helios can be addressed by the author of the Orpbic
Hymns as 'fathcr ofTime' (12.3), and by Nonnus as 'thou who
rcvolvest the son ofTime, the twelve-month ycar' (D. 40.372).
By thc sarne token, it may be argued, the Orphic Chronos,
Time hlmsclf, might be identified with Heracles, the indomit-
able animal-tamer ofthe zodiac.
This is not completely satisfactory. No one identifies time
with the sun. Certainly in the Orphic poem both the sun and the
hcavens were crcatcd later, by Protogonos. If there was no
attempt to equate Chronos with the sun, his title of Heracles
could scarcely have been understood in the sense suggested:
the esscntial link was missing.
However, therc is another pos.ribility. For Plato, time is
defined by the complex movements of the sun, moon, and
planets; and when they have played through ali their permuta•
tions and returncd to the sarne relative positions, the 'perfect
year' and the 'perfect number of time' are complete.s 1 The
early Stoics derived from this their doctrine of the Great Year,
at the end of which the cosmos is totally dissolved into firc. 51
They defined time as the dimension of cosmic movement.sJ
Time was therefore coextensive with the Great Year, and could
be considered to pause in the ecpyrosis. Now we find in Seneca,
after a thoroughly Stoic exposit:ion of the identity of God, thc
author of the world, with Nature and Fate, thc argument that
hc may be equatcd with (among other divinitics) Hercules,
'bccause his force is invincible, a nd when it is wcaried by tbc
promulgation of works, it will retire into fire' .54 The allusion is
on the one hand to the Stoic ecpyrosis, on the other to the pyre
on the summit of Mount Oeta in which Hcracles was cremated
and achleved apotheosis after oompleting his labours. ln this
Stoic allegorization of the Heracles myth, thcn, the cycle of
n_,,,,,,
so Porph. 11. ~y~µ&,-.,, fr. 8, p. 13• Bide:t (a/J. Bus. PE 3.1 1.25), Orph.
12.11 r., Nonn. D. 40.369 ff., LydU$ D, Mensil,us 4.67, lo. Diaconus in Hes. T/i.
950 p. 36o Flach; O. Cruppe, RE Supp. iü. 1104- For the arümals of the zodiac
as threatcniog beasts which lhe sun must gct past see Ov. M. 2.78-83.
sr Tim. 3&, 3gd, cf. 22cd.
' ' SVF L 32, 114.26 ff.; ii. 181-191; iii. Q 15.19-25.
u SVF i. 26.11 , ii. 164-6.
' 4 D, Bmtficiis 4.8. 1 ; SVF ii. 3o6.3,
194 THE HIERONYMAN THEOGONY
Ananke-Adrastea
United with Cbronos-Heracles, says Damascius, was another
winged serpent: 'Ananke, being of the sarne nature, or Adrastea,
incorporeal, her arms extended throughout the universe and
touching its extremities'. Thc word 'united' (avvt"fva,) . is
imprecise, but.one thinks most readily of the ancient motif of
two entwined serpents, which can be traced back to the earliest
u Cornutus,p.31 L. = SVFi.115.16ff.
•• ln Virgil, E. 4.12, incipient ma,:nl J,róddert mlnsis may pcrhaps mcan thc months
of a new Magnus Annus. ln Zoroastrian thcology historical time had a duration
of 12,000 years, and this ~riod was divided into 12 millennia at lcast by the late
ut century ac. 4 Ezra 14: 10-12 'For the world has lost its youth, thc times begin
to wax old. For lhe world-agc is divided into twelve paris; nine (parts} of it are
passocl already, and thc halfofthe tcnth part; and therc remain ofit two (parts},
besides the half of the tcnth part' (although thc duratíon of thc parts is not specified,
we may wilh some confidencc identify the chronological schcmc with thc Zoro-
astrian, since Zoroaster'sjlbruil (age 30) was identified with the tst year ofthe 10th
millennium, and thc author of this part of 4 Ezra did in fact live in about thc
7th century of that millcnnium, while the prctended author, thc real Ezra, lived
in the 3rd; othcr features of this writer's theology also show Zoroastrian inftuence);
c f. 2 Baruch: 53 fl'.; also in Middle Persian sourccs (Zaehner, zun,an, 96-a).
7.ãtspram (late 9th century) likens the wholc period to a ycar with ias scasons
changing as thc sun moves along bis annual path (Stlt<tions 34.21-8, trans. Zaehner,
,çuruan, 350}. A divísion into four trimiUennia can bc traced as early as the 4th,
perhaps 5th ccntury ac: EGPO 32. An Orphic Great Year of 120,000 yean is
attesteJ by Ccmorinus (perhaps after Diogenes of Babylon, cf. p. 58} (Orph,
fr. 2~0) .
TKE H[ERONYMAN THEOGONY 1 95
To take one of many writers who express the Stoic idea of the
divine Logos running through all things, Philo tells us that
'extended from the centre to the ends and from the extremities
to the centre, it runs nature's long racc unchallenged, bringíng
,. Ocspitc Ale. fr. 327 (Eros thc son or Zcphyro, and lris). Cf. Scbwabl, 1478.
•• ECPO 28f.
11 Cf. Schwabl, 1473. S . Morcnz has shown Í1I great detail bow lhe Egyptians,
Protogonos
The cgg was broken, according to Athenagoras, by the force
of its engenderer (Chronos), applied through friction . Here
perhaps we must imagine Chronos in his serpent form, coiling
round the cgg and rubbing or squeezing it until it cracked.
A similar picture appcars in a curious report concerning the
cosmology of Epicurus:
And he says that lhe world began in the likeness of an egg, and the wind
encircliog the egg serpent-fuhion like a WTeath or a bell then began lo
constrict nature. Ar. it tried to squeeze ali lhe matter with greater force,
il divíded lhe world in10 lhe two hemispbercs, and after that the a1oms
sorted themselvcs out, the lighter and finer oncs ín the universe ftoating
above and becoming lhe brighl air· and lhe most rarefied wind, while the
beav!esl and dirticsl havc veered down, becoming thc earth, both the
dry Jand and thc Ouid waters. And thc atoms move by tbcm,cJves and
through themselvcs within the rcvalution of thc sky and the stars, evcry-
thing still being drivcn round by lhe serpentifonn wind. 8a
This parallel from an atomist cosmogony gains in significance
when we add that Leucippus and Democritus postulated that
each nasccnt world was held togethcr by a sort of membrane,
which they callcd a chiton:ID when Protogonos hatchcd from
the egg heis said to have broken out of a 'bright chiton'.8-4 lt
looks as if the Protogonos Theogony may bavc provided the
atom.ists with some of their imagery.
Protogonos had 'golden wings on his shoulders, bulis' heads
growing upon his flanks, and on his hcad a monstrous scr-
pent'; he prescnted thc appearance of ali kinds of animal
forros. So Damascius, whose earlier mention of the male and
female natures in the cgg fmplies further that the creature was
bisexual, a dctail confirmed by the Rhapsodies.ss Furthcr
h Epiphaníuo, ÂIW, liàtr. 1.8 {DÍels, Doxotrof,l,.i, 589.11-21). Epicurus did not
consider that ali woc-lds werc lhe sarne shape: some wcrc sphcrical, some cgg-
shapcd, othen ofother shapa (D.L. 10.74). An cgg-sbapcd cosmoo is also attríbutcd
to Empcdocle, (A 50).
'' Aêt. ,2.7.2, DK 67 A 'l3; Lobcck, -484-
•• Fr. 6o, cf. Achíll<!S in 70; an ccho in H:,mn 19.16 f.
" Frr. 56 § l'l; 80, 81. 'Nonnus lhe Abbot' in 8o says that he had a penis back
ncar his anw; this is whtte il would nocd to bc ifhis vqina wu normally situatcd,
THE HIERONYMAN THEOGONY 203
details given by the Rhapsodies are that he had ram and lion
as well as bull and serpent heads, four eyes, and four horns.
There is none of these features that cannot go back to the
original Protogonos Theogony, and we have seen (p. 105)
that several of them can be accounted for from attributes
of Re<.
Protogonos combined several identities. For the Hieronyman
Theogony the names Protogonos, Phanes, Zeus, and Pan are
attested, and for the Rhapsodies further Metis, Eros, Erike-
paios, and Bromios. One cannot believe that he had this
number of aliases in any pre-Hellenistic theogony. We have
seen that it was the poet or editor of the Hieronyman Theogony
who gave Chronos the additional identity of Heracles, and
Ananke that of Adrastea. He no doubt extended Protogonos'
identity too. However, I have argued that the equation of the
'glorious daimon' with Metis may be early (p. 88). The sarne
may be conjectured about his equation with Eros, seeing that
in Aristophanes' version of the egg-cosmogony the bright
demiurge with golden wings who comes out of the egg is
identified as Eros. 86
His most distinctive name is Phanes, 'the one who makes
(or is) Manifest'.8 7 When he carne forth the Aither and the
misty Chasm were split open, and the gods were amazed at
the unimagined light that irradiated the air from his dazzling,
unseen body. ln the Hymns he is addressed as the one 'who
cleared the dark fog from before ( our).eyes' as he flew abou t the
cosmos, and 'brought the bright holy light, wherefore I call
since he was to copulatc with himself. The sarne mcticulous authority informs us
that Priapus (who had no vagina} had his perus abovc his anus (Palr. Gr. xxxvi.
1053; H. Hertcr, De Pri4po (1932), 70). ln Hymn 6.9 Priapus is idcnlificd with
Phanes,
86 Cf. also the Hypsipyk fragment mentioned on p. 112. Phcrccydes is said to have
deJcribed Zas as taking on thc idcntity ofEros for the purpose of dcmiurgy (7 B 3;
another interpretation in EGPO 1 7). The role of Desirc in thc Phocnician cos-
mogonies will be recalled. It was as Eros, I suppose, that thc Orphic dcity was
called 'the key of the mind', i.c. he who unlocks thc sccrcts of mcn's dísposition.
Cf. S. fr. 393 with Pcarson's note.
a, On names of this formation see Volkmar Schmidt, Sprochlithe UnJersuchwigtn
:eu Htronáos ( 1968), 62 ff. Phanes dífferently declined (genitivc ~"' instcad oi
-!p'or) is attested as a pcrsonal namc in Ionia. ln fr. 7!'> and Orph, Arg. 16 Phanes'
name is explained from bis being thc first to appcar (,rpwror • . . ~""º' lywro,
Návfht). A more corrcct cxplanation is given by Apion in fr. 56 § 5: tlr, aóroíi
~av&ror ró ,.av /[ a~roü l>,"l"/,<v.
go4 THE HIERONYMAN THEOGONY
thec Phancs' .88
The cmphasis on the light and gladness brought
by Phanes, and thc admiration aroused in othcr gods (of whom
there were very few at the time), is very reminiscent of certain
hymns to Re<,
The lord of rays, who makcs brilliancc,
To whom lhe gocls givc thanksgiving ...
Whosc Jovclincss hu created thc light,
In whosc bcauty lhe gods rcjoicc ;
Thcir hearts livc whcn they see him.89
11 Ftr. 72, 86, cf. rog (~rh contexi.); H:,mn 6.&-8 (below, p. 25g) , Fr. 345,
'it is by brightness that we see: with our cyes (in themse!Vd) we sec nothing',
mi y belong in this context.
•• A.J{ET 365 f., cf. 368, :370, 372.