4 The Bendideia early became a state festival in Athens (even fifth century, CIA. i, 210, fr. K, p. 93). An allusion in Plato (Rp. 327 A), however, shows that the Thracians (who must have introduced the cult of Bendis into Athens, or at least into the Peiraeus, the home of most θίασοι) still kept up a special worship of their goddess in their own manner, side by side with the Hellenized cult. It appears at least as if the worship in its remodelled Greek form seemed to them no longer the right one. (Bendis, too, like Dionysos, is a divinity of both this world and the next: see Hsch. δίλογχον.)
5 Alleged traces of Orphic influence on special sections of the Iliad (Διὸς ἀπάτη) or the Odyssey are entirely illusory, nor did the Orphic doctrines exert any influence on the Hesiodic Theogony. On the other hand, Orphism was itself strongly affected by the primitive Greek theology the fragments of which were put together in the Hesiodic poem.
7 Among the writers of Orphic poems mentioned by (1) Clem. Al., Str. 1, 21, p. 397 P. (from Epigenes) and (2) Suidas (from Epigenes and another authority: both Su. and Clem. probably got their information through the mediation of D.H.)—two certain Pythagoreans are named, Brotinos (of Kroton or Metapontum) and Kerkops (not the Milesian). [Abel, Orphica, p. 139.] From lower Italy or Sicily come: Zopyros of Herakleia (the same person is probably meant by Iamb., VP. 190, 5 N., when he counts Zopyros among the Pythagoreans coming from Tarentum), Orpheus of Kroton, Orpheus of Kamarina (Suid.), Timokles of Syracuse. Pythagoras himself is mentioned among the writers of Orphic poems in the Τριαγμοί of [Ion] (at least as early as the beginning of the fourth century). Apart from these the only names of conjectured composers of Orphic poems are: Theognetos ὁ Θετταλός, Prodikos of Samos, Herodikos of Perinthos, Persinos of Miletos; all of whom are unknown to us except Persinos, whom Obrecht not improbably identifies with the court poet of Euboulos of Atarneus mentioned by Poll. ix, 93 (cf. Lob. 359 f. Bgk., PLG. iii, 655). In this case he is an Orphic of a much later period.
8 ὁμολογέουσι δὲ (sc. Αἰγύπτιοι) ταῦτα (prohibition to bury the dead in woollen clothing) τοῖσι Ὀρφικοῖσι καλεομένοισι, καὶ Βακχικοῖσι, ἐοῦσι δὲ Αἰγυπτίοισι καὶ Πυθαγορείοισι, Hdt. ii, 81. There can be no doubt that Hdt. in these words meant to derive the Ὀρφικὰ καὶ Βακχικά (the four datives are all neuters, not masc.) from the Αἰγύπτια καὶ Πυθαγόρεια, i.e. the Pythagorean ordinances which were themselves derived from Egypt (cf. Gomperz, Sitzb. Wien. Ak. 1886, p. 1032). If he had regarded the Πυθαγόρεια as entirely independent of the Αἰγύπτια (and the Ὀρφικά as independent of the Pythag.) he certainly could not have brought them in here. (This answers Zeller, Ber. Berlin. Ak. 1889, p. 994, who introduces a comma before καὶ Πυθ.)—It is equally impossible (with Maass, Orpheus, p. 165, 1895), to connect the ἐοῦσι δὲ Αἰγυπτίοισι with Βακχικοῖσι only; it must of necessity go with τοῖσι Ὀρφικοῖσι as well; for it is the whole point of Hdt.’s note to show that the religious usage which he mentions has, like so much else of the kind in Greece wherever it may be found, been borrowed from Egypt, and “is Egyptian”. In this he would fail completely if he did not regard the Ὀρφικά (and hence also the Πυθαγόρεια) as Αἰγύπτια ἐόντα and clearly say so. Hdt. certainly has no idea, as Maass would have us believe, of making a generic distinction between Ὀρφικά and Βακχικά: Βακχ. is the name of the genus of which Ὀρφ. is the species.—“the Ὀρφικά, and the Βακχικά in general.” Not all Βακχικά are Ὀρφικά. This use of καὶ whereby the whole is added subsequently to the part is perfectly regular and legitimate (it may also add the part to the whole as in the cases adduced by Maass, 166 n.: τὰς Διονυσιακὰς καὶ τὰς Ὀρφικάς, etc.). Hdt. mentions the Πυθαγόρεια last in order to indicate by what intermediate step the Egyptian element in the first-mentioned Ὀρφικά was specially assisted—he has further in ii, 123, shown clearly enough that he regarded Pythagoras as one of the pupils of the Egyptians (P. in any case is one of the teachers of immortality there referred to). This is also obvious from his whole attitude.—Hdt.’s opinion does not in any case oblige us to believe in it. He was forced to regard Pythagoras as the earliest author of Orphic doctrine because his connexion with Egypt seemed certain (cf. Hdt. ii, 123) while that of the Ὀρφικοί themselves was not so: in this way only could Hdt. seem to prove the Egyptian origin of that doctrine.—The priority of the Orphics is often supposed to be proved by the witness of Philolaos (fr. 14 D.) ap. Clem. Al., Str. 350 3, 3, p. 518 P. (and cf. Cic., Hortens. fr. 85 Or.); it must be admitted, however, that the passage does not prove what it is supposed to do.
9 Frr. 143–51 (cf. Lob. 715 ff.). Here, indeed, Orphic and Pythagorean doctrine are mixed up inextricably. Fr. 143 (Πυθαγορείως τε καὶ Ὀρφικῶς Syrian.) belongs to the εἰς τὸν ἀριθμὸν Πυθαγόρειος ὕμνος which is several times distinctly so called by Proclus. (The frr. are in Nauck, Iamb., VP., p. 228. fr. iii). Fr. 147 (Lyd. Mens.) obviously comes from the same (Nauck, p. 234, fr. ix). The same is at least highly probable of the frr. 144–6, 148–51. Probably what Orpheus says of the number 12 comes from the same ὕμνος (ap. Procl. in Rp. ii, 131, 10 Kroll). Proclus, however (in Rp. 169, 25 K.), also cites ll. 2–5 from the ὕμνος (Nauck, fr. iii) but this time attributes them to an εἰς τὸν ἀριθμὸν Ὁρφικὸς ὕμνος. This Orphico-Pythagorean ὕμνος had at any rate nothing to do with the (Rhaps.) Theogony of Orpheus. On the other hand, the words τετράδα τετρακέρατον, which acc. to Procl. in Rp. 169, 29 K., occurred μυριάκις in the Ὀρφικὴ θεολογία, come from the Theogony. They were possibly used as a title of Zagreus the κερόεν βρέφος (Nonn., D. vi, 165): though what is here said by Proclus about the Διονυσιακὴ (i.e. of Zagreus) θεότης, viz. that it τετράς ἐστιν, was applied rather to the four-eyed Orphic Phanes by Hermias (fr. 64 Ab.).
10 On the other hand, there is much in Orphic theology and poetry that is taken immediately from the primitive Thracian worship of Dionysos and absent from Pythagorean teaching. This makes it very probable that even such theologoumena as are common to Orphism and Pythagoreanism really go back to the fanatical cult of Dionysos, or at least were easily thence derived by religious speculation: in this case the Orphics may well have got them from this original source of mystic lore that was common to both parties and not by the circuitous route of Pythagorean teaching. Orphism remained more closely attached to the common source than did Pythagoreanism, and may for that reason be regarded as somewhat older than its rival and be supposed to have originated independently of it.
11 Zopyros of Herakleia, Orpheus of Kroton: Tz., Prol. in Aristoph. ([p. 20, 28 Kaibel, Com. Fr.] Ritschl, Opusc. i, 207); Suid. Ὀρφ. Κροτωνιάτης (from Asklepiades of Myrlea).
12 We may not simply take it for granted that the account given in Dem. 18, 259–60, of the nocturnal initiations and the processions by day through the city held by a mystical sect, is intended to describe the secret mysteries of an Orphic conventicle (as Lob. does 646 ff., 652 ff., 695 f.). The explanation of the ἀπομάττειν τῷ πηλῷ of that passage by reference to the specially Orphic myth of Zagreus and the Titans is arbitrary in itself and hard to reconcile with the language of Demosth. (Harp. and Phot. are responsible for this expl.) Hardly more successful is the derivation of the call ἄττης ὕης from the ἄτη of Dionysos (Zagreus) on being torn to pieces by the Titans: EM. 163, 63. A definite connexion undoubtedly does exist between the Ὀρφικὰ ὄργια and the Σαβάζια καὶ Μητρῷα (Str. 471) described by Dem.; but the Orphics were never called worshippers of Sabazios nor their god Σαβάζιος, and it seems likely that their secret worship was different from the ceremonies of the Σαβαζιασταί that Dem. had in view (the latter may have retained more of the primitive barbaric ritual: cf. the ins. given in Ἐφ. Ἀρχ. 1883, p. 245 f. = CIA. iv, Supp. ii, n. 626 b; from the end of second century B.C.).
13 See Lob., Agl. 235 f., 237, 242 f.
14 To attribute the practical side of Orphism to a late degeneration 351 of the once purely speculative character of the sect (as many have done) is a very arbitrary proceeding and quite unjustifiable on historical grounds. The fact that a clear description of this activity does not occur before the fourth century (in Plato) does not prove that it did not exist earlier. Apart from this an ὀρφεοτελεστής named Philippos is mentioned by Plu., Apoph. Lac. 224 E as a contemporary of King Leotychidas II of Sparta (reigned 491–469). This evidence is not to be so easily set aside, as K. O. Müller, Introd. Scient. Myth. 311 ff., would like to do. The Orphic sect from the very beginning derived its strength from its telestic and kathartic practices.
15 Thphr., Ch. 28 (16).
16 αὐτοῦ (Ὀρφέως) μὲν εἶναι τὰ δόγματα, ταῦτα δέ φησιν (Aristot.) Ὀνομάκριτον ἐν ἔπεσι κατατεῖναι Arist. π. φιλοσοφίας fr. 10 [7] Rose, Arist. Pseudepig.
17 Tatian, Gr. 41 (p. 42 Schw.), seems to speak only of redaction (συντετάχθαι) of the εἰς Ὀρφέα ἀναφερόμενα among already existing Orphic poems as the work of Onomakritos (in the same way Onomakr. is only the διαθέτης—the arranger not the author—of the χρησμοί of “Mousaios”, Hdt. vii, 6). Traces of an external linking-together of the individual poems of Orpheus in a “redaction” are not wanting (cf. the linking-together of the poems of the Epic Cycle or of the corpus Hesiodeum): first of all coming in all probability the greater κρατήρ (as in the enumeration of Clem. Al., Str. i, 21, p. 397 P.); see Lob. 376, 417, 469.—Clem. Al., Str. i, p. 397 P. (and Eus., PE. 10, 11, p. 495 D) is only derived from Tatian, though Onomakr. is here definitely called the author of the εἰς Ὀρφέα φερόμενα ποιήματα. Onomakr. seems also to have been simply regarded as the author of the Ὀρφικά in the doxographical excerpt ap. S.E. P. iii, 30 = M. 9, 361, p. 287 Mutschm.; cf. Gal., H. Philos. (Dox., p. 610, 15): Ὀνομάκριτος ἐν τοῖς Ὀρφικοῖς.—On the other hand, in the—admittedly incomplete—enumeration of Orphic poems in Clem. Al., Str. i, 21, p. 397 P., not one is attributed to Onomakr., and in Suid. Ὀρφεὺς he is only given the χρησμοί (no confusion with the χρησμοί of Mousaios is to be suspected here) and the τελεταί. Paus. (8, 37, 5) mentions (without naming them) ἔπη of Onomakr. (cf. Ritschl, Opusc. i, 241). Some at least of the poetry going under the name of Orpheus must have been ascribed to Onomakr. by Arist. (fr. 10 [7 Teubn.]).
18 Suid. Ὀρφεύς, 2721 A Gaisf.
19 Onomakr. εἶναι τοὺς Τιτᾶνας τῷ Διονύσῳ τῶν παθημάτων ἐποίησεν αὐτουργούς, Paus. 8, 37, 5. Lob., p. 335, thinks this refers to the “Theogony”: but no authority attributes a single one of the several Orphic Theogonies to Onomakr. as its real author. We should rather be inclined to think of the τελεταί which is distinctly ascribed to Onomakr. and which at least dealt with the practical side of worship: cf. Pl., Rp. 364 E–365 A, λύσεις, καθαρμοί ἀδικημάτων κτλ. ἃς δὴ τελετὰς καλοῦσιν (but it was not that the mystical βίβλοι were called τελεταί as Gruppe, Gr. Culte u. Mythen, i, 640, mistakenly supposes: he is otherwise quite right in his protest against Abel’s treatment of the τελεταί). They must almost necessarily have dealt with the reproduction of the πάθη τοῦ Διονύσου (as providing the ἱερὸς λόγος to the δρώμενα), and, as the central idea of the orgiastic cult, must have included the most important circumstance of the Orphic τελεταί (see D.S. 5, 75, 4; Clem. Al., Protr. ii, 17, p. 15 P.).
20 One of the poems (perhaps indeed the poem of the ῥαψῳδίαι, and in that case the ἱερὸς λόγος as well) made Orpheus distinctly appeal to a revelation made to him by Apollo: fr. 49 (see Lob. 469). 352
21 Besides the three Theogonies distinguished by Damascius there were (apart from other more doubtful traces) at least two other variations of the same theme: see fr. 85 (Alex. Aphrod.) and frr. 37; 38 (Clem. Rom.); cf. Gruppe, i, 640 f.—The series of divine rulers given by “Orpheus” acc. to Nigid. Fig. ap. Serv. Ecl. iv, 10 (fr. 248 Ab.), conflicts with all the other Theogonies but agrees in some particulars with Lact. i, 13 (fr. 243). Still, this remark need not necessarily have been taken from any Orphic “Theogony”.
22 (Zeus) . . . πρωτογόνοιο χανὸν μένος Ἠρικαπαίου, τῶν πάντων δέμας εἶχεν ἑῇ ἐνὶ γαστέρι κοίλῃ, fr. 120 (from the Rhapsodiai). We are accustomed to read here χανών with Zoëga (Abh. 262 f.): but χανών does not mean “catching up or devouring” [Zo.]; at most it might mean, in bad late-Greek, just the opposite of this—“abandoning” (transitive). Lobeck’s explanation (p. 519 n.) is also unsatisfactory. The word may have been originally χαδών.
23 The line occurred in various forms in the Theogonic poem; frr. 33 (Plato?); 46 [Arist.] de Mundo); 123 (Rhapsod).; see Lob. 520–32. It seems certain then (Gruppe’s doubts go too far: Rhaps. Theog. 704 ff.) that the line appeared in the oldest form of Orphic Theogony and was merely borrowed thence, like so much else that was ancient, by the Rhapsod. Theogony (i.e. the words, Ζεὺς κεφαλὴ κτλ. which would be the oldest form, as Gruppe rightly remarks: κεφαλὴ = τελευτή; cf. Pl., Ti. 69 B). Even the writer of the speech against Aristogeiton A ([Dem.] 25), an Orphic adherent, appears, as Lob. remarks, to allude to the words in § 8.
24 Theokrasia must have belonged to Orphic theology from the outset: Lob. 614; though the most extreme examples of this may perhaps come from later poems: frr. 167; 169 (Macr.); 168 (D.S.); 201 (Rhaps.), etc., being probably derived from the “Little Krater” (fr. 160), in which Chrysippos seems to be imitated (Lob. 735 and fr. 164), and from the Διαθῆκαι, fr. 7 (J.M.) a forgery in Judaeo-Christian interests which nevertheless made use of many ancient pieces of Orphic literature (the ἱερὸς λόγος: Lob. 450 ff., 454).—Theokrasia is met with even in the orthodox poets of the fifth century, though they did not invent it; the “theologoi” of the sixth century Epimenides and Pherekydes were as familiar with it as were the Orphics; cf. Kern, de Theogon. 92.
25 See Append. ix.
26 It must have been chiefly the religious significance of the gods which caused the retention of their personalities and prevented them from fading into mere personifications of abstract ideas or elementary powers with which religion could have had nothing further to do.
27 In the statements of the Neoplatonic writers this first Orphic Dionysos is regularly called Διόνυσος simply (perhaps also Βάκχος: fr. 192). Nonnus in recounting the Orphic legend calls him Zagreus: D. vi, 165; cf. Ζαγρέα γειναμένη (of Perseph.) with clear allusion to Callim. fr. 171, υἷα Διώνυσον Ζαγρέα γειναμένη. Callim. here, as elsewhere, seems to have in mind the Orphic story. Tz. on Lyc. 355 calls the god of the Orphic legend Διόνυσον τὸν καὶ Ζαγρέα καλούμενον. Ζαγρεύς the great Hunter is a name of the all-absorbing Hades: thus also the Alkmaionis fr. 3 Kink. Zagreus is identified with the Dionysos of nocturnal revelry in E., Kret. fr. 472, 10 (a reference in Ba. 1181 Kirchh.); and see above, chap. viii, n. 28. This Dionysos is regarded as a χθόνιος (see Hsch. Ζαγρεύς) and this must indubitably have been quite familiar to the poets who made him the son of Persephone: χθόνιος ὁ τῆς Περσεφόνης Διόνυσος (Harp. λεύκη). 353 They were as clearly conscious as was Herakleitos of the fact that ὡυτὸς Ἅιδης καὶ Διόνυσος, whereas this consciousness was undoubtedly obscured in the public ceremonial of Dionysos-worship (to which, however, Hcl.’s saying refers). Zagreus-Dionysos was never identified with the Ἴακχος of the Eleusinia (to which Orph. fr. 215, l. 2 refers); though Dionysos alone was often so identified.
28 Ouranos casts the Titans into Tartaros: frr. 97, 100. Acc. to Procl. (fr. 205) and Arn. (196: prob. not from the Rhaps.) we should be led to suppose that the Titans after they had torn Zagreus in pieces were cast down to Tartaros by Zeus. In Arn. this is set down side by side with the statement that the Titans were destroyed by the lightning of Zeus (ἡ Τιτάνων κεραύνωσις, Plu., Es. Carn. 1, 7, p. 996 C), though obviously incompatible with the latter statement, as it is also (even more so) with the origin of mankind from the ashes of the Titans which is known not only to Olympiodoros (ad Phd., p. 68 Finckh: Lob. 566), but also to Proclus who got it from the “Rhapsodiai” (as also did Olymp.): Procl., in Rp. ii, 74, 29; i, 93 Kroll. It seems from this that Proclus (and perhaps Arn.) in error ascribed the καταταρτάρωσις of the Titans to Zeus instead of to Ouranos.
29 Nonn. vi, 173; O., fr. 195. Perhaps Proclus is right in explaining this doubling of the god’s figure in the mirror as meaning his entrance upon the μεριστὴ δημιουργία. A reference to a similar explanation of this Διονύσου κάτοπτον occurs even in Plot. 4, 3, 12 (Lob. 555)—? also in the strange statement made by Marsilius Ficinus as to the crudelissimum apud Orpheum Narcissi fatum (was Zagreus another Narcissus?) fr. 315; cf. Plot. 1, 6, 8. The entry of the one origin of the universe into the multiplicity of phenomena is first clearly referred to in the dismemberment of Zagreus, but it would be quite like this symbol-loving poetry to introduce the same motif in a different form with a passing reference earlier in the poem.
30 Nonn., D. vi, 197 ff.
31 Paus. 8, 37, 5.
32 Procl., O., frr. 195, 198, 199. In any case Nonn. vi, 169 ff. is following the Rhapsodiai.
33 Callim. and Euphor. knew of the dismemberment of Dionysos by the Titans: Tz. ad Lyc. 208 (from the completer version in EM.). In any case it is not from the Rhaps. that this legend is also known to D.S. 5, 75, 4; Cornut. 30, p. 62, 10 Lang; Plu., Es. Carn. 1, 7, p. 996 C; Is. et Os. 35, p. 364 F; Clem. Al. (see Orph. frr. 196, 200).—A roughly caricatured drawing on a hydria belonging to the early fourth century found at Rhodos and made probably in Attica appears in JHS. xi (1890), p. 243; where it is said to represent the dismemberment of Zagreus as conceived by Orphics. The picture, however, does not agree at all with the meaning thus attributed to it; the interpretation cannot be the right one.
34 A true ἱερὸς λόγος, i.e. an account of the origin of ritual acts founded upon myth or legend. (The Orphics had such accounts, e.g. of the prohibition against being buried in woollen clothing: Hdt. ii, 81 fin.)
35 That the tearing in pieces of the bull in the primitive Thracian manner occurred also in the Orphic ὄργια may perhaps be deduced from the fact that in the legend Orpheus himself is torn in pieces by the Mainads. The priest stands in the place of the god: what the god suffers in the ritual δρώμενα that the priest suffers too. This is frequently met with. Ὀρφεὺς ἅτε τῶν Διονύσου τελετῶν ἡγεμὼν γενόμενος τὰ ὅμοια παθεῖν λέγεται τῷ σφετέρῳ θεῷ, Procl. in 354 Rp. i, 175 Kr. The ancients were fully aware that the bull torn in pieces in the Bacchic orgies represented the god himself (and this not only in Orphic ritual but from the beginning in the Thracian worship): the idea is often expressed (see e.g. Firm. Mat., Error. P.R. vi, 5), but nowhere more clearly than in the Orphic ἱερὸς λόγος.
36 The introduction of the Titans from Hellenic mythology into the Thracian myth is clearly described as the work of Onomakritos by Paus. 8, 37, 5.
37 Τιτῆνες κεκομῆται, ὑπέρβιον ἠτορ ἔχοντες, fr. 102. ἀμείλιχον ἠτορ ἔχοντες καὶ φύσιν ἐκνομίην, fr. 97. As early as Hesiod the Titans are hated by their father as δεινότατοι παίδων (Theog. 155). Τιτανικὴ φύσις is the evil character that cannot keep an oath: Pl., Lg. 701 C; Cic., Lg. iii, 5; impios Titanas, Hor., O. 3, 4, 42.
38 This explanation of the διαμελισμός of Zagreus is often put forward (though subtilized into a Neoplatonic sense) by those who use the Orphic Rhapsodiai: see Lob. 710 ff. But even Plutarch has something of the sort (E ap. D. 9, p. 389 A), and it cannot be doubted that this (apart from its Platonist wrappings) was the meaning of the legend in the mind of its first inventor. Nor can the conception that the separate existence (multiplicity) of things first came into the world by an act of impiety, have been strange to the theologoi of the sixth century: we must admit this at once on remembering the doctrine of Anaximander that the multiplicity of things which has arisen out of the original one ἄπειρον is in itself an ἀδικία for which it must pay “recompense and punishment” (fr. 2 Mull., 9 Diels). Such personification of the processes of nature and the reading of an ethical sense into them, combined as it was with a quietist tendency, was much more likely to have arisen in the fanciful minds of semi-philosophical mystics than to have been given to them by the philosophers.
39 See the accounts given in Lob. 565 f.: they come from the Rhapsodiai. The fact that the origin of men and the doctrine of Metempsychosis as well were dealt with in the Rhaps. follows from Procl. in Rp. ii, 338 Kroll. It must, however, have been from older Orphic poetry—at any rate, not from the Rhaps.—that the story was derived by D. Chr. 30, 10 f. Plutarch, too, does at least refer to it: τὸ ἐν ἡμῖν ἄλογον καὶ ἄτακτον καὶ βίαιον οἱ παλαιοὶ Τιτᾶνας ὠνόμασαν, Es. Carn. 1, 7, p. 996 C; and possibly Opp., H. v, 9–10; Ael. fr. 89, p. 230, 19 f. Herch. (Lob. 567 g). Even the words of Xenokrates (fr. 20, p. 166 Heinze) seem to allude to this Orphic myth. Thus the Rhapsodiai in this case also were following older Orphic teaching and poetry. Orph. H. 37 derives from a later age. What Nic. Th. 8 ff. reproduces (mistakenly?) as Hesiodic tradition was perhaps really an echo of Orphic poetry. Was the derivation of Man from the Titans suggested by still earlier fancies such as e.g. meet us in passages like h. Hom. Ap. 335 (137) f.: Τιτῆνές τε θεοὶ τῶν ἒξ ἄνδρες τε θεοί τε—? This is not Homeric (for all the Homeric πατὴρ ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν τε), though possibly it had a different sense from what it had for “Orpheus”.
40 Dionysos is the last of the divine rulers of the world: frr. 114, 190. Hence δεσπότης ἡμῶν, Procl. in Crat., pp. 59, 114 Boiss. (though Procl. also speaks of e.g. Hermes as ὁ δεσπότης ὑμῶν in Cr., p. 73 B.). Dionysos is the sixth ruler; Zeus who came before him being the fifth: frr. 113 (85, 121, 122). The order given is: 1 Phanes, 2 Nyx, 3 Ouranos, 4 Kronos, 5 Zeus, 6 Dionysos. This is definitely stated by Syrian.: fr. 85 (Proclus follows his master: frr. 85, 121), and confirmed by the fragments of the Rhapsodiai: frr. 86, 87, 96, 113. It seems, however, as if Plato actually found this order (as Syrian. thought) 355 in the Orphic Theogony which he read. It is true that as their silence shows the Neoplatonists did not find the verse cited by Plato in the Rhapsodiai as they knew them. (Plato’s line is ἕκτῃ δ’ ἐν γενεῇ καταπαύσατε κόσμον ἀοιδῆς: Plu., E ap. D. 15, p. 391 D, has the meaningless θυμόν instead of κόσμον—did he read θεσμόν?) They were right, however, in deducing from the line that the ancient Orphic Theogony referred to by Plato also knew of six generations of the gods (following the Pythagorean τέλειος ἀριθμός?) and ended with the sixth generation. The verse was intended doubtless by Plato himself in rather a different sense and he only quotes it humorously (Gruppe differs; Rhaps. Theog. 693 f.). This passage therefore provides important evidence of the harmony that existed between the Rhapsodiai and the oldest Orphic Theogony in the general outlines of their construction. It is, of course, quite a different question whether the six rulers in the poem referred to by Plato were the same as those given by the Rhaps.; nor can we tell whether Dionysos there occupied the last place, though the predominance held by Dionysos in Orphic belief makes it very probable that he did.
41 The authorities who speak of the origin of mankind from the ashes (or the blood) of the Titans (Lob. 565 ff.) express themselves in such a way that we are forced to suppose that they regarded this as essentially the first appearance of men. This, however, cannot be reconciled with what Proclus, as usual following the Rhapsodiai, says of the golden and silver ages of mankind under Phanes and Kronos, which then, and not till then, are followed by the third and last race, τὸ τιτανικὸν γένος: see fr. 244 and esp. in Rp. ii, 74 Kr. θνητοί in the reign of Phanes even occurs in the line quoted by Syrian. (in Ar. Meta. 935a 22 Us.) fr. 85. It is impossible to say whether this improvement upon the Hesiodic legend of the Ages of Mankind actually occurred in an ancient Orphic Theogony (the one used perhaps by Lactant.; O., fr. 243, 8; cf. 248), and was thence taken for the Rhapsodiai without being reconciled with the legend of the origin of men from the ashes of the Titans; or whether the two scarcely reconcilable accounts of the origin of men were somehow or other made to agree. (Fr. 246 [Plu.] prob. comes from a picture of the long life enjoyed by the earliest generations of men: see Lob. 513. This picture does not necessarily presuppose a series of several γενεαί before the Titanic race.)
42 μέρος αὐτοῦ (τοῦ Διονύσου) ἐσμέν, Olymp. (from Orphic doctrine) in Pl. Phd., p. 3 Finckh. ὁ ἐν ἡμῖν νοῦς Διονυσιακός ἐστιν καὶ ἄγαλμα ὄντως τοῦ Διονύσου, Procl. in Crat., p. 82 Boiss. The Hellenes are accustomed to make use of the dismemberment, re-integration and resuscitation of Dionysos εἰς τὸν περὶ τῆς ψυχῆς λόγον ἀνάγειν καὶ τροπολογεῖν, Orig., Cels. 4, 17, p. 21 Lo.
43 οἱ ἀμφὶ Ὀρφέα think that the soul has the body as a περίβολον, δεσμωτηρίου εἰκόνα, Pl., Crat. 400 C. Certainly Orphic, too (as the Schol. also say), is ὁ ἐν ἀπορρήτοις λεγόμενος λόγος ὡς ἔν τινι φρουρᾷ ἐσμεν οἱ ἄνθρωποι κτλ., Pl. Phd. 62 B; see Lob. 795 f.
44 fr. 221 (Phd. 62 B with Sch.). The similar saying of Philolaos is, as Plato’s manner of recording it shows (Phd. 61 E–62 B) evidently derived from a saying of the Orphic ἀπόρρητα (and Philolaos himself appealed to the παλαιοὶ θεολόγοι τε καὶ μάντιες in confirmation of the closely connected doctrine of the enclosure of the ψυχή in the σῆμα of the σῶμα: fr. 23 Mull. 14 Di.). The doctrine continued to be taught by Pythagoreans: see Euxitheos Pyth. ap. Klearch. in Ath. iv, 157 CD; Cic., Sen. 73. It had moreover some root in popular belief and in legal usage: see above, chap. v, n. 33. 356
45 According to the Ὀρφικὰ ἔπη καλούμενα, ap. Arist. de An. 1, 5, p. 410b, 28 ff.: τὴν ψυχὴν ἐκ τοῦ ὅλου εἰσιέναι ἀναπνεόντων φερομένην ὑπὸ τῶν ἀνέμων. (The ancient commentators add nothing fresh.) ἐκ τοῦ ὅλου means simply “out of space”. The ἄνεμοι were regarded as daimonic powers subordinate and related to the Τριτοπάτορες: see above, chap. v, n. 124. We cannot say how this conception was made to square with the other articles of Orphic belief (purgation of souls in Hades, etc.). It is plainly nothing but an attempt at such reconciliation that (following the Rhapsodiai, fr. 224) makes the souls that pass in death out of the bodies of men, go into Hades, while those that have inhabited the bodies of animals fly about in the wind εἰσόκεν αὐτὰς ἄλλο ἀφαρπάζῃ μίγδην ἀνέμοιο πνοῇσιν. Aristotle knows nothing of any such restriction. Plato (Phd. 81 D; rather differently 108 AB) apparently making free use of Orphic ideas regards all the μὴ καθαρῶς ἀπολυθεῖσαι ψυχαί as liable to the same fate as that allotted by the Rhapsodiai to the beasts. (Of course it is possible to suppose that the ψυχαί on being released from Hades for a new ἐνσωμάτωσις first of all fly about in the wind round the dwelling places of the living and are then breathed into a new body. This would not prevent there being a predestined conjunction of a particular soul with the particular σῶμα corresponding to its state of purification.)—The establishment in later Orphic poetry of the theory that the ψυχαί dwelt in the air may have been assisted by the philosophic theory of the soaring-up of the πνεύματα into their element the aether (of which more below). This theory, though not first put forward by the Stoics, was specially favoured by them: it almost attained the status of a popularly accepted belief. When the realm of the souls had thus been at least in part transferred to the air, late Orphic poetry began to regard one of the four rivers of the soul-world, Ἀχέρων, as the ἀήρ: frr. 155, 156 (Rhaps.). There is no reason to see in all this the traces of a supposed ancient conception in which Okeanos is really a river in the sky (in spite of Bergk’s fanciful speculations in Opusc. ii, 691–6). The elevation of the soul-kingdom to the sky is in Greek thought invariably the result of comparatively late speculation. We might even ask whether there is not Egyptian influence at work in the transference of Okeanos (= the Milky Way?) to the sky. Such influence would be late of course; but in Egypt the idea of the Nile in the sky was quite familiar.