title | : | The Orphic Poems
author | : | West, M. L.
publisher | : | Oxford University Press
isbn10 | asin | : | 0198148542
print isbn13 | : | 9780198148548
ebook isbn13 | : | 9780585283807
language | : | English
subject |  | Orpheus (Greek mythology) , Greek poetry--History and criticism.
publication date | : | 1983
lcc | : | PA4260.W57 1983eb
ddc | : | 881/.01/09351
subject | : | Orpheus (Greek mythology) , Greek poetry--History and criticism.

Page iii

The Orphic Poems

M.L. West

Page iv

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Page v

Preface

A first draft of the present study was written as long ago as 1967. At that time I conceived it as forming part of the same work as what became Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient (1971). Fortunately I realized before it was too late that I had two separate books on my hands. That one was soon ready for publication; but it was clear that this one would have to wait until I could obtain more complete information about the contents of the Derveni papyrus. The late S.G. Kapsomenos, in whose control it was, promised in 1967 to let me have a transcript, but never did so despite continued correspondence and a personal visit by me. At the time of my visit (1970) the fragments were on public display in the Thessaloniki Museum, and I was able to copy many of them off the wall. In 1972, in reply to an appeal on my behalf from the late Sir Eric Turner, Kapsomenos stated that he had no objection to my making use of what I had managed to learn in this way. This knowledge was, however, still too incomplete for me to feel able to proceed. After Kapsomenos' death in 1978 Turner sent me a partial transcript which, it transpired, he had had in his possession ever since 1964. This gave me more than I had, but several columns were still lacking. It was not until July 1980 that G.M. Parassoglou, who was now collaborating with K. Tsantsanoglou on an edition of the papyrus, removed the last obstacle from my path by sending me the complete text. As soon as I was free of other commitments, I turned to the task of revising my old manuscript. I found that it had to be largely rewritten. This was not only or mainly on account of the papyrus; there was much that benefited from renewed attention after the long pause. The delay had after all been salutary.

I should like to thank some others who have sent me copies of important publications relevant to the subject: Walter Burkert, Fritz Graf, Albert Henrichs, and Andrei Lebedev. The reader will see from the footnotes that I am also indebted

Page vi

to Burkert for many illuminating ideas and observations not to be found in print. As for the helpfulness and efficiency of the Press, .

M.L.W.
BEDFORD COLLEGE, LONDON
MAY 1983

Page vii

Contents

List of Plates

ix

Explanation of Abbreviations

xi

I. A Hubbub of Books

1

Orpheus

3

Early Pythagorean Orphica

7

Bacchic Mysteries

15

The Point of Convergence

18

Orpheus at Athens

20

More Bacchic Mysteries

24

Orpheus in Other Cults

26

Neopythagorean Orphica

29

Jewish Orphica

33

More Hymns

35

Some Later Poems

36

II. Some Mythical Poets Other Than Orpheus

39

Musaeus

39

Epimenides

45

Olen, Pamphos, Abaris, and Others

53

Linus

56

Appendix: The Fragments of Linus

62

III. The Protogonos and Derveni Theogonies

68

Reconstruction of the Rhapsodies Narrative

70

The Derveni Find

75

The Prose Text

77

The Orphic Poem. Its Proem

82

Zeus and His Predecessors

84

The World Absorbed in Zeus

88

The New Creation

90

The Rape of Rhea-Demeter. Younger Gods

93

Mankind

98

Recapitulation: Structure and Contents of the Derveni Poem

100

Sources of the Protogonos Theogony

101

Date and Place of Origin

108

The Early Transmission of the Poem

111

Appendix: An exempli gratia Reconstruction of the Derveni Theogony

114

IV. The Eudemian and Cyclic Theogonies

116

The Genealogical Framework

116

The Primeval Parents

119

The Titans

121

The Cyclic Theogony

121

Relationship of the Cyclic to the Protogonos and Eudemian Theogonies

126

The Overthrow of Uranos

129

The Birth of Zeus

131

The Overthrow of Kronos

133

The Sixth Generation

136

Recapitulation

138

Page viii

V. The Eudemian Theogony (Continued): The Death and Rebirth of Dionysus

140

Death and Rebirth as an Initiatory Motif

143

Is Shamanism Relevant?

146

Dionysus at Delphi

150

Zagreus

152

The Titans and the Tokens

154

Butchery and Cookery

160

Dionysus Renovated

161

The Origin of Man

164

Kouretic and Bacchic

166

Child Initiation

168

The Theogony and Related Ritual: External Evidence

169

Date and Place of Origin of the Eudemian Theogony

174

VI. The Hieronyman Theogony

176

The Cosmogony According to Damascius

178

Athenagoras' Evidence

179

Relationship of the Hieronyman and Protogonos Theogonies

182

The Water and the Mud

183

Chronos-Heracles

190

Ananke-Adrastea

194

Time's Progeny. The Egg

198

Protogonos

202

Protogonos' Creation

207

The Rain

212

The Cave

213

The Chariot

214

Uranos and His Children. The Reign of Kronos

215

The Swallowing of Phanes

218

Zeus' Snake-Matings

220

Other Wives and Associates of Zeus

221

The Soul

222

Recapitulation and Conclusion

223

VII. The Rhapsodic Theogony

227

The First Stages of the Cosmogony

230

The Royal Sceptre

231

Night, Uranos, Kronos, Zeus

234

The Golden Chain

237

The Swallowing of Phanes. Zeus as the World

239

Zeus' Wives and Children

241

Kore

243

Dionysus, Mankind

245

Composition of the Rhapsodies

246

Influence of the Rhapsodies

251

Retrospect

259

Stemma of Orphic Theogonies

264

Index of Orphic Fragments

265

General Index

269

Page ix

List of Plates:
(at End)

1. Bone Plates from Olbia. Fifth Century B.C. ( 1978 (1), Facing p. 88)

2. Orpheus and an Orphic. Apulian Amphora. (Antikenmuseum Basel Und Sammlung Ludwig, S 40)

3. Arriving in Hades. Apulian Calyx Crater. (London, British Museum, F 270)

4. Terracotta Group of Orpheus and Sirens. (J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu)

5. (a). The Derveni Papyrus, Column xviii. (E.G. Turner, Greek Manuscripts of the Ancient World (Oxford, 1971), Plate 51)

(b). The Enticement of the Child Dionysus. Ivory Pyxis. Fifth or Sixth Century A.D. (Bologna, Museo Civico Archeologico)

6. Protogonos. Relief in Modena. Second Century AD. (Revue ArchÉologique 40, 1902, Plate 1. Photo: Ashmolean Museum)

Page xi

Explanation of Abbreviations

A
Works Cited by Author's Name Only, or Author and Abbreviated Title

Burkert, W., Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1972.

Diels, H., Doxographi Graeci, Berlin, 1879.

Graf, F., Eleusis und die orphische Dichtung Athens in vorhellenistischer Zeit, Berlin and New York, 1974.

Guthrie, W.K.C., Orpheus and Greek Religion, London, 1935.

Holwerda, A.E.J., `De theogonia Orphica', Mnemosyne² 22 (1894), 286-329, 361-85.

Kern, O., Orphicorum Fragmenta, Berlin, 1922.

Linforth, I.M., The Arts of Orpheus, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1941.

Lobeck, C.A., Aglaophamus, Königsberg, 1829.

Moulinier, L., Orphée et l'orphisme à l'époque classique, Paris, 1955.

Nilsson, M.P., Geschichte der griechischen Religion, i, 3rd ed., Munich, 1967; ii, 2nd ed., Munich, 1961.

Schuster, P.R., De veteris Orphicae theogoniae indole atque origine, Diss. Leipzig, 1869.

Schwabl, H., `Weltschöpfung', RE Supp. ix. 1434-1582 (1958).

Staudacher, W., Die Trennung von Himmel und Erde, Diss. Tübingen, 1942; Darmstadt, 1968.

Thesleff, H., The Pythagorean Texts of the Hellenistic Period, Åbo, 1965.

Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. von, Der Glaube der Hellenen, Berlin, 1931-2. Cited after the second printing (1955; Darmstadt, 1959), which has slightly different pagination.

Zuntz, G., Persephone, Oxford, 1971.

B
Other Abbreviations

ANET
Ancient Near Eastern Texts, ed. J.B. Pritchard, 3rd ed., Princeton, 1969.

ARV2
J.D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, 2nd ed., Oxford, 1963.

BSOAS
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies.

CAG
Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, ed. M. Hayduck and others, Berlin, 1882-1909.

DK
H. Diels, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 5th ed. by W. Kranz, Berlin, 1934-5.

Page xii

EGPO
M.L. West, Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient, Oxford, 1971.

FGrHist
F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, Berlin, Leiden, 1923-58.

GDK
E. Heitsch, Die griechischen Dichterfragmente der römischen Kaiserzeit, Göttingen, 1963-4.

GRBS
Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies.

K.
Kern (as above).

LSJ
H.G. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford, 1925-40.

Orfismo
Orfismo in Magna Grecia, Atti del quattordicesimo convegno di studi sulla Magna Grecia (Taranto 6-10 ottobre 1974), Naples, 1975 (appeared 1978).

Patr. Gr.
Patrologiae cursus completus, 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, 1962.

RE
Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, Stuttgart, 1894-1980.

Roscher
W.H. Roscher (ed.), Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie, Leipzig and Berlin, 1884-1937.

SH
H. Lloyd-Jones and P.J. Parsons, Supplementum Hellenisticum, 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, Göttingen, 1971- .

ZPE
Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik.

Otherwise the lists in LSJ should resolve any obscurities.

Page 1

I
A Hubbub of Books

The magic of Orpheus' song drew animals and trees; the magic of his name has attracted a more unruly following, a motley crowd of romantics and mystics, of impostors and poetasters, of dizzy philosophers and disoriented scholars. The disorientation of the scholars is understandable after so many centuries in which Orpheus was all things to all 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 all Orphic poems, but known to us only in fragments, 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 identified. The student who browses in Kern'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 () 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 all these works, and he is aware that in some cases, at least, they are the subject of wide disagreement. He feels he has strayed into a quicksand.

Page 2

In 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 seem to have resigned themselves to an impasse. They have become adept at sidestepping 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 not a situation with which we should rest content indefinitely. Questions that we lack evidence to decide are better left undecided. In 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 many opportunities for muddle. I believe it is possible to sort it out more thoroughly and put it together more cogently than has been done hitherto. Unexpected 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 incorporate 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 concepts. It was Wilamowitz, whose clear old sceptical gaze falls upon me from my study wall as I write these words, who first saw through it.¹ His insight was developed by I.M. Linforth in his excellent book The Arts of Orpheus. 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 rituals that Orpheus was supposed to have founded, and they apply the adjective `Orphic' to certain rites and religious practices

¹Glaube, ii. 190 ff. My picture dates from 1931, when he was working on Glaube.

Page 3

and to an ascetic way of life. But the name of Orpheus is the only consistent unifying factor.² It is a fallacy to suppose that all `Orphic' poems and rituals are related to each other or that they are to be interpreted as different manifestations of a single religious movement. Of course, in some cases there are connections between different poems, between separate rituals, or between certain poems and certain rituals. But the essential principle to remember is that a poem becomes Orphic simply by being ascribed to Orpheus. By the same token, Orphics are simply people who in their religious beliefs or practices, whatever these may be, accord a place of honour to texts ascribed to Orpheus. There was no doctrinal criterion for ascription to Orpheus, and no copyright restriction. It was a device for conferring antiquity and authority upon a text that stood in need of them.

These 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 from a poem or poems bearing Orpheus' name; and even if we know that a given idea occurred in an Orphic poem, we cannot always assume that it originated in or was peculiar to Orphic verse. We must never say that `the Orphics' believed this or did that, and anyone who does say it must be asked sharply `Which Orphics?' A recent discovery at the site of Olbia has made it probable that there existed a sect there in the fifth century BC who may properly be called Orphics. Evidence from art points to the existence of an Orphic group at Tarentum in the second half of the fourth century. It is legitimate to talk about these Olbian or Tarentine Orphics, or any other specific group of Orphics that we can identify, but not to talk about `the Orphics' in general. As for `Orphism', the only definite meaning that can be given to the term is `the fashion for claiming Orpheus as an authority'. The history of Orphism is the history of that fashion.

Orpheus

Orpheus was a figure of myth, and an unusual one in Greek terms in that he had no place in the network of genealogies by which almost everyone supposed to have lived in the heroic

² See Linforth, 261-89.

Page 4

age was linked together in the Hesiodic and logographic tradition. These genealogies connected Greece with Egypt, Phoenicia, and Anatolia, but not with Thrace, Orpheus' country. He stands outside the Mycenaean world. 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 came to hear him perform, rivers stayed in their courses, even the rocks and trees came 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.⁵

(iv) He was assassinated by a party of Thracian women (apparently as the men sat entranced by his music). They cut off his head, but it continued to sing.⁶

He was hauled inside the cultural horizons of classical Hellas by being made the son of Apollo and a Muse, and the ancestor of Hesiod and Homer. Yet the stories portray him not as a distant forerunner of Homer, but as a singer of a different type: one who can exercise power over the natural world and who can countermand death itself, a `shamanistic' figure. He entered Greek mythology, surely, not by way of Mycenaean saga but at a later period from Thrace, or through Thrace from further north, from regions where shamanistic practices actually existed or had existed.

³ Bacch. 28(b), A. Ag. 1630, E. Ba. 562, IA 1212, etc. (t 47-55 Kern); in art from about 500 (see Fraenkel on Ag., l.c.). The miracle is not associated with any particular occasion, though Simonides adapted it to the context of the Argonaut story.

⁴ Simon. 567 (cf. 544-8, 576; 595?); Pind. P. 4.176f., E. Hyps. pp. 27, 48 Bond, Herodorus 31 F 42-43. According to an alternative, perhaps older tradition the Argonauts' musician was Philammon (Pherec. 3 F 26). The earliest evidence is a metope of the Sicyonian treasury at Delphi (before 550 BC), where apparently both were portrayed in the Argo.

⁵ E. Alc. 357-9, Pl. Symp. 179d, cf. Isoc. Busiris 8; Linforth, 16-21.

⁶ Attic vases from about 490 BC, cf. Pl. Symp. 179d, Rep. 620a; Linforth, 11-14, 125-36. A variant of the story, in which the women were Bassarids, was presented in Aeschylus' Bassarai. See below, p. 12.

Page 5

The word `shaman' comes from the Tungus language of central Siberia, but serves as a convenient designation for a type of magician recognizable throughout central and north Asia, the Arctic, the Americas, Indonesia, Australia, and Oceania. His characteristic feature is his ability to work himself into a state in which his spirit leaves his body and undertakes journeys and adventures beyond the reach of ordinary humans. It can fly through the air for immense distances, visit the centre of the world, and pass from there to the several levels of heaven; it can plumb the depths of the sea, or go to the land of the dead. The shaman is thus able to negotiate with gods and spirits (in their secret language) on the community's behalf, or converse with the souls of the departed and bring messages back from them. He can cure the sick by going after their fugitive souls (if necessary as far as the realm of the dead) and bringing them back to their owners, or by defeating morbid demons in combat. He alone can see souls and spirits; often they assume animal forms, but the shaman can deal with animals and birds too, and understand their language. He has access to the whole of nature. His spiritual adventures are dramatically represented to the onlookers by his mimetic dancing, symbolic acts, fits, trances, and vociferations; or he may report them in lengthy songs.⁷

That Orpheus is to be seen in the context of northern shamanism is no new conclusion,⁸ and in due course I shall try to show that he does not represent an isolated intrusion of shamanistic elements into Greek myth and legend. But he was, or came to be, more than just the subject of myths. Poems were composed in his name and acquired authority from it. The same is true of various other legendary singers (Musaeus, Eumolpus, Linus, etc.), about whom I shall say something in the next chapter. But from the late sixth century BC to the end of antiquity Orpheus' was the favourite name for pseudepigraphic poems of a religious, metaphysical, or esoteric nature.

⁷ This is, of course, the briefest possible summary of such a widespread and varied phenomenon. See further M. Eliade, Shamanism, Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1964).

⁸ Cf. K. Meuli, Hermes 70 (1935), 121-76 = Gesammelte Schriften (1975), 817-79 (esp. 170 ff. = 871 ff.); Kalewala (1940), 35 = Ges. Schr. 697; Ges. Schr. 1031; E.R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (1951), 140-7; Å. Hultkrantz, The North American Indian Orpheus Tradition (1957), 198 f., 236-63; Eliade, Shamanism, 387 ff.; Burkert, LS 162-5.

Page 6

It was not used merely because he was a famous singer of the past. Some of the earliest poetry attributed to him was particularly appropriate to his shamanistic nature. There was a Descent to Hades, in which he must have been represented as giving an account of his journey to the home of the dead to recover his wife, and of all that he saw there. There were spells and incantations. Most remarkable of all, there was a sacred myth about the dismemberment and renovation of Dionysus, related in an Orphic poem, which reflects, as will be shown in Chapter 5, a special kind of initiation that the shaman is supposed to undergo. This suggests that Orpheus may have been linked from the start, however tenuously, with religious practices in which elements deriving from a shamanist culture were present.

His Hellenization involved a measure of rationalization. His miraculous accomplishmentsdominating animals, retrieving his wife from Hades, etc.came to be seen as deriving simply from his excellence at singing, which he owed to his musical parents. If he had access to special knowledge of things divine, it was because he was a son of Apollo. In the proem of the Rhapsodic Theogony he was made to say (fr. 62):

O Lord, son of Leto, far-shooter, mighty Phoebus,
all-seeing lord of mortals and immortals,
Sun-god borne aloft on golden wings,
this is the twelfth soothsaying I have heard
from thy mouth: thou, far-shooter, art my witness.

Timaeus in Plato's dialogue gives a summary genealogy of gods which is evidently derived from an Orphic theogony, saying that it is good enough because it comes on the authority of `those who have spoken before, the offspring of gods, as they said, who ought to know their own ancestors accurately' (Tim. 40e). Plato has his tongue in his cheek, of course; but the problem of authentication in theological questions was a real one. Hesiod could only claim to know about the history of the gods because he had it from the Muses. Even they did not always tell the truth, and they were soon found to be insufficient as guarantors. Parmenides also received his revelation from a goddess. Pythagoras and Empedocles claimed to be gods themselves. Pseudo-Epimenides acquired knowledge by incubation in the cave of Zeus. In later antiquity, too, religious instruction

Page 7

was put in the mouths of gods, for example in the Hermetic dialogues and in the Chaldaean Oracles.

The initial stage in the development of an Orphic literature was, I presume, the attribution to Orpheus, as the great `shaman' of the past, of poems of shamanistic character (describing journeys to Hades, etc.), or of poems composed in and for religious circles whose rituals contained elements of shamanistic origin. This must have begun before the rationalization of Orpheus had proceeded so far as to efface his shamanistic associations. The next stage was to use his name more generally for poems which revealed the truth about such matters as the nature and destiny of the soul, or the sacred history of the gods. As we shall see, both stages are represented among the earliest attested Orphic poems, dating from the late sixth or early fifth century BC.

The use of Orpheus as an authority may not be much older. It was not traditional. Someone had to think of it for the first time. Once thought of, it was an easy idea to copy, but it must have originated in a single place at a single moment in history. If we cannot pinpoint this moment precisely, we can, I think, get near it by observing the convergence of three lines of evidence, one of which has only recently become available and one of which has become a little less tenuous.

Early Pythagorean Orphica

The first of these lines leads us to Pythagoras. Pythagoras is in many ways hardly less a figure of legend than Orpheus himself. So many elements of later Pythagorean speculation were projected back on to him, so much sheer myth and fancy, that it is difficult to find anything reliable to believe about him.⁹ Fortunately we have a few very early references to him which, after due allowance has been made for bias, are genuinely informative. One of these is a statement by that most interesting and many-sided literary man Ion of Chios, who died in 422 BC, that Pythagoras published writings of his own in the name of Orpheus. In other words, Ion alleged that certain poetry circulating under Orpheus' name (prose hardly comes into question) was in fact composed by Pythagoras. A parallel allegation

⁹ Burkert's Lore and Science may be recommended as a guide through that quicksand.

Page 8

regarding ritual practice appears in Herodotus. He says that certain taboos which Egyptians observe in the wearing of wool `agree with the observances which are called Orphic and Bacchic, though they are really Egyptian and Pythagorean'.¹⁰ People claim that they were instituted by Orpheus, but Herodotus identifies Pythagoras as the man who established them in Greece, and Egypt as their ultimate provenance.¹¹ In the mid fifth century, then, there were Orphic verse and Orphic religious taboos, known at least to informed writers of East Greek origin, judged by them to be of no great antiquity, and showing such an affinity with what they knew of Pythagoras' teachings that they were in no doubt that he was responsible for them and for the adoption of Orpheus' name.

A still earlier testimony about Pythagoras, dating from his lifetime or not long after, is relevant here. Heraclitus, who passed critical judgement on a number of men generally admired for their wide knowledge or wisdom, bracketed Pythagoras with Hesiod, Xenophanes, and Hecataeus as one to whom learning had not taught sense (fr. 16 M. = B 40), and in another fragment he says:

Pythagoras the son of Mnesarchos practised inquiry most of all men, and selecting these writings he claimed for himself expertise, learning, knavery.¹²

This is valuable confirmation of Pythagoras' use of books. In saying `these writings', Heraclitus may not be referring to writings previously mentioned (for `Pythagoras the son of Mnesarchos' seems to introduce a new subject), but rather using the demonstrative contemptuously, as in another fragment (86 = B 5) he says `they pray to these statues'. They are evidently writings which Pythagoras in some way edited and propagated. `Selecting' is also something that Onomacritus

¹⁰ Ion, Triagmoi, DK 36 B 2; Hdt. 2.81. I accept the longer version of the Herodotus passage; shortening was more likely to happen than interpolation. For discussion of the problems see Linforth, 38-50; bibliography in Burkert, LS 127 n. 39 (add Moulinier, 9 ff.).

¹¹ Cf. 2.123, where Herodotus claims Egyptian origin for the theory of metempsychosis, `which certain Greeks have maintained as their own, some earlier, some later; I know their names but pass over them'. I think it likely that he had Pythagoras and Empedocles primarily in mind. See Burkert, LS 126 n. 38.

¹² Fr. 17 M. = B 129. The authenticity of the fragment was formerly doubted but is now generally accepted. See Burkert, LS 130 f.

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did at the same period with the oracles of Musaeus.¹³ Now clearly Heraclitus is not saying the same as Ion; he is not saying that Pythagoras composed works under a pseudonym. He may nevertheless be referring to Orphicato a Pythagorean publication which Heraclitus took to be what it claimed to be, namely an edition of older poetry, whereas Ion saw it as a fabrication.

For more explicit information we are indebted to one Epigenes, an obscure figure who appears to have lived in the first half of the fourth century BC.¹⁴ He is recorded as having stated, in a discussion of Orphic poetry, that the Descent to Hades and the Hieros Logos were really by Cercops the Pythagorean, and the Robe and Physika by Brontinus.¹⁵ Nothing is known of this Cercops (he does not appear in Iamblichus' long list of Pythagoreans), but Brontinus or Brotinus of Metapontum or Croton is known as a contemporary of Alcmeon of Croton: he was one of three people to whom Alcmeon dedicated his book.¹⁶ Epigenes' ascriptions are worked into the long list of Orpheus' poems in the Suda (= t 223d Kern), with some variants. The Hieros Logos appears as Hieroi Logoi in twenty-four rhapsodiesin other words it is confused with the Rhapsodic Theogony, which we shall see to be a poem of later dateand ascribed either to Cercops the Pythagorean or to Theognetus the Thessalian.

¹³ Hdt. 7.6. He collected and arranged them, he interpolated them, and when taken to Susa he falsified them further by suppressing some (, the same word as in Heraclitus). Onomacritus' association with the Orphica is a late invention, see p. 249.

¹⁴ In Callimachus' time there were people who thought that he was the author of the Triagmoi of Ion of Chios (Call. fr. 449). Perhaps he wrote an exegesis of it; we know that he discussed the interpretation of one of Ion's tragedies (Ath. 468c, v.l. `Epimenes'). This might have led to his being quoted as `Epigenes in the Triagmoi'. Linforth, 114 ff., makes out an attractive case for identifying him with Epigenes the disciple of Socrates who appears in Plato and Xenophon.

¹⁵ Clem. Str. 1.131 = t 222 Kern. Clement writes `Epigenes in his writing on the poetry ascribed to Orpheus', and in 5.49 (= fr. 33 K.) `in his book on the poetry of Orpheus', as if it were a monograph, but I suspect that it really came from Epigenes' exegesis of the Triagmoi, and was an amplification of Ion's statement there about Pythagoras. This would help to explain why the Suda list of Orpheus' poems, which incorporates Epigenes' ascriptions, begins `He wrote Triagmoi; but they are said to be by Ion the tragedian'. The source presumably named Epigenes in association with the Triagmoi.

¹⁶ DK 24 B 1. He is said to have been the father (or husband) of Pythagoras' wife (or daughter or pupil) Theano (D.L. 8.42, etc.). Cf. Burkert, LS 114 and 289 n. 57.

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The Descent is given to Herodicus of Perinthus,¹⁷ while the Robe, together with a Net, is given either to Brontinus or to Zopyrus of Heraclea. Zopyrus is known from the catalogue of early Pythagoreans in Iamblichus, where he is listed as from Tarentum.¹⁸ He is further credited, both in the Suda and in Clement, with a Krater.¹⁹

Krater, Net, Robe. These titles fall into a pattern, and it is possible to conjecture something of their meaning. The Net was in all probability the Orphic poem known to Aristotle in which the formation of a living creature was likened to the knitting of a net (fr. 26 Kern). The 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 between the picture of the net being built up loop by loop and the Pythagorean (Philolaic) number-cosmogony in which the world is built up from a monad that `breathes in' and becomes a dyad and so on.²¹ On general grounds one might suppose the physical theory of the poem to be older than the more abstract scheme of Philolaus.

Related ideas may have inspired the Robe. In one or other of the Orphic poems he knew, Epigenes found a description of weaving or of a loom. He quoted from it the expressions `shuttles with bent conveyance' and `warp-threads',²² and explained them as symbolizing the ploughing and sowing of the earth. Robes and weaving go together, and there is some likelihood that the poem in question was the Robe. Epigenes' allegorical interpretation may of course have been as arbitrary as that of the Derveni papyrus to be discussed in the next chapter but one. But a robe symbolizing the surface of the earth had appeared in a pre-Pythagorean theological narrative:

¹⁷ Clement (immediately before citing Epigenes) ascribes it to Prodicus of Samos. had no doubt been corrupted into (as often happens), and this `Prodicus' was then assumed to be the famous sophist from Samos. The Descent was also attributed to Orpheus of Camarina (Suda s.v. ), who seems to be a fictitious person.

¹⁸VP 267, perhaps from Aristoxenus (Burkert, LS 105 n. 40).

¹⁹ The Suda gives this title in the plural, because there was also a Shorter Krater known at Byzantium (frr. 297-8).

²⁰ 78b ff. Also in later writers, see Lobeck 381.

²¹ DK 58 B 26+30. On the ascription to Philolaus see Burkert, LS 235-8. For a possible link between the Net and Alcmeon see EGPO 230 n. 5.

²² Fr. 33 K. The exact sense of the adjective with `shuttles' is uncertain.

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in Pherecydes of Syros, who related how Zas wove a robe for his bride Chthonie, embroidered earth and ocean upon it, and by giving it to Chthonie transformed her into Ge.²³ In the later Orphic Rhapsodies Persephone was described as weaving a flowery robe, work which was interrupted when Pluto carried her off to the underworld: that robe too had an evident cosmic significance. The Robe known to Epigenes and ascribed by him to Brontinus may well have contained an earlier version of the same episode, with Persephone's weaving standing for the seasonal re-covering of the earth by crops, flowers, and other vegetation. The basic idea that `the earth is the robe of Persephone' is quite in the style of the early Pythagoreans, who were given to sayings like `the Bears are the hands of Rhea', `the planets are Persephone's hounds', `the sea is the tear of Kronos'.²⁴

The Krater (Mixing-bowl) cannot be directly connected with anything we know of early Pythagorean thought; but Brontinus' friend Alcmeon attaches importance to the commensurate mixture of opposing qualities (DK 24 B 4), while Empedocles, who certainly accepted some Pythagorean doctrines, and praised Pythagoras warmly,²⁵ explains all cosmic change as mixture and separation, and uses vocabulary proper to the mixing of drinks.²⁶ Cosmic mixing-bowls appear in Plato, first in the Phaedo (111d), in a purely physical description of the subterranean machinery of the earth, then in a playful metaphor in the Philebus (61bc), applied to lives that contain ingredients of pleasure and wisdom, and in the cosmology of the Timaeus (35, 41d), where the Demiurge uses a bowl to mix the soul of the firmament and the souls of men.²⁷ The image reappears in various forms in later writers, who are mainly dependent on Plato.²⁸ There is one passage in which it is associated with Orpheus. Plutarch, speaking of the great krater

²³ See EGPO 9-11, 15-20, and for oriental parallels, ibid., 53-5.

²⁴ See EGPO 215-18. Among other Orphic expressions which Epigenes expounded (still fr. 33) was `tears of Zeus', which he said meant rain.

²⁵ B 129; cf. Burkert, LS 137 f.

²⁶ B 35.15 and , 35.8 , 71.3 . Heraclitus had used the image of the that has to be kept stirred (31 M. = B 125).

²⁷ Cf. also Lg. 773d, `the city must be mixed like a mixing-bowl'. is a frequent metaphor in Plato.

²⁸ See Lobeck, 736; Nilsson, Harv. Theol. Review 51 (1958), 59 ff. = Opusc. Sel. iii. 332 ff.

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from which dreams draw their mixture of truth and falsehood, says that this was as far as Orpheus came in his quest for Eurydice, after which he published an account of his journey, mentioning an oracle at Delphi shared by Apollo and Night.²⁹ It looks as if the Delphic sanctuary was connected to the krater and Orpheus returned from the underworld by this route, as Aeneas returns through the gate of dreams in Virgil.³⁰ It could well be that the Orphic poem Plutarch is referring to was the Krater. But there was also the Descent to Hades ascribed by Epigenes to Cercops and by others to Herodicus or to Orpheus of Camarina. This was probably a poem in autobiographical form,³¹ in which Orpheus described his search for Eurydice and revealed to men the fate of souls, much as in a Platonic myth. Pythagoras too, perhaps from an early date, was said to have descended to Hades and returned.³²

There is reason to suspect that Aeschylus knew a poem about Orpheus' descent to Hades. The plot of his Bassarai went as follows: Orpheus, as a result of what he had seen in the underworld when he went there on account of his wife, neglected the worship of Dionysus, who had made him famous, and instead honoured the Sun, whom he identified with Apollo, as the greatest god. He took to going up on Mount Pangaion before dawn to greet the sunrise. There the Bassarids, driven by the angry Dionysus, came upon him towards the end of their nocturnal revels and tore him limb from limb.³³ As was noted earlier, this is a new version of a current story according to which Orpheus was hacked to death and beheaded (but not torn apart) by Thracian women (not Bassarids). Aeschylus acknowledges a connection between Orpheus and the rites of

²⁹De sera numinis vindicta 566b. Cf. Wilamowitz, Glaube, ii. 194 n. 3. Pythagorean interest in the Delphic oracle is shown by the akousma `What is the oracle at Delphi?Tetraktys' etc. (Iambl. VP 82).

³⁰ O. Gruppe in Roscher, iii. 1130. Cf. A. Dieterich, Nekyia (1893), 147; E. Norden, Vergilius Aeneis VI (3rd ed., 1926), 47.

³¹ Like the later Argonautica, which probably refers to it (see below, p. 38, lines 41-2).

³² See Burkert, LS 155-61; Phronesis 14 (1969), 1-29.

³³ Fr. 83 Mette = ps.-Erat. Catast. 24, whence sch. German. Arat., pp. 84 and 151 Br.; sch. Clem. Protr. 4.3. Codex R of pseudo-Eratosthenes, first used in Olivieri's edition, and codex T, published shortly afterwards by Rehm, give a fuller text than was known to Nauck. The details they add are important, and confirmed by the Germanicus scholia, but Mette omits them. Linforth, TAPA 62 (1931), 11 ff., is over-cautious about how much of the story is Aeschylean. See further BICS 30 (1983), 64 ff.

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Dionysus. But at the same time he portrays an apostate, more philosophical Orpheus who reveres Apollo-Helios because of knowledge acquired in the underworld. Apollo, much more than Dionysus, was Pythagoras' god, and we have just seen that Apollo may have played a part in Orpheus' underworld journey in the Krater ascribed to the Pythagorean Zopyrus. It looks as if Aeschylus may have been acquainted with this or a similar `Orphic' poem. He might have met it in Sicily rather than Athens; yet Sophocles too has heard something of an intellectual cult of the Sun.³⁴

The other titles mentioned by Epigenes, Physika and Hieros Logos, are too general to be informative. The latter should be a narrative about the gods, or at least a theological exposition of some kind, giving a basis for religious observances. It must certainly be kept distinct from the Hieroi Logoi in twenty-four rhapsodies with which it is confused in the Suda; and the Physika are not necessarily to be identified with the Physikon or Physika cited in fr. 318 K., or with the Peri Physeos known to Herodian.³⁵ But if we must admit ignorance here, we have seen enough to support the generalization that the poems ascribed by Epigenes to Pythagoreans were indeed related to Pythagorean thought. Whether he was in a position to hear true rumours about their authorship, or named Brontinus and others in the same spirit as those who later forged books in the names of various early Pythagoreans (including Brontinus),³⁶ his ascriptions do seem to be in the right area.

Mention should be made of a couple of rather uncertain pieces of evidence for Pythagorean Orphica of classical date. According to the doxographer known as Aëtius,

Heraclides and the Pythagoreans say that each of the stars (planets? ) is a world, an earth with surrounding atmosphere, in the infinite aither: and (variant: and that) this view is to be found in the Orphic poems. For they make a world out of each of the stars.³⁷

³⁴ Fr. 752 , OT 660 ; cf. Ar. Nub. 571-4. Elsewhere (fr. 582) Sophocles made the Sun the chief god of the Thracians (after Aeschylus' Bassarai?). The Helianax who appears as a brother of Stesichorus may be one of the Pythagoreanizing elements in his biography; cf. CQ 21 (1971), 302 f.

³⁵ Cod. Vindob. hist. gr. 10 f. 25v (H. Hunger, Jb. d. Österr. Byz. Gesellschaft 16 (1967), 13 and 29).

³⁶ Thesleff, Texts, 55.

³⁷Plac. 2.13.15 ~ Galen hist. phil., p. 624.15 Diels (Doxographi); Hcld. Pont. fr. 113/113a Wehrli; Orph. fr. 22.

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This notice is rightly held to deriveexcept perhaps for the reference to Orphicafrom a statement by Heraclides Ponticus about certain Pythagoreans. I think it likely that the Orphic reference also came from Heraclides and was not an addition by Aëtius (who does not cite Orpheus anywhere else). Apparently, then, we have fourth-century evidence for a very striking doctrine identified as `Pythagorean' (and credible for the late if not the early fifth century)³⁸ and for a parallel Orphic account. However, it may be that the doctrine is Heraclides' own, and that he claimed Orphic and Pythagorean precedent for it on the strength of utterances much more limited in purport. He could have cited Orpheus for an earthlike, inhabited moon (fr. 91; below, p. 92), and Philolaus for this and perhaps for other inhabited planets, as well as the Pythagorean saying that the sun and moon were the Isles of the Blest.

In another place Heraclides quoted the unsettling verse

Eating beans is equivalent to eating parents' heads.

We do not know to whom he ascribed it. It is also quoted anonymously by several other authors, including a scholiast on Homer who adds two more verses explaining that beans are a path of ascent by which souls return from Hades to the upper air.³⁹ This all looks thoroughly Pythagorean. Both the taboo on beans and metempsychosis are notoriously Pythagorean; both were taken up by Empedocles, and the verses would not be unworthy of him. But one late source, one Didymus, thought to have lived in the fourth or fifth century AD, attributes the first line to Orpheus. If we accept this, presumably Heraclides was quoting from an Orphic poem of Pythagorean provenance. But Didymus at the same time attributes to Orpheus the verse

Wretches, utter wretches, keep your hands from beans!

which we know to have occurred in Empedocles (B 141). It might have been used both by Empedocles and in an Orphic poem. On the other hand there is a tendency in late antiquity for Orpheus' name to be rather irresponsibly interchanged with

³⁸ See Burkert, LS 345-8. The concept of infinite other worlds besides our own was already present in Anaximander (EGPO 80 f.).

³⁹ Hcld. fr. 41 = Orph. fr. 291; sch. T Il. 13.589 (not in Kern).

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others.⁴⁰ Didymus' testimony must therefore be considered unreliable, though there is nothing in itself improbable in an early Orphic poem prohibiting the consumption of beans.⁴¹

Discounting these two potential contributions from Heraclides Ponticus, we are still left with a quite adequate amount of evidence for the production of Orphic poetry in Pythagorean workshops. This poetry was not, of course, fully representative of everything that we can call Pythagorean. Pythagoras must have been a man of unusual intellect and imagination; he was also a gifted showman who made a striking impression on his contemporaries and whose influence led in more than one direction. Hippasus of Metapontum, a student of mathematics and music; Empedocles; Philolaus; the shabby vegetarians caricatured in Middle Comedy; all these were in a sense Pythagoreans, developing some aspect of Pythagoras' complex legacy and honouring his memory. The `Pythagorean' poets who augmented the Orphic corpus were just one group, and not necessarily a closely unified group. So far as we can judge, their interests lay neither in mathematics nor in superstitious rules of deportment, but in picturesque metaphysics and eschatology.

Bacchic Mysteries

The second of the three lines of evidence leading towards the beginnings of Orphic literature is traced across four rather slight but telling pieces of evidence, three literary and one epigraphic.

In 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 Dionysiac 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.

⁴⁰ See below, pp. 35, n. 105, 36 f. Tertullian, De anima 15.5, and sch. Aphthon. in G. Hermann, Orphica (1805), 511, provide parallels for verses of Empedocles (B 105.3, 127) being quoted as `Orpheus'.

⁴¹ There is a little evidence from the Roman period for an Orphic interest in beans: Paus. 1.37.4, Orph. Hymn 26 rubric, Greg. Naz. Or. 27.10 (Patr. Gr. xxxvi. 24B). But the taboo existed in various cults (Frazer on Paus. 8.15.4; Burkert, LS 183-5), and these texts do not necessarily lead us back to early Pythagoreanism.

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I have also mentioned already Herodotus' phrase about `the observances which are called Orphic and Bacchic'. The passage reads in full (2.81):

(The Egyptians) wear linen tunics with a tasselled hem, which they call kalasiries *, and over these they throw woollen wraps. But woollen fabrics are not taken into shrines, or buried with them, for it is not considered holy. They agree in this with the observances which are called Orphic and Bacchic, but are in fact Egyptian and Pythagorean; for neither is it considered holy for a participant in these rites () to be buried in woollen garments, and there is a sacred story 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 the tradition are Apollo and marginally Demeter. And clearly the rites which Herodotus has in view are not called Pythagorean: it is he 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 with Pythagoras' teaching may have been something significant. They were called Orphic or Bacchic. That is, the celebrants called themselves bacchoi, and looked to Orpheus as their prophetprobably as the founder of their cult and the author of their `sacred story' and whatever other texts they used.

There is one further scrap of literary evidence for Orpheus' association with bacchoi in the fifth century. In Euripides' Hippolytus the enraged Theseus, misled into believing that the reason for Phaedra's suicide was rape by her stepson, the ostentatiously pure and holy Hippolytus, excoriates him thus (952-5): `Go on, posture, advertise your meatless diet, play the bacchos 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 recognizable type of religiosity that a young man of his temperament might follow: baccheia (implying, probably, initiation and group ecstasy), associated with vegetarianism and Orphic scriptures. Perhaps it was vegetarianism, or this among other things, that Herodotus diagnosed as Pythagorean in the Orphic-Bacchic cult he mentions.⁴²

⁴² Prohibition of meat-eating by Orpheus is probably referred to by Ar. Ran. 1032, . Cf. Emp.

(footnote continued on next page)

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In another place (4.79) Herodotus tells us of a cult of Dionysus Baccheios, Dionysus of the bacchoi, at Borysthenes (Olbia), one of the most northerly of all Greek colonies, established at about the beginning of the sixth century beside the estuary of the river Bug. The Scythian king Scyles, who was attracted to the Greek 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 by the god. The Scythians did not think this at all suitable, and he was deposed.

Soviet excavations at Olbia have produced a fair amount of evidence for the worship of Dionysus, going back into the sixth century and extending into Hellenistic times. Curiosity is particularly 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 area north of the Agora, others in residential areas. 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 bear the following legends:

(1) Life: death: life.Truth.ADio(nysus), Orphic().

(2) Peace: war. Truth: falsehood.Dio(nysus) A.

(3) Dio(nysus) Truth.(illegible word) . . . soul.A.

The second plate has on the reverse a curious oblong design divided into seven compartments, each of which contains a small oval; it may possibly represent a musical instrument, or a tray or table of offerings. There are also several zigzag marks, one group of which could be interpreted as the letters IAX, i.e. Iacchus. The third tablet also has a design on the reverse, perhaps representing a stool covered by a fleece, as used in some initiation ceremonies.⁴³

The Bacchic rites were not celebrated by all the citizenry but by those who chose to become initiates. I conjecture that

(footnote continued from previous page)

B 128.8, 136; Pl. Lg. 782c. So G. Zuntz, Gnomon 50 (1978), 528; differently (of prohibition of homicide) Graf, 34 f., cf. Linforth, 69 f.

⁴³ A.S. Rusyaeva, 1978(1), 87-104 (German précis by F. Tinnefeld in ZPE 38 (1980), 67-71); West, ZPE 45 (1982), 17-29; SEG 28.659-61. On Olbia generally see E. Belin de Ballu, Olbia (1972); A. Wasowicz, Olbia Pontique et son territoire (1975); J. Vinogradov, Olbia (1981).

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the little bone tablets scattered about the town were membership 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 speculate 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 same thing.

The Point of Convergence

It is not safe to assume that Orpheus' role in the Olbian cult is as old as the cult itself. We shall see later how he intruded into existing cults in many places. What we can infer is that by the middle of the fifth century he was established in `Bacchic' cults over a wide area. Certain of these cults had features in common with Pythagoreanism, such as abstention from meat. These features and the use of Orpheus need not have been taken over from Pythagoras himself. We have no reason to suppose that he had a monopoly of them. More probably the Bacchic and the Pythagorean Orphica represent parallel developments from a common field of origin in Ionia about the time of Polycrates.

The third line of evidence that takes us back before the mid fifth century is the Derveni Theogony. This requires a chapter to itself, but I may anticipate the conclusions of that chapter by saying that the poem, or at any rate its prototype, seems to have been composed about 500 BC, and that there is reason to suspect that it was on the one hand Dionysiac-Bacchic in orientation, and on the other hand incorporated a doctrine of metempsychosis through animal bodies very like the Pythagorean doctrine. If these suspicions are correct, the convergence of our three trails is perfect.

That Pythagoras believed in metempsychosis is one of the most firmly attested facts about him, being presupposed by an

⁴⁴ The rite of omophagy is attested for the cult of Dionysus Baccheios at Olbia's mother-city Miletus in the early third century BC: F. Sokolowski, Lois sacrées de l'Asie Mineure (1955), 48.

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Fig. 1.
Bone plates from Olbia. Fifth century BC. See also Pl. 1.

anecdote which Xenophanes relates (fr. 7a). Seeing someone beating a puppy, Pythagoras says `Stop! That's the soul of a friend of mine; I recognize the voice'. But he was not the first to promulgate the theory in Greek lands. That title belongs to Pherecydes of Syros.⁴⁵ We have seen that a conceptual link

⁴⁵EGPO 25 f., and on the oriental background ibid., 61-8.

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can also be found between Pherecydes and the Pythagorean-Orphic Robe. The area within which the origins of Orphic verse are to be sought, then, might be defined as a shadowy triangle with the Derveni Theogony and Pythagoras forming the base and Pherecydes at the apex.

There is actually a tradition that Pherecydes was the man who `brought together' the poems of Orpheus.⁴⁶ But `brought together' betrays this as a late Hellenistic invention, as will be explained later (p. 249). At best it implies a recognition that Orphic poetry came into circulation just in time for Pythagoras to use it. Pherecydes was alleged to have been Pythagoras' teacher. Someone aware of Pythagoras' involvement with Orphic poetry and wishing to locate its first `publication' in the Pythagorean line of tradition, but before Pythagoras, could hardly have avoided picking on Pherecydes. But it seems unlikely that Pherecydes was really responsible for putting out Orphic poemsthat means, as we see the matter, composing themsince he was content to expound his theology and eschatology in prose under his own name.

Orpheus at Athens

We have made inferences from Aeschylus about the existence of certain Orphic texts. However, the earliest direct allusion in surviving Attic literature to writings originating from Orpheus is to spells or incantations.⁴⁷ A Thracian `shaman' was a suitable author for such things; they are also attributed to such persons as Abaris and Zalmoxis.⁴⁸ Under the stresses of the Peloponnesian War and the Plague people turn increasingly to superstition, and there is a new market for diviners and purveyors of charms, exotic cults, and religious revelations.⁴⁹ Oracles of

⁴⁶Suda, . The relative probably refers to the subject of the entry, Pherecydes of Athens. But it was really Pherecydes of Syros who was the older of the two, and he is the one more likely to have been brought into connection with Orphica (F.G. Sturz, Pherecydis Fragmenta, 2nd ed. (1824), 61). There are other signs of confusion between the two Pherecydes in the Suda entries.

⁴⁷ E. Alc. 967; cf. Cycl. 646, and Linforth, 119 ff.

⁴⁸ Pl. Charm. 156d, 158b. Spells and charms are more attractive if they come from a remote, half-legendary country. Aeschylus associates drugs with the Tyrrhenians (fr. eleg. 2); at an earlier period it was Egypt (Od. 4.227-32).

⁴⁹ Cf. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational, 188-95.

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Musaeus and Bakis, last heard of at the time of the Persian Wars, circulate again.

We have seen that Orpheus is also known to Euripides and others as the poet of religious vegetarianism, baccheia, sacraments; a poet not just of brief recipes but of `vaporous screeds', literally `smokes of many writings'. Plato in the Republic speaks of purveyors of purifications and sacraments that bring deliverance from unrighteousness, whether one's own or one's ancestors', by favour of `gods of release', and rewards in this world and the next; and he says that these people produce `a hubbub of books by Orpheus and Musaeus', in accordance with which they perform their rites. Some of the sacraments are conducted privately for individuals, but they have also been adopted by some of the greatest cities.⁵⁰ The private operators came to be known as `Orpheotelestai': the superstitious man, according to Theophrastus, visited them monthly with his wife and children to take the sacrament.⁵¹

In other dialogues Plato mentions a doctrine that the soul is imprisoned in the body as a punishment for some grave sin. He calls this in one place an Orphic theory and in another `a tale told at secret rites'; Aristotle similarly ascribes it to `the ancients' and to `those who speak the sacraments'.⁵² The nature of the sin and of the circumstances in which the soul became responsible for it is left entirely vague. Plato's pupil Xenocrates, however, is cited for the information that the imprisonment was `Titanic', in other words, analogous to the imprisonment of the Titans.⁵³ Xenocrates believed in a category of daimones intermediate between gods and men, and he identified the mythical Titans as being of this class. He apparently considered human souls to come from and return to their

⁵⁰Rep. 364e-5a, cf. 364bc and 366ab. See the careful analysis in Linforth, 75 ff. Orpheus as poet of sacraments also Prot. 316d.

⁵¹Char. 16.12. The anecdote about an Orpheotelestes called Philip approaching the Spartan king Leotychidas early in the 5th century (Plut. Apophth. Lac. 224e) cannot be taken as historical. The same story was told about Antisthenes (D.L. 6.4). In the best 5th-century evidence for this type of quack (`Hp.' Morb. Sacr. 2-4) there is no mention of Orpheus.

⁵² Pl. Crat 400c, Phaed. 62b, cf. Lg. 854b, Ax. 365e; Arist. fr. 60. Aristotle did not speak of `Orpheus' because he did not believe him to have existed (fr. 7).

⁵³ Fr. 20 Heinze. I see no reason to regard the phrase that follows in `Olympiodorus', , as part of the citation from Xenocrates.

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number.⁵⁴ The myth of the imprisonment of the Titans in Tartarus would thus be for him an allegory of the imprisonment of bad daimones in mortal bodies which actually takes place. So far as the Titans are concerned this may have been Xenocrates' 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 clearly stated by Empedocles (B 115), though he describes incarnation in terms of exile rather than imprisonment, and it is not clear whether he means that all human beings have this origin or only certain superior ones such as himself. The punishment, in his theory, consists not just of a single incarnation but of an immense series lasting for tens of thousands of years.

Empedocles brings us close to the Pythagorean orbit, and we recall two of the early Pythagorean maxims:

Having come for punishment one must be punished.

One must not pull apart the god within oneself.⁵⁵

We must not jump to the conclusion that Plato's `Orphic' imprisonment-theory is Pythagorean; all we can say is that some Pythagoreans seem to have had a version of it. Plato and Aristotle are evidently speaking of Orpheotelestai, and they nowhere suggest any connection between such people and the followers of Pythagoras. But it does appear likely that the doctrine they mention is to be understood as a form of the `fallen daimon' theory. Indeed it is hard to see an alternative. If the mortal state is the punishment, the soul must have committed the crime as an immortal being.

The theory may also be discerned in two of the gold leaves from Thurii, which date from Plato's time.⁵⁶ In them the soul of the deceased supplicates Persephone and the other infernal divinities for entry to the company of the holy. It claims that `I too am of your blessed race'of divine origin, or something close to itand that `I have paid the penalty for deeds not righteous.' Again the penalty seems to be the mortal life (or series of lives) recently concluded, and the unrighteous deeds

⁵⁴ Fr. 19; R. Heinze, Xenokrates (1892), 83, 94-6, 155 f.

⁵⁵ Iambl. VP 85, 240.

⁵⁶ A2, 3; Zuntz, 302 ff.

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must lie further back. In the third gold leaf found in the same tumulus (A1) the soul says:

For I too claim to be of your blessed race;
but Fate overcame me, and the hurler of the lightning bolt.
But I have flown out from the circle of heavy grief
and stepped swift-footed upon the circle of joy,

after which it receives the assurance

Blessed and fortunate one! Thou shalt be god instead of mortal.

In this text it seems to be Zeus' thunderbolt which dispatched the erring one into the mortal world of woe (just as it dispatched the Titans to their prison).⁵⁷

In the passage in the Republic where he spoke of the `hubbub of books by Orpheus and Musaeus' Plato mentioned that the sacraments associated with them had been adopted by some of the greatest cities. We cannot identify these cities; but we may wonder whether the Eleusinian Mysteries were among the things he had in mind. We know that Eleusis had its official poetry. The duties of the Eumolpidae, the hierophants who presided at the showing of the Mysteries, included singing or reciting in solemn and melodious tones, as indeed their family name implies; Plato later alludes to the recitation of curious myths about the gods.⁵⁸ However, it seems to be the books of Musaeus rather than those of Orpheus that he associates with Eleusis, for shortly before the passage under consideration he refers to a doctrine that the pure enjoy perpetual feasting after death, while the rest lie buried in mud or carry water in a sieve, and he ascribes this doctrine to Musaeus and his son.⁵⁹ The only known son of Musaeus is Eumolpus, the eponym of the Eumolpidae,⁶⁰ and he is of significance only at Eleusis.

⁵⁷ Compare the thunder which accompanies the souls' dispatch to new lives in Pl. Rep. 621b. `Fate overcame me' probably alludes to the misdemeanour and plays it down, as in Agamemnon's apology in Il. 19.86 f., `I am not to blame, but Zeus and Fate and the invisibly roaming Erinys' (note the coupling of Fate with Zeus there too). According to another interpretation (Zuntz, 316) the lightning is what ended the mortal life of the owner of the gold leaf, indeed of all three owners, for it is also mentioned in the other two leaves. There are all kinds of problems about these leaves, and the 13 others now known from various sites, which I must ignore. See esp. Zuntz, Persephone, 277-393 and Wien. St. n.f. 10 (1976), 129-51; Burkert in Orfismo, 81-104.

⁵⁸ J. Toepffer, Attische Genealogie (1889), 48; Pl. Rep. 378a.

⁵⁹Rep. 363cd, cf. Phaed. 69c.

⁶⁰ Graf, 18 f.; perhaps already in Euripides' Erechtheus, fr. 65.100 f. Austin.

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This is therefore Eleusinian eschatology; Eleusinian eschatological poetry, then, is attributed at this period (the 370s?) to Musaeus and Eumolpus, not Orpheus.

But it was not long before Orpheus stepped into this role. He appears as the founder of Attic mysteries in a fourth-century tragedy, the Rhesus, and the author of the first speech against Aristogeiton (324 BC, if not post eventum) refers to `Orpheus who revealed to us our most holy sacraments', which can hardly be any but those of Eleusis.⁶¹ On the Parian Marble, which dates from 264/3 BC, there is mention of a poem on the rape of Kore and Demeter's search for herthe sacred story of Eleusissupposedly published in the reign of Erechtheus, in 1398/7 BC: the poet's name is not preserved, but `Orpheus' is a probable restoration.⁶² It is possible that the poem was none other than the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, for in a papyrus of the first century BC (P. Berol. 13044; fr. 49 Kern) the story is told in prose with verse quotations from `Orpheus', and the verses, which are evidently quoted from memory, all occur in the Homeric Hymn. The writer seems to have known this poem under Orpheus' name.⁶³ However, it was not the only `Orphic' poem on the subject, as later quotations show.⁶⁴

More Bacchic Mysteries

Orpheus' association with Dionysiac rites continued. Olympias, the lady who in 356 gave birth to Alexander the Great, is said to have been an enthusiastic participant in Macedonian Bacchanalia which Plutarch at any rate calls Orphic (Alex. 2). In the second half of the fourth century South Italian and Sicilian funerary art shows predominantly Dionysiac themes, with a wealth of symbolism suggesting the currency of Bacchic mysteries which promised the continuation of joyful ease in the next world. At one particular centre, Tarentum, Orpheus is

⁶¹Rhes. 943, 966, see Linforth, 61-4, Graf, 28-30; [Dem.] 25.11, see Moulinier, 19, 106, Graf, 30-3.

⁶² F. Jacoby, Das Marmor Parium (1904), 68-72; FGrHist 239 A 14.

⁶³ The prose narrative diverges from that of the Homeric Hymn, but this does not prove that the verses came from a poem which diverged similarly. Cf. A. Krüger, Hermes 73 (1938), 352-5.

⁶⁴ Frr. 43, 44, 46, 48, 50-3, 292 (Graf, 161); cf. Argon. 26, 1191 ff. (Kern, p. 115). For Orpheus' connection with Eleusis see also t 102-3, 166, 169 Kern; Graf, passim.

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a recurrent figure, often just as a celebrity in Hades, but sometimes in contexts implying that his songs are of assistance to the deceased. Especially important (Pls. 2-4) are:

(i) an amphora by the Ganymede Painter (Basel S 40, about 325 BC), where an elderly man is shown sitting on a folding stool in a temple-like structure representing his tomb, holding a book-roll, while Orpheus in a dancer's pose plays the cithara in front of him;

(ii) a calyx crater in the British Museum (F 270) on which Orpheus, standing by a tall tree, restrains Cerberus and offers his lyre to a young man who is being conducted towards a herm (apparently marking the boundary of Hades);

(iii) a nearly life-size terracotta group of Orpheus and two baffled-looking Sirens, presumed to have been found in an underground chamber tomb and acquired in 1976 by the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu.⁶⁵

A definite connection between Dionysus and Orpheus here is hard to establish, but vases with Dionysiac decoration were found in the same grave group as the Basel amphora. Three further vases have Bacchic scenes on one side and Orpheus among Thracians on the other.⁶⁶

The scene on the Basel amphora suggests that the initiate may take an Orphic text to the grave with him, or at least study one as a preparation for death. An actual example of a papyrus book buried with a corpse at this period has been found at Callatis on the Black Sea, though the text has apparently proved beyond recovery.⁶⁷ But we think inevitably of those gold leaves which appear in tombs in Italy, Thessaly, and Crete from about 400 BC on, and which contain instructions in verse on the procedure to be followed in the underworld in order to achieve heroic or divine status. We have seen that two of them

⁶⁵ For the vases see Margot Schmidt in Orfismo, 105-38, Pls. 7, 8, 14; M. Schmidt, A.D. Trendall, A. Cambitoglou, Eine Gruppe apulischer Grabvasen in Basel (1976), 7 f., 32 ff., Pl. 11.

⁶⁶ Bari 873, Milan H.A. 270, Naples H 1978. On the Bari and Milan vases the Orpheus scenes include elements of purification ritual (Schmidt in Orfismo, 109-11, Pls. 2-3).

⁶⁷ C. Preda, Dacia 5 (1961), 295 ff.; E. Condurachi in Orfismo, 184 f., 230. The Derveni papyrus was not found in a tomb but by the pyre outside; it is Orphic, but not especially suitable for consultation in Hades.

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have something resembling the imprisoned-soul doctrine which Plato knows as Orphic. We have no warrant for calling the gold leaves themselves Orphic, as has so often been done. But certainly their owners were the sort of people who would have been attracted to Orphic revelations and mystery cults.

Later evidence for Orphic-Dionysiac rites is abundant. Hecataeus of Abdera, about 300 BC, maintained that Orpheus had introduced the mysteries of Dionysus and of Demeter to Greece on the model of those of Osiris and Isis, having become acquainted with them in Egypt.⁶⁸ The epigrammatist Damagetus (late third century BC), writing an epitaph for Orpheus, mentions no religious institutions by him except mystic rites of Bacchus.⁶⁹ Also in the second half of the third century Ptolemy III or IV issued an edict that all those who conducted Dionysiac sacraments in Egypt must register in Alexandria, state `to the third generation' who they had received their sacred properties from, and hand in a signed and sealed copy of their scripture ().⁷⁰ It may be guessed that these scriptures were mainly ascribed to Orpheus. One of the Dionysiac frescoes in the Villa dei Misteri at Pompeii shows a scene in which a young boy stands and reads from a small book-roll, supervised by a seated woman who holds another roll in her hand; it has been half wound through.⁷¹ Again, there is a fair chance that an Orphic text is what the artist had in mind.

From the first century BC literary references to Orphic-Dionysiac rites become too numerous to set out here. It is sufficient to refer to Linforth's convenient survey.⁷²

Orpheus in Other Cults

As time went on, more and more organizers of mystery cults saw the attraction of scriptures. Demosthenes holds it to

⁶⁸ Diod. 1.96.4, cf. 23 (FGrHist 264 F 25, with Jacoby's commentary, p. 80); Graf, 22-5.

⁶⁹ 2.5 Gow-Page.

⁷⁰BGU 1211 = Sammelbuch 7266; Nilsson, Gr. Rel. ii. 161 f. with literature, adding J.L. Tondriau, Aegyptus 26 (1946), 84-95; Zuntz, Hermes 91 (1963), 228-39 (esp. 239 n. 1 on the dating); P.M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria (1972), i. 204, ii. 345 f.

⁷¹ This detail is well reproduced in C.L. Ragghianti, Pittori di Pompei (1963), Pl. 15. For other evidence from Roman art see Nilsson, The Dionysiac Mysteries of the Hellenistic and Roman Age (1957), 116.

⁷² Linforth, 207-32, 264.

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Aeschines' discredit that he used to `read out the books' for his mother when she performed purifications upon initiates of Sabazius. Epicurus was accused in similar terms of going round to houses with his mother and `reading out purifications'.⁷³ The great inscription of 92 BC containing the regulations for the Mysteries of the Megaloi Theoi at Andania in Messenia refers to a box of sacred books that had been in the possession of the hierophantprobably the same books that Pausanias mentions as having been copied by members of the priestly family from a tin scroll dug up in the time of Epaminondas.⁷⁴ Pausanias also tells us (8.15.2) that at the Greater Eleusinia celebrated at Pheneos in Arcadia every other year a construction of two large fitted stones was opened up, and texts bearing on the rite were taken out, read in the hearing of the initiated, and hidden away again the same night. When Apuleius' Lucius is initiated in the mysteries of Isis (Met. 11.22) the priest reads from hieroglyphic books which he produces from the inner sanctum of the temple.

Such books will not all have been ascribed to Orpheus. But we may assume that as a general rule they were ascribed to somebody, for it was important to the participants in the rites to know where they came from and what their authority was. In many cases the answer will indeed have been `Orpheus'.

From early in the Hellenistic period he is named as the founder of the Phrygian cult of the Mountain Mother.⁷⁵ Here it is a matter of inventing dances and other ceremonial rather than composing sacred texts. Nevertheless, the list of Orphic poems in the Suda includes a Korybantikon and Enthronements for the Mother, which must belong to those Corybantic rites in which the novice was set on a throne and the initiates danced round him.⁷⁶ It also includes a Katazostikon and Hierostolika (Girdling poem and Ritual Robing), which probably belonged to the same or similar rituals of initiation.⁷⁷ There is no

⁷³ Dem. 18.259, 19.199; D.L. 10.4.

⁷⁴SIG 736.12; Paus. 4.26.8, 27.5.

⁷⁵ A.R. 1.1134-9, Conon 26 F 1, and later sources in t 160 Kern.

⁷⁶ Pl. Euthyd. 277d, Dio Prus. 12.33; Lobeck, 116, 368; W. Burkert, Homo Necans (1972), 294; C. Kerényi, Dionysos (1976), 263 ff. The Suda records that the Enthronements and another poem, the Bacchica, were said to be by one Nicias of Elea. The same redoubtable encyclopaedia also credits Pindar with Enthronements and Bacchica.

⁷⁷ Lobeck, 371 ff.; cf. F. Cumont, AJA 37 (1933), 256-8; A. Henrichs, Die

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telling how old these poems were; they may well be of Imperial date. The same applies to others in the list whose titles suggest ritual use: the Neoteuktika (verses for founding a shrine); the Onomastikon;⁷⁸ the Soteria.⁷⁹ As for the Thyepolikon, I have argued elsewhere that it is the poem to Musaeus preserved at the beginning of the Hymns, which clearly does date from the Imperial period.⁸⁰

Pausanias mentions several local cults which claimed Orpheus as their founder. He was said to have established the annual rites of Hecate in Aegina (2.30.2), and the worship of Demeter Chthonia at Sparta (3.14.5). Also at Sparta he or Abaris built the shrine of Kore the Saviour (3.13.2). In the mysteries at Phlya in Attica the officiating priests, the Lycomidae, sang short hymns by Orpheus (9.27.2, 30.12), as well as one (to Demeter) by Musaeus (1.22.7, 4.1.5) and others by Pamphos (9.27.2, cf. 7.21.9, al.). These were evidently the only Orphic hymns known to Pausanias. He says the total number of verses was not large, and in spite of his respect for their holiness he is obliged to compare them unfavourably with the hymns of Homer. There is no reason to think that they are the same as an early collection of Orphic hymns cited in the Derveni papyrus (p. 81).

They certainly cannot be identified with the eighty-seven hymns that have come down to us in company with the hymns of Homer, Callimachus, and Proclus, for these were composed somewhere in western Asia Minor. They form a single collection, bound together by homogeneity of style and technique, and probably composed by a single author. They were used by members of a private cult society who met at night in a

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Phoinikika des Lollianos (1972), 114 f.; R. Seaford, CQ 31 (1981), 259. In fr. 238 we find directions for ceremonial robing in costume which has an analogy with the sun, stars, and ocean and which Macrobius says belongs in the rites of Dionysus. (Read in verse 1; comma before in 2.)

⁷⁸ The title could be interpreted as `repertory of (divine) names'. B. Giseke, Rh. Mus. 8 (1853), 92 and 119, suggested identifying it with the extant Hymns. They are indeed largely lists of the gods' titles (a typical stylistic feature of late hymns), but they were clearly meant to be used as invocations, not as works of reference.

⁷⁹ Cf. or `grant salvation' in prayers where no specific danger is present: Ar. Ran. 388, P. Gurôb 1 (= fr. 31 K.) i 5, Hymn 2.3, 2.14, 9.12, 34.27, etc. The author of the Soteria is given as Timocles of Syracuse or Persinus of Miletus.

⁸⁰CQ 18 (1968), 288 f.

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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 his friends, perhaps in the second or third century of our era. Dionysus is the most prominent deity, being the recipient, under different titles, of eight hymns. The fiction that Orpheus is the author is supported by a couple of allusions to Apollo and Calliope as his parents. References to names and incidents in the Rhapsodic Theogony indicate awareness of more widely current Orphic literature and recognition of its authority.⁸¹

Neopythagorean Orphica

In one of the many Pythagorean pseudepigrapha of the Hellenistic period, the prose Hieros Logos, `Pythagoras' claims to have derived from Orpheus his knowledge that number is the essence of the universe. He learnt of Orpheus' teaching when 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 presuppose the existence of an Orphic poem on the subject of number. But the Neoplatonists 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 Pythagorean origin. It was quite possibly of Hellenistic date.

Orpheus is also mentioned in another of the Pythagorean writings of the period,⁸³ where it is claimed that he used the Doric dialect. The assertion is perhaps made on the theoretical ground that Doric is the oldest dialect; but it is possible that there existed a Neopythagorean poem in Doric (like the oath, p. 170 Thesleff), attributed to Orpheus.

Another poem, the Lyre, sounds at once from its title as though it came from the same mould as the Robe, the Net, and

⁸¹ On the Hymns see further Wilamowitz, Glaube, ii. 505-9; Guthrie, 257-61; Linforth, 179-89; R. Keydell, RE xviii. 1321-33.

⁸² Fr. 1 Thesleff, Texts, p. 164. In his Introduction to the Pythagorean Writings of the Hellenistic Period (1961), 104 f., Thesleff suggests dating the work to the 1st century BC.

⁸³ `Metrodorus', p. 122.13 Thesleff = t 247 Kern.

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the Krater. It is known only from a scholium on Virgil discovered in a Paris manuscript in 1925.⁸⁴ The text runs:

Dícunt tamen quídam liram Orpheí cum vii cordís fuisse, et célum habet vii zónás, unde teologia assignátur. Varro autem dícit librum Orfeí de uocandá animá Liram nóminári. et negantur animae sine cithará posse ascendere.

But some say that Orpheus' lyre had seven strings corresponding to the seven circles of heaven. Varro says there was an Orphic book about summoning the soul, called the Lyre. It is said that souls need the cithara in order to ascend.

Virgil had referred to Orpheus' attempt to recover Eurydice. Earlier the scholiast has interpreted the myth as an attempt to bring up a dead person's soul by means of a lyre. So the context implies that the liber de uocandá animá has to do with conjuring souls by this method.⁸⁵ But the title, and the analogy drawn in the scholium and elsewhere⁸⁶ between Orpheus' lyre and the seven circles of heaven, although this is not actually ascribed to the Orphic poem, suggest that the poem may have contained an account of the musical scale formed by the planetary spheres, equated with the strings of Orpheus' lyre, and perhaps an account of the soul's ascent to heaven through them.⁸⁷

Such a scheme would be the product of Hellenistic speculation, of a variety particularly associated with `Pythagoras'. The idea of a cosmic lyre goes back to the iambic poet Scythinus, who may be as early as the late fifth century.⁸⁸ But there the sun is the plectrum, so that the strings of the lyre that Apollo tunes cannot correspond to the orbits of the heavenly bodies at different distances from the earth. They correspond rather to the different seasons of the year, a conception attested by several later authors.⁸⁹ It was Eratosthenes

⁸⁴ J.J. Savage, TAPA 56 (1925), 229 ff. Not in Kern.

⁸⁵ A.D. Nock, CR 41 (1927), 170. Nock reads de <e>uocanda.

⁸⁶ Lobeck, 942 ff. See esp. [Luc.] astr. 10 (t 107 Kern).

⁸⁷ Cf. Nock, l.c.

⁸⁸ Fr. 1 in my Iambi et Elegi. On his dating cf. my Studies in Greek Elegy and Iambus (1974), 177.

⁸⁹ (a) Three seasons: Diod. 1.16 (Hermes' lyre), Orph. Hymn 34.16-23 (Apollo's, as in Scythinus). Winter = the lowest note, spring the middle, summer the highest. (b) Four seasons: Varro Sat. 458, `Chaldaeans' ap. Plut. De anim. procr. 1028f, Pythag. ap. Arist. Quint. 3.19. Here (as the last two sources agree) winter = 12, spring = 8, autumn = 6, summer = 4; so winter: spring makes the interval of a fifth, spring: summer an octave, spring: autumn a fourth. The simpler, non-mathematical, three-season system must be the older. The other involves

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in his poem Hermes who brought Plato's planetary scale into connection with a divine lyre. He described how Hermes ascended to heaven and marvelled to find the planets humming along their orbits on the very notes of the lyre he had invented on earth.⁹⁰

This elegant combination provoked imitation. Sometime between Eratosthenes and Varro a book in the name of Pythagoras presented an account of the cosmos with measurements based on the harmony theory. It may have 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 Eratosthenes' measurement for the circumference of the earth.⁹¹ A similar system was expounded, again in connection with Hermes' lyre, by Alexander of Ephesus, a minor poet of about 60 BC.⁹² Varro, whose involvement with the Pythagoreanism in vogue at Rome in his time is well known,⁹³ described the `Pythagorean' scheme. It was the same Varro who mentioned the Orphic Lyre; and surely it was a Pythagorean who transferred the cosmic instrument from Hermes to Orpheus, at the same time introducing the notion of using music to influence the natural order.⁹⁴

The use of lyre music to help the ascending soul is apparently alluded to by Cicero in the Somnium Scipionis, where Africanus, after explaining the music of the spheres, says: `By imitating this on their strings and in song, learned men have opened the way for themselves to return to this place (heaven), like others of outstanding gifts who have devoted earthly life to studying the divine.'⁹⁵ Simulation of the cosmic music on the cithara

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the four elements, which were not brought into a harmonic relationship before the Timaeus. Cf. also Pl. Phil. 26a, Symp. 188a; Pythag. ap. (Diod. Eretr. and Aristox. ap.) Hipp. Ref. 1.2.13; Cleanthes, SVF i. 112.29; Varro Sat. 351; Cornut., p. 67.17 L.; Orph. Hymn 8.9; Burkert, LS 355 f.

⁹⁰ Frr. 1-16 Powell, with SH 397-8.

⁹¹ Burkert, Philol. 105 (1961), 29-42.

⁹²SH 21. Cf. Burkert, op. cit., 32 n. 1.

⁹³ Cf. Nock, CR 43 (1929), 60 f.

⁹⁴ The Pythagorean writer Panaceas (p. 141 Thesleff) said that it was the function of music not only to reconcile the parts of the voice but to bring together and attune everything in nature. Cf. Iambl. VP 45. For the Roman Pythagoreans' calling up of the dead cf. Cic. in Vatin. 14.

⁹⁵De Rep. 6.18. Cf. Arist. Quint. 2.19, p. 92 W.-I.

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and by vocalization (we think of the intoning of the seven vowels in magic rituals attested by the papyri; cf. Orph. fr. 308) enabled the soul to escape the bonds of common death and return to the divine sphere from which it came.

In older tradition, attested from the fifth century, Orpheus beguiled the guardians of the underworld with his music and won release for his wife. In the Tarentine mysteries it seems that his cithara is able to save every initiate from the horrors of death (symbolized by Cerberus on the British Museum crater) and help him find paradise. Now the Pythagorean poet of the Lyre is able to combine this with the Platonic-Eratosthenic vision of the 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 edge of each revolving whorl.⁹⁶ The Malibu statuary group (p. 25) indicates that Orpheus' defeat of the Sirens had been given an eschatological significance at Tarentum. This need not have anything to do with Platonic astronomy, for Sirens had long been symbolic of death, especially in pairs in funerary art. On the other hand Plato's friend Archytas, a prominent Pythagorean in Tarentum, would make a good connecting link.⁹⁷ Whether the Sirens appeared in the Lyre must remain uncertain; but it seems likely that the Eurydice story was somehow incorporated, as the Virgil scholium connects the poem with `summoning' a soul (as if back to earth), and takes Orpheus to have used his lyre for this purpose in the case of Eurydice.

Besides astronomy, the interests of these later Pythagoreans embraced such subjects as divination, botany, and medicine, treated in a superstitious rather than a scientific spirit. The poetic output of Orpheus keeps pace with them. Pythagorean works on the properties of plants, current from before 160 BC,⁹⁸ have their parallel 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 graecanica and Sphaera barbarica), on divination from entrails, on

⁹⁶Rep. 616b-7c. On the antecedents of this lovely idea see CQ 17 (1967), 11-14.

⁹⁷ I owe this thought to Walter Burkert, who uttered it in a lecture at Cambridge in March 1979.

⁹⁸ M. Wellmann, Abh. Berl. Ak. 1921(4), 17, 34 ff.; Burkert, Philol. 105 (1961), 239 f.; Thesleff, Texts, 109 f., 174-7.

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dreams, on the significance of thunder on particular days, on wind, and on natural history. Among the Orphic fragments we can find attestation of a Sphaera⁹⁹ and other astrological works,¹⁰⁰ and of poems on divination from birds, dreams, eggs, entrails, and earthquakes.¹⁰¹ Some of them may only date from the late Empire, but it is natural to find the origin of the convention of ascribing this sort of material to Orpheus in the practice of the late Hellenistic Pythagoreans.

Jewish Orphica

From the second century BC Hellenized Jews made efforts to increase the importance and respectability of their Jewish cultural tradition in Greek eyes. Aristobulus of Alexandria wrote a commentary on the Pentateuch in the course 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 Moses with Musaeus and made 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 unscrupulous 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 Septuagint was alleged to have been available. An anthology was

⁹⁹ p. 314 Kern. According to the Homer scholia the poem was addressed to Linus. Lobeck suggested that it was a technopaegnium, written to the shape of a sphere; the existence of such a poem by someone is attested by a scholiast on Hephaestion, p. 140.18 C. But a Sphaera by Orpheus must surely have been of the same nature as the Sphaera of Musaeus, mentioned by Diogenes Laertius (1.3) in a context which shows that it had some scientific pretensions, and the Sphaera attributed to Democritus. On the contents of such works see F. Boll, Sphaera (1903), 349 ff.

Plato likens the earth to a coloured ball in Phaed. 110bc; Eratosthenes follows him (fr. 16 Powell), and the play-ball of Eros in A.R. 3.132 ff. might be understood as a symbol of the earth. (See A.B. Cook, Zeus, ii. 1047, for the artistic motif of the earth as Eros' ball.) Hence one could conceive of a Pythagorean poem entitled the Ball in the same spirit as the Robe and the rest.

¹⁰⁰ (cf. Boll, RE v. 1254 f.; B.L. van der Waerden, Science Awakening, ii. (1974), 177), (astrological geography); t 225, frr. 249, 251-6, 258-79, 286-8, partly preserved in prose paraphrase.

¹⁰¹, Suda; Argon. 33-7, see below; , fr. 285, alternatively ascribed to Hermes. See also Kern, p. 297 for various conjectures about the Suda-title .

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compiled of monotheistic and otherwise theologically significant utterances by Greek poets and dramatists, in which the genuine passages were augmented by a number of forged ones.¹⁰² It was probably this period that saw the composition of a short poem in the name of Orpheus called Testament (a characteristic title for Jewish pseudepigrapha of the time), in which Orpheus was represented as having finally seen the error of polytheism, and as instructing Musaeus on the true nature of God. 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.¹⁰³

The author naturally portrayed Orpheus in a fitting role: as a hierophant revealing high-grade religious information to Musaeus for the benefit of qualified initiates. He begins

I will speak for those entitled: close your doors, ye profane!

echoing a mystery formula long established in Orphic poetry.¹⁰⁴ 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 might for greater solemnity be versified and attributed to Orpheus. Theon of Smyrna quotes from `the Orphic Oaths' lines in which the 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-flown, it is perfectly Hellenic in principle, for from the earliest times oaths were

¹⁰² The clearest examples are A. fr. 464 N., S. frr. 1126 and 1128 P. (= Trag. adesp. 617, 618, 620 Kannicht-Snell). On the whole subject see N. Walter, Der Thoraausleger Aristobulos (Texte u. Untersuchungen 86, 1964); W. Speyer, Die literarische Fälschung im heidnischen u. christlichen Altertum (1971), 155 ff.

¹⁰³ Frr. 245-7. See Ziegler, RE xviii. 1412 f.; Walter, op. cit., 103-15, 184-7, 202-61; Speyer, op. cit., 161 f., 249; J.B. Friedman, Orpheus in the Middle Ages (1971), 13-37. One version appears in an extract from Aristobulus in Eusebius, but Walter has made it probable that Aristobulus had quoted from some other, `genuine' Orphic poem and that the Testament was substituted at a later period.

¹⁰⁴ See pp. 82 f. On the metaphorical use of mystery terminology in general see A.D. Nock, Mnem.⁴ 5 (1952), 184 ff. = Essays on Religion and the Ancient World (1972), ii. 796 ff.

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sworn by cosmic witnesses such as the sun, the earth, rivers. Pseudo-Justin, however, quotes from Oaths 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 of the authors who quotes the Testament.¹⁰⁵

More Hymns

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 dignity. There was apparently a hymn to Zeus, current before 100 BC, in which the god's various bodily parts were identified with 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 same poem) said to have created gods from his 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 of Zeus,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. Kern was wrong to assign the fragment to the Testament, which is addressed to Musaeus, not to God. Nor do I think it can properly be called Jewish, though the influence of Judaism can be seen in it.

¹⁰⁵ If fr. 299 were not Jewish it would have to be Hermetic. Malalas in fact attributes it to Hermes Trismegistus, but by his time Orpheus and Hermes were pretty well interchangeable. Fr. 285 (on earthquakes) is ascribed to both in different MSS. Earlier, Orphic and Hermetic literature were quite independent. Orph. fr. 345 is interpolated in Kore Kosmou 36 (iv. 11.19 N.-F.).

The oath by the creator god has a parallel in the (prose) oath of the initiates of Isis known from P.S.I. 1162 and 1290 (R. Merkelbach, ZPE 1 (1967), 72 f.). On oaths in mystery cults generally see Henrichs, Die Phoinikika des Lollianos, 37-44.

¹⁰⁶ See pp. 206, 212 f.

¹⁰⁷ Fr. 338. The god is probably Kronos (Chronos), called Zeus' son because of the story in the Rhapsodic Theogony that Zeus swallowed the older gods and brought them forth again. Cf. Hymn 8.13 .

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I regard it as a syncretistic work, probably composed in Alexandria about the first century AD.¹⁰⁸

Direct invocation of parts of the cosmos is on the whole a phenomenon of the Imperial age. A number of the Hymns are addressed to such divinities as Uranos, Aither, the Stars, the Clouds, the Sea. In the accompanying poem which I identify with the Thyepolikon Orpheus recklessly summons to the ceremony not only Earth, Sun, Moon, and Stars, but Winds, Thunders, and the `parts of the four-pillared cosmos'. This feeling of being on speaking terms with the universe, doubtless a development of mature Stoicism, can be illustrated from various texts from the time of Hadrian on.¹⁰⁹ The list of Orpheus' works in the Suda includes the item Cosmic Invocations, and we may assume these to have been composed under the Empire.

Some Later Poems

The list also includes a Book of Eighty Gems, with the note that it was about the engraving of stones. It must have been a work of the genus Lithica.¹¹⁰ But it is not the extant `Orphic' Lithica, which only deals with 29 stones and does not mention engraving. This is a lively and fluent poem, probably composed in the latter part of the fourth century, and of greater literary merit than most Greek verse that survives from that period. However, it does not really deserve a place in a discussion of Orphic literature, since it says nothing about Orpheus and makes no pretence of being by him. His name had become attached to it by the time of Tzetzes, and must have seemed appropriate to the subject-matter.¹¹¹ The same thing happened to another

¹⁰⁸ Fr. 248. The lines about the seasons (11-13) may be compared with the Clarian oracle in Macr. Sat. 1.18.20 (from Cornelius Labeo), where the highest god Iao (= Yahweh) is said to be Hades in winter, Zeus in spring, Helios in summer, and in autumn Iao (read Iacchus, meaning Dionysus? Cf. Orph. fr. 239b). For `angels' in pagan texts cf. Orac. Chald. 137-8; Carmen de viribus herbarum (GDK 64) 170; Magnus in Cyranides, pp. 96 f. Kaimakis (CQ 32 (1982), 480). In the Carmen de viribus herbarum there are said to be 360 of them (cf. Heitsch ad loc.). Orpheus is said to have recognized 365 deities (Theophilus and Lactantius, pp. 255 f. Kern).

¹⁰⁹ For example Mesomedes (GDK 2) 2, 4; Corp. Herm. 13.17; P. Mag. 3.198 ff. (GDK 59.5); also in Christian hymnody, as GDK 45.2, Synes. H. 1.72 ff.

¹¹⁰ See T. Hopfner, RE xiii. 747-69. Such texts do sometimes contain instructions for engraving magic words or designs on the stones.

¹¹¹ See on this poem Keydell, RE xviii. 1338-41.

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extant poem, the astrological Katarchai of Maximus. Tzetzes knew it under the name of Orpheus, and quotes it as `Orpheus, On Farming' or `On Runaways', following section headings which we find in the surviving manuscript of Maximus. Lobeck, Kern and others mistakenly assumed the existence of Orphic poems with these titles, which Maximus had plagiarized.¹¹²

One of the magical papyri in Leiden alludes to an acrostic poem by Orpheus, perhaps a hymn.¹¹³ We cannot gather anything about its contents, but we may guess that it was not much older than the papyrus itself, which dates from the fourth century. Still later, probably of the fifth or sixth century, was the alchemical `oracle' of Orpheus in iambic trimeters of which a very corrupt fragment survives as fr. 333 K.

Something of the quantity and diversity of Orphic poetry in late antiquity can be gauged from a passage in the Argonautica. This poem of about 1,400 lines occupies an exceptional position in Orphic literature, being an autobiographical narrative in which Orpheusheavily influenced by a reading of Apollonius Rhodiustells the story of his participation in Jason's expedition. It can hardly be earlier and may well be later than the fourth century AD. It was consciously designed as an addition to an already bulky corpus, for in lines 8-46 (= t 224 Kern) Orpheus reminds Apollo of all his previous poems. He speaks of himself in general terms as a revealer of mysteries (10-11). His opus-list gives pride of place to the Rhapsodies (12-20, with 28 which should be transposed to follow 16). This is followed by:

           The nursing of Zeus, the service of the mountain-running
           Mother, the works on Mt. Cybela of the maiden
           Persephone concerning her father the son of Kronos,
           the famous rending of Kasmilos and Heracles,
25         Idaean rites, the mighty Corybants,
           Demeter's wandering, the great grief for Persephone,
27         Thesmophoros, the gifts of the Cabiri,
29         holy Lemnos, seagirt Samothrace,

¹¹² Frr. 280-4, cf. 342, 358. It is impossible to explain why Tzetzes should have happened to quote only passages which Maximus had transcribed. The truth was already seen by Hermann (Orphica, p. viii), and later by Kroll, RE xiv. 2575, and Wilamowitz, Hermes 65 (1930), 250 = Kl. Schr. iv. 518.

¹¹³ Fr. 308 K.

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30         steep Cyprus and Adonian Aphrodite,
           rites of Praxidica and ** * * night of Athena**,
           Egyptian laments, libations of Osiris.
             And you have learned the ways of divination
           by beasts and birds, and what the order of entrails,
35         and what is presaged in their dream-roaming paths
           by souls of mortals overcome in sleep;
           answers to signs and portents, the stars' courses,
           the purification rite, great blessing to men,
           placations of gods, and gifts poured out for the dead.
40           And I have told you all I saw and learned
           when I to Taenarum walked the dark road of Hades
           trusting my cithara, for love of my wife,
           and the sacred tale I brought forth in Egypt
           when I went to Memphis and the holy towns
45         of Apis, that the great Nile garlands round.
           All this you have learned truly from my breast.

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 done, and the second has not been done yet.

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II
Some Mythical Poets Other Than Orpheus

We have now made a general reconnaissance of the growth of Orphic literature and the categories into which it falls, omitting the theogonies, which are reserved for fuller treatment in the following chapters. By way of a supplement and a transition it will be convenient at this stage to review the evidence for poetry composed under the names of certain other mythical and semi-mythical figures such as Musaeus, Epimenides, and Linus. These poets too were credited with theogonies among other things, and from one point of view the verse attributed to them is inseparable from Orphic verse, the differences of ascription being a triviality. It would be going too far, however, to say that it was a matter of indifference whether a poem was put under the name of Orpheus or one of the others. Not all of these poets had associations with cult. Some of them had particular associations of their own. In cases where no such factor applied, one may suppose that a name other than Orpheus' was used because his was not available; for example, a theogony might have been ascribed to Musaeus because the author knew of one ascribed to Orpheus already in circulation, or to Linus because the names Orpheus and Musaeus had been pre-empted. The choice of a name other than Orpheus' may indicate that the work was felt to be incompatible with existing Orphic literature.

Musaeus

Musaeus, to be sure, was brought into close connection with Orpheus, and the two are often mentioned in the same breath. But whereas we can see in Orpheus a folk-tale figure with origins in Thracian shamanism, Musaeus seems 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 nothing but a source of verses. Even his name, `belonging to the Muse', is a patent artificiality. His parentage and land of birth vary according to the use being made of him. He is regularly treated

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as one 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.¹ Several writers name the early poets in the sequence Orpheus, Musaeus, Hesiod, Homer.² Gorgias and Damastes made Musaeus an ancestor of Homer's, just as Pherecydes of Athens and Hellanicus did with Orpheus. Herodotus probably has Orpheus and Musaeus in mind when he says he thinks that the poets said to have written about the gods earlier than Hesiod and Homer were really later.³

At first Musaeus seems to be exclusively a poet of oracles, oracles known to Athenian chresmologists or `oracle-gatherers'. A chresmologist was a man who went about looking for people who would reward him for reciting to them oracles which he knew and which had a bearing 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 Delphi but from ancient prophets such as Musaeus, Bakis, or the Sibyl, whose utterances they have collected in bookswhere from is not explained. We first hear of the phenomenon in the time of Pisistratus. Some years later a chresmologist called Onomacritus acquired a certain influence with Hipparchus. He collected and arranged oracles of Musaeus, but was banished after Lasus of Hermione caught him in the act of interpolating a prophecy of his own into them.⁴ A generation later, when Xerxes invaded, oracles circulated under the names of Musaeus and Bakis.⁵ It was at just such critical 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 all associate Musaeus with oracles, and a collection of his oracles, as well as of Bakis', was still available in the time of Pausanias.⁷

¹ Democritus, DK 68 B 15, apparently followed by `Alcidamas', Od. 25 (see p. 232).

² Hippias, DK 86 B 6, Ar. Ran. 1032 ff., Pl. Apol. 41a, Chrysippus SVF ii. 316.12 (cf. 16).

³ Gorgias, DK 82 B 25, Damastes, FGrHist 5 F 11a, Pherecydes 3 F 167, Hellanicus 4 F 5, Hdt. 2.53.

⁴ Hdt. 7.6.3.

⁵ Hdt. 8.96, 9.43; Bakis also in 8.20 and 77.

⁶ Bakis: Ar. Eq. 116 ff., Pax 1070, Av. 962. The Sibyl and Musaeus: Paus. 10.9.11 = DK 2 B 22. Thuc. 2.8.2 and 5.26.3 refers to the currency of oracles, but austerely refrains from naming their alleged authors.

⁷ Soph. fr. 1116, Ar. Ran. 1033, Pl. Prot. 316d; Paus. 10.12.11.

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Besides oracles Aristophanes mentions cures as Musaeus' gift to mankind. Such things must have found a good market particularly 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 recommended 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 In 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, if not 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). If it 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

⁸Hist. pl. 9.19.2 = B 19.

⁹ Cf. p. 23, n. 60. The earliest definite evidence is a Pelike by the Meidias Painter, ARV² 1313, No. 7, where Musaeus is shown in Thracian costume with a wife Deiope and Eumolpus.

¹⁰ Eumolpus himself is credited in the Suda with 3,000 lines of poetry relating to the mysteries; Diodorus 1.11.3 quotes a line from Bacchica by him (not preHellenistic by the look of it).

¹¹FGrHist 239 A 14. Cf. p. 24.

¹² P. Berol. 13044 (cf. p. 24), where Orpheus recites hymns in an inspired state, Musaeus writes them down and makes minor improvements; the Testament (cf. p. 34, where the influence of the mysteries is noted); the Rhapsodies (fr. 61); Philod. De piet., p. 13 G. (Henrichs, Cronache Ercolanesi 5 (1975), 12); Diod. 4.25.1 in connection with Heracles' initiation at Eleusis (perhaps from Matris of Thebes, FGrHist 39, cf. Graf, 12); and in several later poems (fr. 271, 285; Krater (the later one, I assume) ap. Serv. on Virg. A. 6.667; Thyepol. 1, Arg. 310, al.). The young man who writes down the words uttered by Orpheus' severed head on a 5th-century cup in Cambridge (ARV² 1401, No. 1) has sometimes been assumed to be Musaeus (see Graf, 11), but there is nothing to show it.

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context, and to refer to the Eumolpia the various title-less fragments concerning divine and human genealogy. Their substance may be summarized as follows.

The first divine principles were Tartarus, Night, and Aer.¹³ In the time of the Titans there were already Muses to record events.¹⁴ The function of the later Helios was discharged by Hyperion.¹⁵ When Zeus was born Rhea entrusted him to Themis, who gave him to Amalthea. She nourished him in a Cretan cave on the milk of a goat, who was a daughter of Helios and a prodigy. Zeus grew up and vanquished the Titans, using the goat's skin as an invincible shield which doubled his strength; he was advised to do this by an oracle. This skin was the aegis, and because of it he is known as the aegis-bearer.¹⁶ The younger Muses were born from Zeus and Mnemosyne (B 15). Zeus also had intercourse with Asteria before she married Perses, so that Hecate was really his child;¹⁷ and he gave birth to Athena when his head was split by Palamaon.¹⁸ Apollo had a son Dios, who became the father of Melite, the eponym of the Attic deme (B 9). Oceanus and Ge gave birth to Triptolemus (B 10). Oceanus and Aithra gave birth to the Pleiades and Hyades (stars in general ?).¹⁹ Argos and the Atlantid Kelaino (`Darkie') gave birth to four Aethiop kings.²⁰

The emphasis on Attic and in particular Eleusinian mythology (Daedalus?, Melite; Hecate, Triptolemus) is unmistak-

¹³ B 14, with the more complete text of Philodemus given by A. Henrichs in GRBS 13 (1972), 77.

¹⁴ B 15. Probably children of Uranos and Ge, as in Mimnermus 13 and Alcman 5.2 i 28 and 67.

¹⁵ Philodemus in GRBS 13 (1972), 72. This shows the same kind of thinking as the invention of the elder Muses.

¹⁶ B 8+sch. Arat. 156; cf. Triphiod. 567. The oracle may well be the one mentioned in B 11, uttered by Chthonie and Pyrkon at Delphi.

¹⁷ B 16, adapting the Hesiodic version in which Hecate is the child of Perses and Asteria (Th. 409).

¹⁸ B 12. Usually this service is performed by Hephaestus, and Palamaon may be simply a name for Hephaestus. The name occurs elsewhere only in Paus. 9.3.2, as the father of Daedalus in Athens; perhaps this too came from Musaeus.

¹⁹ B 18. It is not certain how much of the context is to be attributed to Musaeus. B 17, where Musaeus is said to have held that meteors () come from Oceanus and are extinguished in the aither, looks as if it is based on an allegorical interpretation of the same piece of Musaeus.

²⁰ B 13. A further fragment tells of Cadmus being shown the way from the Delphic oracle to Thebes by a cow, and is furnished with the unconvincing reference , or .

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able, and if these fragments belong to one poem, it was an Eleusis-oriented narrative, unoriginal in cosmological matters, designed to provide a theogonic framework for the locally important figures, but ranging as far as Africa in its genealogical coverage. As for its date, it is evidently earlier than Eratosthenes, who is the ulterior source of B 8. It may well have been the source of the statements about gods which Chrysippus found in Musaeus and subjected to allegorical interpretation in the second book of his work On Gods.²¹ On the other hand Eudemus does not seem to have mentioned a theogony by Musaeus in his discussion of various Greek and barbarian cosmogonies (fr. 150 Wehrli). The poem may therefore have been composed about the second half of the fourth century.²²

There are two quotations from Musaeus in Aristotle, but there is no reason to think that they come from the Eumolpia. They look rather like the answers to riddles, one of them lifted from the Hesiodic Melampodia.²³ Was there some sophistic fable of a contest between Musaeus and Orpheus, like the contest between Homer and Hesiod in Alcidamas' Museum?

Clement cites part of the second riddle-answer, the one which also stood in `Hesiod', as having been stolen from Musaeus by Hesiod. He also quotes three other examples of alleged plagiarism from Musaeus (B 4-6), but they are not enlightening. Particularly puzzling is the assertion that the cyclic poet Eugammon took from Musaeus `his whole book about the Thesprotians', that is, the first part of the Telegony. Apparently someone had found a copy of this text under

²¹SVF ii. 316.12, 16.

²² It may be added that the use of the name Palamaon for the god who split Zeus' skull, even if it is only meant as a name for Hephaestus, may suit a 4th-century consciousness of allegorical significance in the myth. Athena was interpreted as `mind, intelligence' (Pl. Crat. 407b); Theophrastus explained Zeus as mind, Athena as thought (Philodemus in GRBS 13 (1972), 94-6). Palamaon would represent Artifice () that enables Mind to give birth to Thought.

²³ (i) [Riddle: Three were the children, but two were stripped, and one was saved.] Answer: the eagle that `lays three, shells two, and tends one' (B 3). (ii) [What is the pleasantest thing for men?It is pleasant at a feast to enjoy converse (Hes. fr. 273); it is pleasant also to discover a clear criterion of all the good and bad things that the immortals have allotted to men (Hes. fr. 274 = Mus. B 7);] but `the pleasantest thing of all is singing' (B 3a, DK i. 484). For the form of the question here assumed see the literature cited by I. Löffler, Die Melampodie (1963), 40 n. 53, and E. Fraenkel, Aeschylus: Agamemnon (1950), ii. 407; for that of the answer compare esp. Asclepiades epigr. 1 G.-P.,  . . ., and Lucr. 2. 1 ff.

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Musaeus' name; but it is hard to see why it should ever have been ascribed to him unless through some clerical error or the dishonesty of a bookseller.²⁴

Diogenes Laertius says that Musaeus composed a theogony and a Sphaera. There is some likelihood that he has got this information from the work of Lobon of Argos On Poets. Lobon is a shadowy figure of uncertain date, suspected of fabricating many details of poets' bibliographies for his own sport.²⁵ He is probably also the source of the notice about Musaeus' Precepts. But at least some of the works he listed are attested elsewhere, and some others may have existed without leaving other traces. In the case of Musaeus we can reasonably identify the theogony with the Eumolpia, and there is nothing improbable in a Sphaera, since there was a Sphaera of Orpheus. One might think of a late Hellenistic date for it. This implies a later date for Lobon than has sometimes been assumed; but the grounds for putting him as early as the third century BC are insubstantial, and when we come to consider the poetry ascribed to Linus we shall find some reason to think that he cannot be earlier than the second. He could well be later than that.

It remains to mention again what Pausanias held to be Musaeus' only genuine work, the hymn to Demeter which the Lycomidae used, besides hymns of Orpheus and Pamphos, in the rites at Phlya.²⁶ The presence of Orpheus and Musaeus here is parallel to their presence at Eleusis, and could in principle be as old, though on the whole it is more likely to be a neighbourly borrowing. Still, there is no reason to suppose that these hymns were of very recent origin when Pausanias encountered them. The use of Musaeus as a pseudonym does not seem to have continued, like the use of Orpheus, through the Roman period.

²⁴ R. Merkelbach, Untersuchungen zur Odyssee (2nd ed., 1969), 153 n. 2, suggests that the poem began with the underworld scene which we find in Odyssey 24I find that likelyand that this suited Musaeus' shamanistic character, revealed by a fragment where he professed to have from Boreas the ability to fly (Paus. 1.22.7 = A 5). But it is not easy to see why Musaeus should have been imagined as visiting Hades when the suitors' souls arrived. There is no other trace of a descent by him.

²⁵ Cf. E. Hiller, Rh. Mus. 33 (1878), 518-29; W. Crönert, F. Leo zum 60. Geburtstag dargebracht (1911), 123-45; O. Crusius, Philol. 80 (1925), 176-91; J.D.P. Bolton, Aristeas of Proconnesus (1962), 25 f.; Zuntz, 237 f.

²⁶ Above, p. 28.

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Epimenides

By contrast with Orpheus and Musaeus, Epimenides of Cnossos has the air of a historical figure. Aristotle and others place him firmly in a historical context. The unsuccessful attempt of Cylon to make himself ruler of Athens (632, 628 or 624 by ancient reckoning) ended with some of his supporters seeking sanctuary on the Acropolis and being treacherously killed at the instance of the Alcmeonid Megacles. But strife continued between the two factions for many years, until in Solon's time the Alcmeonids were pronounced accursed, their dead turned out of their graves, and the living ones exiled. Epimenides then came from Crete and purified the city.²⁷ Other stories about him are less immediately plausible, for instance that he was the son of a Nymph; that he obtained special food from the Nymphs, and kept it in an ox-hoof; that he once slept in a cave for 57 years; that he lived to the age of 154, 157, or 299; that after his death his skin was found to have writing on it, and was preserved at Sparta.

Scholars sometimes choose to believe strange things, but they generally agree to reject these fabulous details while accepting the purification story as historical fact.²⁸ There is, however, some reason for suspecting that even this may be a myth.²⁹ One of the oldest priestly families in Athens was that of the Bouzygai, the Ox-yokers, priests of Zeus whose ancestor Bouzyges, also called Epimenides, was the first to yoke a pair of oxen and plough Attic soil. He lived on the Acropolis, and his plough was to be seen there as a dedication. Each year in memory of him the Bouzygai performed the ritual ploughing of a strip of land below the Acropolis. Anyone who killed a ploughing-ox was subject to a curse attributed to Bouzyges.³⁰ However, there was a ritual killing of a ploughing-ox which took place on the Acropolis itself in honour of Zeus Polieus: the Bouphonia. One would have thought that the curse of Bouzyges-Epimenides had some connection with this, though none is made in our sources. The sacrifice was certainly con-

²⁷ Arist. Ath. Pol. 1 and other sources set out in FGrHist 457 T 1-2, 4.

²⁸ See Jacoby, FGrHist IIIB, commentary, pp. 310 f., 318 f.; Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational, 141 f.

²⁹ Cf. Toepffer, Attische Genealogie, 140-5; Wilamowitz, Euripides Hippolytos (1891), 224 n. 1, 243 f.

³⁰ See Toepffer, 136-40; L. Deubner, Attische Feste (1932), 47, 172.

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ducted as if it involved all the guilt attaching to a murder. The man who wielded the axe fled from the scene. According to one account of the origin of the rite, the original ox-slayer exiled himself to Crete, and was brought back on the understanding that a sacrifice would be instituted and the responsibility shared with others.³¹ The ritual ended with a mock ploughing by the victim, now stuffedharnessed, one would guess, to the old plough of Bouzyges kept on the Acropolis. Thus the constituent elements of Epimenides' one appearance on the stage of historymurder at an altar on the Acropolis; a curse; banishment; purification; a priest; Crete; the name Epimenides itselfall play a part in this ancient Athenian ritual. It may be added that Cylon had been advised by an oracle to make his bid for power and seize the Acropolis `at the greatest festival of Zeus', and failed because he understood this to mean the Olympic festival (Thuc. 1.126.5).

It is difficult to disentangle history and myth here. We need not doubt the reality of Cylon's attempted coup and the banishment of the Alcmeonidae. They were banished because they had enemies who were powerful enough to accomplish their banishment; Megacles may well have given their enemies a lever against them by his treatment of Cylon's supporters, and their sinfulness may have been emphasized by a public purification ceremony. Subsequently the story may have become confused, because of a few common features, with a version of the cult legend relating to the Bouphonia. Or possibly the `eminent Cretan holy man' who was produced to carry out the purification really was introduced to the public as Epimenides, the name having come to mind through association with the Acropolis ritual.

However this may beand it is certainly not possible to derive the whole of the Epimenides legend from Bouzyges³²

³¹ Porph. De abst. 2.29; Toepffer, 154-8; Deubner, 163 ff.; Burkert, Homo Necans, 156 f.

³² His exceptional longevity is said to have been spoken of as early as Xenophanes (B 20). It may presuppose the long sleep, which is a folk-tale motif (cf. Rohde, Rh. Mus. 33 (1878), 209 n. 2; 35 (1880), 157-63; H. Demoulin, Épiménide de Crète (1901), 95 f., 99 n. 3; Stith Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk Literature (2nd ed., 1955-8), F564.3). But Theopompus (115 F 69) seems to preserve the true folk-tale version that after sleeping for many years he then aged in as many days, which implies that his life was in the end no longer than normal. Other elements in the legend show connections with Cretan Kouretic and Zeus cult; see Burkert, LS 151.

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the poetry known as Epimenides' in antiquity was without doubt pseudepigraphic. Like Musaeus he has an association with oracles. Plato knows of a prophecy by him concerning the Persian invasion, and this leads him to put Epimenides' visit to Athens only ten years before that event.³³ It may be significant that there had been another expulsion of Alcmeonids, with a revival of the old accusation against them and a re-purification, in 507.³⁴ Epimenides must have been remembered at that time, and in the vogue for oracles in the following years his name may have been used as a change from those of Musaeus and Bakis. A couple of other predictions are attributed to him by later sources.³⁵

Oracles was apparently the title given to the most important of the poems ascribed to Epimenides. But it did not contain prophecies of future events; it was a theogony presented as an oracular revelation. Hence Aristotle says that Epimenides `did not prophesy about the future, but about the hidden past'.³⁶ In the proem Epimenides recalled his long sleep in the cave of Zeus, during which Truth and Justice appeared to him and addressed him with the words

Cretans, ever liars, wretched creatures, idle bellies.³⁷

This is imitated from the proem of Hesiod's Theogony, where the Muses say to Hesiod

Shepherds abiding in the fields, disgraces, mere bellies,

and then speak of their power to reveal the truth, and give Hesiod himself the ability to sing (just like a seer) of `the future and the past' (26-32).

A fragment in which Epimenides said

For I too am of the fair-tressed Moon by birth,
of her who with a mighty shiver shook out a wild lion
in Nemea

(F 3) will also have stood in the proem, assuming that it comes from the Oracles. The assumption is reasonable, because `I too'

³³Lg. 642d = T 4a; H. Diels, Sitz.-Ber. preuss. Ak. 1891, 395 = Kl. Schr. zur Gesch. d. antiken Philosophie (1969), 44.

³⁴ Hdt. 5.70, Arist. Ath. Pol. 20.

³⁵ Plut. Sol. 12.10, D.L. 1.114, 115; cf. Paus. 2.21.3.

³⁶Rhet. 1418a24 = F 1. The idea was not unconventional. The seer Calchas knew `the present the future, and the past' (Il. 1.70). Cf. my note on Hes. Th. 32.

³⁷ F 2 (from Oracula, T 8a); T 4 f; the context identified by E. Maass, Aratea (1892), 344 f.

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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 the 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 his 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 century. 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 the main subject of a prefatory hymn, as we see from the Homeric collection.³⁸ Epimenides' visit to the birth-cave of Zeus on Mount Ida would fit well in a hymn to the Kouretes.³⁹

The theogonic narrative began from Aer and Night giving birth to Tartarus. From him came two Titans,⁴⁰ 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 of Kronos' unfilial act, remain associated with him but become regular children of his. 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.⁴¹ The birth of Zeus was of course described, with the Kouretes no doubt dancing attend-

³⁸ H. 1, 3, 4, 6, 16-19, 26, 28, 31, 33; cf. Hes. Th. 53 ff.

³⁹ `Kouretes and Korybantes' may be an inaccuracy of later paraphrase, or it may imply the synthesis of the Cretan with the Phrygian Ida. There is confusion between Kouretes and Korybantes (or Kyrbantes) from their first appearances in literature, but the latter are more commonly associated with Cybele and Phrygia, and with rites and mysteries.

⁴⁰ This word is an emendation. On its justification see G.S. Kirk and J.E. Raven, The Presocratic Philosophers (1957), 44; also below, p. 201.

⁴¹ F 4-7. Peiras is probably the personification of the ends of the earth, .

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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 moon. 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 light.⁴³ If it were just Epimenides that came 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 later 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 shared this opinion, and at the same time maintained the extraterrestrial (though apparently not lunar) origin of the Nemean Lion.⁴⁵

⁴² Philodemus in F 8. Diels's supplements are over-imaginative, but enough is preserved to identify the story. It has been conjected that `Epimenides' mentioned the tomb of Zeus in Crete, which was celebrated at least from Euhemerus on (see A.B. Cook, Zeus, ii. 940-3, iii. 1173): Wilamowitz, Eur. Hipp. 224 n. 1; Maass, Aratea, 346. In this case Callimachus turns the poet's `Cretans, ever liars' against himself (H. 1.8).

⁴³ See EGPO, 62-4, 66-7.

⁴⁴ Pythagoras was thought by some to be `one of the daimones who inhabit the moon', Iambl. VP 30, perhaps from Heraclides Ponticus, since he spoke of a man falling from the moon (fr. 115 W.). Pythagoras is associated with Epimenides in various ways (Burkert, LS 151 f.); Bolton, Aristeas, 156, 164 ff., traces this to the dialogues of Heraclides. Ion of Chios may have called Musaeus `moon-fallen' ( : Philod. De piet., p. 13 G. (Henrichs, Cronache Ercolanesi 5 (1975), 12)). For shamans visiting the moon see Eliade, Shamanism, 292, 327.

⁴⁵ Parm. 28 B 14-15; Anaxag. 59 A 1 § 8, 77, Democr. 68 A 90; Philol. 44 A 20; Herodorus 31 F 4, 21. The latter also held that vultures come from

(footnote continued on next page)

Page 50

There are other pointers to the fifth century. One is the egg which played a part in the early stages of the theogony. Such an egg appeared in an Orphic theogony which 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 attested for Acusilaus; at least, it is implied by his 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 described their dancing after the birth of Zeus, this is something unknown to Hesiod and to archaic literature generally, but familiar from about 430 BC. It is in and after Euripides' Cretans that we first find an awareness of and interest in the ancient cult of the Cretan Zeus on Mount Ida, and the Cretan myth of his birth in which the Kouretes play a role.⁴⁷ If the theogony was really composed by a Cretan, 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, there is no more reason to suppose that it came from Crete than to suppose that a poem ascribed to Orpheus came from Thrace.

In the year 432/1 the Cylon affair, and thus Epimenides, was recalled once more to the Athenian public's attention, when the Spartans tried to undermine Pericles by suggesting that his Alcmeonid blood was polluting Athens.⁴⁸ That new details were added to the Epimenides legend at about this time is indicated by the story that it was one Nicias the son

(footnote continued from previous page)

another earth invisible to us (F 22). This was probably his view of the lion, as the source says that his volumes `proclaim an earth above and the descent from it of the lion that Heracles slew' (F 4). The idea of the inhabited moon recurs in Plato, Aristotle, and some later writers, but not in such vivid forms. Cf. Guthrie, History of Greek Philosophy (1962-81), ii. 308 n. 4; A.E. Taylor on Pl. Tim. 41e5.

⁴⁶ Epimen. F 4; Av. 695. See p. 111.

⁴⁷ E. fr. 79 Austin = 472 Nauck (not precisely dated, but early on metrical grounds); then Hypsipyle 1. iii, 20 ff. (p. 28 Bond), Bacch. 120 ff. On Corinna 654.12 (3rd century, as I maintain) see CQ 20 (1970), 283.

⁴⁸ Thuc. 1.126-7. Cf. Jacoby, FGrHist IIIB, commentary, pp. 315, 321.

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of Niceratus who went to fetch Epimenides from Crete in the days of Solon.⁴⁹ An ancestor of the well-known Nicias son of Niceratus, the superstitious politician and general of the Peloponnesian War, must be meant. Now Plutarch makes Epimenides carry out a `great purification' of Delos, again in Solon's time.⁵⁰ In the winter of 426/5 the Athenians carried out a purification of the islandthe first since Pisistratus, according to Thucydidesas a preliminary to the restoration of the Delian festival, and it was none other than Nicias who led the Athenian contingent to this festival.⁵¹ Did Nicias himself invent an earlier purification of Delos by Epimenides as a precedent, as well as claiming that an ancestor of his own had brought the Cretan seer to purify Athens ? Thucydides, it is true, seems to regard the partial purification of Delos by Pisistratus as the only precedent for the one performed in 426/5. But he also ignores Epimenides' purification of Athens when he tells the story of Cylon and the expulsion of the Alcmeonidae.

Epimenides, then, was talked of at Athens in 432/1 and perhaps for a few years after. That would be a favourable time for the appearance of a poem under his name. At just the same period there was a new interest in the cult of the Cretan Zeus with whom Epimenides was associated.⁵² The poet would naturally refer to it and to the Kouretes in composing a theogony in the person of Epimenides. But there may be more to it than that. The initiates of Idaean Zeus described by Euripides rejoice in ritual purity, and a poem claiming the authorship of Epimenides in the spiritual climate sketched on pp. 20 f. might be expected to be something more than a mythological text. For Strabo, Epimenides is `the poet of the purifications', while Plutarch calls him `learned in religion in the sphere of possession and sacraments'.⁵³ It may be that the theogony had a religious purpose, and that its emphasis on the Kouretes

⁴⁹ D.L. 1.110.

⁵⁰Sept. sap. conv. 158a.

⁵¹ Thuc. 3.104; Plut. Nic. 3.5. Plutarch does not actually say that this was the same year, but it is usually assumed.

⁵² Besides receiving his revelation in the cave of Zeus, he bore the title Koures (Myronianus ap. D.L. 1.115; Plut. Sol. 12.7, where looks like a gloss); and Theopompus (115 F 69) told how he heard a voice from the sky commanding him to worship Zeus.

⁵³ Str. 10.4.14, p. 479 (T 7; cf. Suda, T 2); Plut. Sol. 12.7 .

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(whom Euripides' initiates mention together with Zeus and the Mountain Mother) is of particular significance in that respect.

Eratosthenes in his Catasterisms drew on an Epimenidean work which he knew as the Cretica. It contained stories of Zeus on Ida preparing to fight the Titans, and Dionysus seducing Ariadne (F 18-19), so it might be the same as the theogony. It might equally be the work of `Epimenides the theologian' which Diodorus says he has used among other sources for the Cretan section of his history.⁵⁴ But here we are in a realm of great uncertainty. Diogenes Laertius, besides the theogony and the Argonautic epic,⁵⁵ mentions prose works amounting to 4,000 lines `on sacrifices and the Cretan social order; on Minos and Rhadamanthys'. This list comes from Lobon, who seems to have made a habit of crediting poets with prose works as well as poems. Diogenes then adds from a different source, Demetrius of Magnesia (first century BC), a letter to Solon `containing the social order which Minos appointed for the Cretans'. Demetrius had condemned it because of its Attic dialect. It sounds as if it was the same as the prose work(s) already named. Presently he ascribes to namesakes of Epimenides a genealogical work and a monograph in Doric on Rhodes. This information fairly certainly comes from the same Demetrius.⁵⁶

The pseudepigrapha are not all obviously appropriate to the person of Epimenides. One can see why the theogony was foisted on him, or the works relating to Cretan matters. It is harder to see why heroic genealogies should be, though one might say (a) that they went naturally with a theogony, or (b) that Musaeus provided a sufficient precedent, or (c) that they were by somebody else of the same name, as Demetrius would have it. When it comes to the Argonautica, however, Epimenides seems to have become merely a saleable name.

⁵⁴ 5.80.4 = T 9b; FGrHist 468 F 1.

⁵⁵ Above, p. 48. The latter poem may be the source of F 11 (on Aietes) and 12 (the sons of Phrixus).

⁵⁶ F 9-10, 13-15 seem to come from a genealogical work, whether in verse or prose (so also the new fragment about Aphrodite and Adonis in GRBS 13 (1972), 92 f., unless it had a place in the theogony); F 21-2 (cf. T 10 and 442 F 4) from the work on Rhodes; F 20, a sociological term cited from Epimenides by Aristotle, might be from the book on Cretan society.

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There is no sign that the usurpation of his name continued after the Hellenistic period, indeed it may have ceased in the third century. In this respect his literary career is more like Musaeus' than Orpheus'.

Olen, Pamphos, Abaris, and Others

We saw that one need that Orpheus' name could meet was the need for a prestigious author of great antiquity to whom hymns used in local cults could be attributed. One or two other names occur in this function. The traditional hymns sung at Delos in the fifth century and later were ascribed to one Olen from Lycia; a Hellenistic poetess makes him also Apollo's first prophet at Delphi.⁵⁷ A number of the hymns used in the mysteries at Phlya were attributed to Pamphos, a poet not mentioned by any pre-Roman author but whom Pausanias considers much older than Homer though not as old as Olen.⁵⁸ Plutarch mentioned him as the inventor of the lamp (fr. 62 Sandbach): this will be part of the sacred legend, since a `great light' is spoken of as a feature of the Eleusinian mysteries, to which those of Phlya were related. Pamphos' name is derived from it. Philostratus quotes from him the verses

Zeus, most glorious and greatest of the gods,
covered in dung of horses, sheep and mules.

There may be some theological profundity here, but if so it eludes the uninitiated.⁵⁹

Theogonies and cosmologies under various names are mentioned. According to Hecataeus of Abdera, the priests of Egypt claimed that the seer Melampous was one of many early Greeks who derived wisdom from the Egyptians: he took from them the rites of Dionysus and the myths about Kronos, the battle between the gods and the Titans, and `the whole story

⁵⁷ Hdt. 4. 35; Boio fr. 2 Powell. Pausanias cites Olen's Delian hymns to Eileithyia, Hera, and Achaia (1.18.5, 2.13.3, 5.7.8, 8.21.3, 9.27.2). In 5.7.8 he also mentions a hymn by Melanopus of Cyme. A Melanopus is named as the great-grandfather of Hesiod and Homer (Pherec. 3 F 167, Hellan. 4 F 5).

⁵⁸ 8.37.9, 9.27.2. He cites him in eight other places. Cf. p. 28.

⁵⁹ Philostr. Her. 25.8. P. Maas, RE xviii(2), 352, took it as parody of Stoic pantheism, which represented god as extending even through the lowest forms of matter (SVF i. 42. 15, ii. 307.21 ff.). Perhaps it satirizes specifically the famous proem of Aratus, `All the streets are full of Zeus, all the market-places'.

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of happenings to the gods'.⁶⁰ This seems to imply a theogony under the name of Melampous, and perhaps one connected with rites of Dionysus in the same way that some Orphic theogonies were. If so, Melampous was soon displaced from this sphere by Orpheus.⁶¹

The Suda records the following:

Abaris.
Scythian Oracles; Marriage of the River Hebrus; Purifications; Theogony (prose); Apollo's Coming to the Hyperboreans.

Aristeas.
Arimaspeia (three books); Theogony (prose, 1,000 lines).

Thamyris.
Theology (3,000 lines).

Palaephatus.
Creation of the World (5,000 lines); Birth of Apollo and Artemis (3,000 lines); Language of Aphrodite and Eros (5,000 lines); Dispute of Athene and Poseidon (1,000 lines); Lock of Leto's Hair.

Abaris was a legendary Hyperborean, first mentioned by Pindar (who put him in the time of Croesus) and Herodotus. By the fourth century he was an author of spells and oracles.⁶² The theogony was perhaps known to Philodemus and Celsus.⁶³ Aristeas of Proconnesus, also known to Pindar and Herodotus, belongs in the same category as Abaris or Epimenides in regard to the wondrous stories told about him, but the Arimaspeia appears to have been a genuine seventh-century poem embodying an account of the strange peoples to be found beyond the

⁶⁰ Diod. 1.96, 97 = FGrHist 264 F 25.

⁶¹ In Byzantine times astrological works were ascribed to him (Cat. Cod. Astr. iv. 110-13; Tzetzes on Hes. Op. 800 and 820). Artemidorus 3.28 quotes (from Apollonius of Attaleia) a work by Melampous On Prodigies and Omens, of which two extant prose treatises, dealing with the significance of bodily twitches and warts, may have been parts (Diels, Abh. Berl. 1907(4); J.G.F. Franz, Scriptores Physiognomiae Veteres (1780), 451 ff.). But the one on twitches is addressed to a Ptolemy, so it can hardly be claiming to be by the Melampous.

Another mantic figure who deserves mention is Phemonoe, supposedly the first Pythian priestess and according to some the inventor of the hexameter. The earliest writers who mention her are Antisthenes of Rhodes (508 F 3, about 200 BC) and Melampous the authority on twitches. Uncle Pliny had a work by her on bird omens in his grotesque library (HN 10.7, 21). Cf. Fabricius-Harles, Bibliotheca Graeca (1790-1809), i. 211. Sch. Greg. Naz. 72 (Patr. Gr. xxxvi. 1024) names Telegonus as the first writer on bird omens, and knows a work by the Trojan seer Helenus on palmistry.

⁶² Pind. fr. 270, Hdt. 4.36, Pl. Charm. 158b (above, p. 20), Lycurg. fr. 85; oracles also in Apollonius Mirab. 4, sch. Ar. Eq. 729a, d.

⁶³ See Henrichs, GRBS 13 (1972), 78 nn. 31, 32, and for Celsus below, p. 64, t 7 (). Abaris is cited in P. Oxy. 1611 fr. 8 ii 21 for the location of the Issedones (FGrHist 34 F 2, vol. ii. 1230); this might fit well into the last of the poems in the Suda's list.

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Scythians on the way to the Hyperboreans. The prose theogony must have been written much later; it may have been the prose work which Dionysius of Halicarnassus knew to be doubtfully ascribed to Aristeas.⁶⁴ Thamyris was that immodest Thracian who reckoned he could sing better than the Muses themselves.⁶⁵ Palaephatus is first attested by Apollodorus of Athens, as a son of the Muse Thaleia. A statue in Constantine's great bath complex at Constantinople portrayed him as a seer, and he is said to have lived in Athens in prehistoric times.⁶⁶

Of the thirteen works attributed to these persons in the Suda at least eight are mentioned in no other extant source, and it is not certain that they all actually existed. Heraclides Ponticus not only treated Homer's Phemius and Demodocus and the songs they sing in the Odyssey as historical realities, he claimed to know the subject matter of the songs sung by Thamyris (a Titanomachy), Linus, Philammon, and others (fr. 157 Wehrli). He was, one presumes, rather fancifully reconstructing the literary history of the prehistoric age, not referring to pseudepigraphic texts which he had seen or composed.⁶⁷ Demetrius of Phalerum had similar tales to tell (frr. 191-2 W.). Earlier sophists may have started this sort of romancing. A passage in Plato implies discussion of people like Thamyris and Phemius together with Orpheus.⁶⁸ From at least the second century BC there were writers such as Hegesianax, Dionysius Scytobrachion, and later Ptolemaeus Chennus, prepared to deck out their works with references to fictitious ancient sources.⁶⁹ When the Suda specifies the length of various poems by Palaephatus and others, this certainly gives the impression that these texts once existed to be measured. But such stichometrical

⁶⁴De Thuc. 23. On Aristeas see esp. J.D.P. Bolton, Aristeas of Proconnesus (Oxford, 1962).

⁶⁵Il. 2.594-600. Tzetzes, Hist. 7.92, gives him a cosmogony in 5,000 lines, which looks like a confusion with Palaephatus; but in his introduction to Hes. Op., p. 28 Gaisford, he makes him an erotic writer, because his mother is Erato.

⁶⁶ Apollod. 244 F 146; Christodorus A.P. 2.36 f.; Suda. Cf. Jacoby, commentary on FGrHist 44 T. Tzetzes, l.c., makes him a horticultural writer, but again this is just to suit the mother, Thaleia.

⁶⁷ He was, however, accused of forging tragedies in the name of Thespis (Aristox. fr. 114 W. = TrGF 1 T 24). He also used people such as Abaris and Pythagoras as characters in dialogues in a way that misled later writers.

⁶⁸Ion 533b. Hymns of Orpheus and Thamyris are taken as the paradigm of musical sweetness in Lg. 829d.

⁶⁹ Cf. Jacoby, commentary on FGrHist 32, p. 509.

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indications, expressed in very round numbers (and with the noun , not ), seem to be a hallmark of Lobon of Argos, as also are the wordiness of some of the titles and the addition of prose works. He is generally assumed to be the source from which information about these poets' products came to Hesychius of Miletus, the sixth-century encyclopaedist from whom, via an epitome, the compiler of the Suda derived his biographical material. For those who regard Lobon as an unprincipled rogue, the titlesat least, those for which there is no independent evidenceare devoid of credit. On the other side it should be borne in mind that in the Hellenistic age (as in the Renaissance) the demand for books by scholars and collectors did stimulate the production of forgeries on a large scale. One had little chance of literary success writing under one's own namethere were far too many minor authors on the marketbut if one peddled one's work as something specially rare and ancient, the prospects were much better. Most of such pseudepigrapha must have been ephemeral, and it is quite credible that if an enthusiast set out to collect and record them he would catch a number that left no other trace in the tradition. Lobon's lists might be a valuable indication of the sort of thing to be found in some bookshops in his time. If a question mark remains over him it is not so much because some of his titles are unique as because of a certain sameness in the line-tallies and in the epitaphs which he alleged to have been set up to commemorate many of the poets with whom he dealt. Sameness suggests a single inventor.

Linus

Linus first appears as someone lamented in a ritual song, or as the name of the song.⁷⁰ From quite an early date he was represented as a singer himself. In one Hesiodic fragment he is the son of the Muse Urania (we remember that Orpheus was also the son of a Muse), and in another that may well connect with it he is `learned in every sort of (poetic) skill'.⁷¹ Heraclides Ponticus had him composing laments, because he was the

⁷⁰Il. 18.570; Wilamowitz, Eur. Herakles (2nd ed., 1895), ii. 84 f.; Gow on Theoc. 10.41; R. Häussler, Rh. Mus. 117 (1974), 1-14.

⁷¹ `Hes.' frr. 305-6; cf. Pind. fr. 128c.6. The Pistoxenos Painter portrays him as a citharode (ARV² 862-3, about 470 BC).

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subject of laments. Eventually the step was taken of composing poems in his name. This may have begun before the end of the third century BC, since he was listed as a sage, together with Orpheus, in Hippobotus' Register of Philosophers, which is dated to that period (D.L. 1.42).

Diogenes Laertius, apparently following Lobon, attributes to him `a cosmogony, the courses of sun and moon, and the genesis of creatures and crops' (1.4). These phrases look as if they are derived from a summary in verse; compare the summary of Orpheus' song to the Argonauts in Apollonius Rhodius, 1.496 ff.:

He sang how earth and heaven . . .
                   . . . the paths of sun and moon,
and how the mountains rose, how the noisy rivers,
their nymphs besides, all creatures came to be.

Perhaps Lobon based his description of the poem on the proem, for there a summary of contents would be very much in place.⁷²

Diogenes goes on to quote the first line (`the beginning of his poems'):

There was a time when all things were together.

The idea recurs in a fragment of thirteen lines which Stobaeus quotes from `Linus On the Nature of the World':

            So through discord all things are steered through all.
            From the whole are all things, all things form a whole,
            all things are one, each part of all, all in one;
            for from a single whole all these things came,
5           and from them in due time will one return,
            that's ever one and many . . .
            Often the same will be again, no end
            will limit them, ever limited . . .
            For so undying death invests all things,
10          all dies that's mortal, but the substrate was
13          and is immortal ever, fashioned thus,
11          yet with strange images and varied form
12          will change and vanish from the sight of all.⁷³

⁷² Cf. Hes. Th. 105-15, Parm. B 11, Emp. B 38.

⁷³ Stob. 1.10.5 with a transposition and some other emendations proposed by me in Philol. 110 (1966), 155 f. The doctrine in line 3 is mentioned as that of Linus and Pythagoras by Damascius, De principiis 25 bis, 27 (i. 45.12, 48.13 Ruelle).

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There are pervasive echoes of Heraclitus here, but also something Platonic or Stoic in the concept of images () upon the surface of reality.⁷⁴ The idea that identical states of the world will recur (line 7) is also Stoic, and Pythagorean too.⁷⁵ It is bound up in Chrysippus' cosmology with the notion of the Great Year, the period in which the sun, moon, and planets all return to the same positions. The same was apparently the case in `Linus', for in another fragment he refers to the seven luminaries `appearing in their cycles as the years go round', and he is also reported to have believed in a Great Year lasting 10,800 ordinary years.⁷⁶ This figure comes straight from Heraclitus, in whom, however, it represented a Great Year of a different sort, not defined by the positions of the heavenly bodies.⁷⁷ It is significant that Chrysippus' pupil Diogenes of Babylon also made use of the Heraclitean period in calculating the length of the astronomical Great Year, though it did not match his own conception of the immensity of time: he multiplied it by 365 (SVF iii. 215-22). `Linus' apparently did not know this or was not impressed by it. There is a fair possibility that Censorinus' information about the length of the Great Year in Heraclitus and Linus was derived indirectly from Diogenes himself.⁷⁸ If so, we should have a definite terminus ante quem for the poem, as Diogenes died shortly before 150 BC. In any case there seems to be a relationship between Linus' and Diogenes' use of Heraclitus in developing Chrysippus' theory.

Another cosmological fragment is quoted as being from the second book of a theological discourse addressed to Hymenaeus. Hymenaeus is mentioned together with Linus by Pindar (fr. 128c) as another whose death was lamented in a traditional song. Now Linus is made to address his teaching to him in imitation of the convention by which Orpheus revealed his

⁷⁴ Line 1 ~ Hclt. 28 and 85 Marcovich (B 41, 80), cf. O. Gigon, Untersuchungen zu Heraklit (1935), 49; 4-5 ~ fr. 25 (B 10); 9-10 ~ frr. 47 and 49 (B 21, 62); Pl. Tim. 48e-9e; SVF iv. 151 f.

⁷⁵ Eudemus fr. 88 W. = DK 58 B 34; Dicaearchus ap. Porph. VP 19; Chrysippus SVF ii. 189.31-191.32.

⁷⁶ Aristobulus fr. 5 ap. Eus. PE 13.12.16, Clem. Str. 5.107.4; Cens. DN 18.11 (from Varro, it is thought).

⁷⁷ Cens., l.c., Act. 2.32.4. See EGPO 155-8.

⁷⁸ K. Reinhardt, Parmenides (1916), 188 f. and Hermes 77 (1942), 234 = Vermächtnis der Antike (1960), 82.

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mysteries to Musaeus. There is no reason why the `theological address' should not be the same as the poem on the nature of the world; physics and theology were inseparable in Stoic thought, and the fragment is in fact about physics. It speaks of the four elements being held together by three links or bonds.⁷⁹ Macrobius describes the same theory, and identifies the three links: that between earth and water is Necessitas, that between water and air is Harmonia, and that between air and fire is Oboedientia (= Greek Peitho ?). Linus is not named, but there is some likelihood that he is the source.⁸⁰

The author who quotes the fragment says that Linus spoke of four elements and three bonds because they made up a hebdomad, seven being the number that governs the universe. We cannot tell whether the poet made that point. But Aristobulus was able to quote several fragments of Linus to show that the Greeks recognized the holiness of the number seven and hence of the sabbath.⁸¹ The most interesting is the verse

And on the seventh day everything is complete.

N. Walter thinks that this can only be the work of a Jew, a reference to God's creation of the world. If it were, we should have to emend `is complete' () to `was complete' (); and it has to be pointed out that in Genesis everything is complete on the sixth day. The change of tense would be easy enough. But why should we go out of our way to make the verse Jewish? It would be more convenient if it harmonized with the other fragments, with their Stoicizing philosophy and interest in astronomical cycles. In fact it does harmonize with them very well, without emendation, if we interpret it as referring to the astrological week, the cycle of days determined by the principle that Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon, in that order (the order of their periods of revolution), rule over each of the 168 hours in strict rotation. This brings a different ruler to the head of the list at the start

⁷⁹Theologumena Arithmeticae, p. 67.2 de Falco. The concept of bonding can be traced back to Pl. Tim. 31b-32c.

⁸⁰ Macr. in Somn. Scip. 1.6.36-40.

⁸¹ Above, n. 76; N. Walter, op. cit. (above, p. 34 n. 102), 150-66. On Aristobulus cf. p. 33. Although there is some controversy about his date, there are good arguments for the traditional dating to the 2nd century BC, and this lends weight to the case for putting Linus before 150.

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of each day, the Sun on Sunday, the Moon on Monday, Mars on Tuesday, and so on until on the seventh day the one remaining permutation is played through and `everything is made complete'.⁸² The names of the days of the week still reflect this system, of course (with Germanic gods substituted for the corresponding Roman ones from Tuesday to Friday). We do not know when it was first invented. It was familiar enough at Rome in Tibullus' time for him to refer to the sabbath as Saturn's day (1.3.18). If the verse of Linus means what I suggest, that takes it back a good deal earlier. The two other verses which Aristobulus quotes from him both appear to be praising the qualities of the seventh day in hymn-like terms.

Stobaeus gives us a second fragment from `Linus On the Nature of the World' which is rather different in character from the first, though it shares with it the idea that the truth is concealed beneath delusive `forms'. Linus addresses his pupil (still Hymenaeus ?) in the tone of a hierophant, telling him to resist the pernicious influences which ensnare the profane herd with these forms. He describes his instruction as a purification which, if the learner's resolve is sincere, will make him holy. Then he starts warning him against gluttony.⁸³ This homily is difficult to relate to the cosmology, and may belong to a separate poem, even though Stobaeus quotes it under the same title. His source may have used the title of the first poem in a collection to cover the whole of it. Iamblichus knows a poem beginning

Everything is to be expected; nothing is surprising:
everything is easy for god to do, nothing is impossible.⁸⁴

We have seen that the cosmological poem is to be dated between Chrysippus and Aristobulusperhaps nearer to the latter, if the invention of the week is not to be put any earlier than the second century BC.⁸⁵ It is influenced by Stoicism, and

⁸² F. Boll, RE vii. 2547 ff.; M.P. Nilsson, Die Entstehung und religiöse Bedeutung des griech. Kalenders (2nd ed., 1960), 48 f.; E. Bickerman, Chronology of the Ancient World (1968), 61.

⁸³ Stob. 3.1.70.

⁸⁴VP 139; also in Stob. 4.46.1 (under Linus' name but without a title). It echoes the opening of a famous poem of Archilochus, fr. 122.

⁸⁵ This becomes a terminus post quem for Lobon of Argos. Cf. p. 44. If Hippobotus knew the same poem, this may tend to raise the date a little, but his own date is not known with precision.

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it also looks back to Heraclitus, as the Stoics did. In addition it shows astrological and hebdomadic interests that make a link with Pythagoreanism.⁸⁶ It is significant that Varro knew the poem and played a part in preserving knowledge of it. Damascius cites `Linus and Pythagoras' for the doctrine that everything is one. The fragment from the moralizing poem shows close parallels with the Pythagorean Carmen Aureum.⁸⁷ It is linked with the cosmology by the use of Linus' name (and perhaps Hymenaeus' as addressee), by the idea of delusive forms, and by the fact that both poems were transmitted together. As for the fragment quoted by Iamblichus, he says it is the Pythagoreans who claim that the poem is by Linus, and that it is perhaps really by them. There is, then, every reason to suppose that these poems came out of the same Hellenistic Pythagorean tradition as the Orphic Lyre and the other poems discussed on pp. 29-33. One of those poems, the Sphaera, was actually addressed to Linus.

It remains to mention that Pausanias knew poetry attributed to Linus, and judged it to be spurious, as he also judged most of the works of Orpheus and Musaeus. Either Linus composed nothing, he says, or if he did it did not survive.⁸⁸ The one thing he mentions about the content of the poetry ascribed to Linus is that it gave a similar account of Styx to that in Hesiod, who made her the daughter of Oceanus and wife of Pallas. It is not easy to imagine that divine genealogies of the conventional Hesiodic kind were incorporated in the cosmological poem that other authors cite. If they were, one would suppose that the gods were seen in the light of Stoic allegory. But perhaps Pausanias is referring to something quite separate.

⁸⁶ In a work On the Hebdomad under the name of Proros the number seven was exalted as specially holy, and it was argued that there are natural cycles of 7 years, of 7 months, and of 7 days (Thesleff, Texts, 154 f.). Hebdomadism is of course older than this; see esp. Solon fr. 27, Philolaus B 20, `Hippocr.' De hebd. (CQ 21 (1971), 365-88), Arist. Metaph. 1093a13-16; W.H. Roscher, Die Hebdomadenlehre der griech. Philosophen und Ärzte (Abh. sächs. Gesellsch. 24(6), 1906).

⁸⁷ Cf. lines 3-4 with C.A. 57; 7-8 with C.A. 46, 63-6, 70-1; 9-10 with C.A. 9-11, 69.

⁸⁸ 9.29.9, cf. 2.19.8, 8.18.1.

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Appendix:
The Fragments of Linus

I have thought it worth while to append the fragments of the poems ascribed to Linus and the testimonia which refer to poems by him or imply them, because they are not available in any modern collection. Some of them were included by F.W. Mullach in his Fragmenta Philosophorum Graecorum, i (1860), 155-7, but they are not to be found in Kinkel's Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, Diels's Poetarum Philosophorum Fragmenta, Powell's Collectanea Alexandrina, Thesleff's Pythagorean Texts, or Lloyd-Jones and Parsons's Supplementum Hellenisticum. They have, in fact, been well-nigh forgotten.⁸⁹

Testimonia De Lini Carminibus Sive Sapientia

⁸⁹ The main discussions of them are: Fabricius-Harles, Bibliotheca Graeca, i. 110-4; G.F. Schoemann, Opuscula Academica, ii. (1857), 4-6; O. Gruppe, Die griech. Culte und Mythen, i (1887), 628 f.; F. Susemihl, Gesch. d. griech. Literatur in d. Alexandrinerzeit (1891-2), i. 378.

t 3  (deest B)

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Page 64

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Fragmenta

  2 codd. FP         2  scripsi (Philol. 110 (1966), 155 sq.), cf. 3:  FP
3  Meineke:  FP     Meineke:  FP        4 fort.  (cf. fr. 1)
 FP: corr. Canter           6  Grotius      7  om. P
 Heeren           7  F: corr. Heeren             8 e.g. 
13 post 10 posui (Philol. l.c.)       F,  P:  Meineke
( Grotius):  temptavi (Philol. l.c.)              11 
Meineke; possis  Grotius      12 satisfaceret 

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  4  Clem. (consulto omisit Pfeiffer)          
Eus.¹:  Clem. ( Eus.²) ex Homeri versu
quem ante laudavit, 

  5 et 6 fort. coniungenda (deleto )

  7 1  Clem.

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  10 cod. Tr, vv. 8-10 etiam M         1-2  cod.: corr. Gesner
4  cod.: corr. Gesner     Mullach: possis 
vel         5  Hense,  Gesner     6 
cod.: corr. Gesner        7  vel  Hense    cod.: corr.
Valckenaer     8  Meineke:  Tr:  M      9  Valckenaer:
 codd.

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III
The Protogonos and Derveni Theogonies

We are now ready to begin the investigation of the Orphic theogonies. It ought to be remarked at this point that although we are accustomed to call them theogonies, and there is no apter term, the word is seldom found in ancient writers in connection with Orpheus. The list of his works in the Suda does indeed include the item `Theogony, 1,200 lines', but otherwise only Fulgentius and Tzetzes use the title.¹ What we call the Rhapsodic Theogony is referred to as the Hieros Logos, or Hieroi Logoi in twenty-four rhapsodies, or as the Rhapsodies. Clement calls one portion of it `the theogony' to distinguish it from another part (fr. 149), while Proclus after citing the Orphic poem (fr. 117) goes on to refer to `the Theogony'meaning Hesiod.

Having said that, I shall continue to call these poems theogonies, without I hope committing myself to too rigid a view of their form or function. By a theogony I mean a poem of which the major part consists in an account of the gods from the beginning of the world to the present.

Evidence for the existence of three distinct Orphic theogonies is given by Damascius, the last head of the Neoplatonic school in Athens before its closure by Justinian in the year 529.² Discussing the Orphic account of the beginnings of the world, he first summarizes what was said in `these current Orphic Rhapsodies', that is, in a poem which was still read in his own time. Then he says, `Such is the familiar Orphic theology; but the one current according to Hieronymusand Hellanicus, if he is not the same persongoes as follows'. This is clearly a poem no longer extant, the contents of which were in part described by one Hieronymus. When he has dealt with it Damascius proceeds to `the theology recorded in the Peri-

¹ Orph. frr. 147 and 173. Clement in fr. 149, Proclus in fr. 128, and Malalas in fr. 62 use the word descriptively to mean Orpheus' `genealogy of gods'. The Neoplatonists more often speak of his theologia(i), and once of his theomythia. Again these are not formal titles.

²Princ. 123-4 (i. 316-9 Ruelle) = Orph. frr. 60, 54, 28.

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patetic Eudemus as being that of Orpheus': again something of which he had only indirect knowledge. I shall call these three theogonies of Damascius the Eudemian Theogony, the Hieronyman Theogony, and the Rhapsodic Theogony. In addition to them we can distinguish three other Orphic theogonies. One stood at the beginning of the Epic Cycle, and may be called the Cyclic Theogony. Another has only quite recently come to our notice: it is the poem which is the subject of discussion by an unknown writer in the papyrus roll discovered near Derveni in northern Greece. We may call this the Derveni Theogony. And it can be seen that the Derveni Theogony is an abridgement of an ampler poem which I shall call the Protogonos Theogony after the part played in it by a god Protogonos.

A picture of the relationships of these poems will emerge in the course of the next five chapters; but there is one essential relationship that must be explained now. The Rhapsodic Theogony was a composite work, created in the late Hellenistic period by conflating earlier Orphic poems, in particular the Hieronyman (a descendant of the Protogonos), Eudemian, and Cyclic Theogonies. The writer of an important survey of cosmogonic myth has claimed that it is probably a mistake to try to construct a stemma of Orphic theogonies.³ He is wrong. That is just what we must do. (See p. 264.) And in reconstructing the Protogonos Theogony in particular, it is necessary to draw on what is known of the contents of the Rhapsodies for episodes where the two poems ran parallel. Of all the theogonies the Rhapsodic is the one about whose contents we are most fully informed, because under the Empire it was the Orphic theogony, and it was frequently quoted and alluded to, especially by the Neoplatonists. It has long been a matter of dispute how old the stories it contained were. The discovery of the Derveni text now allows us to see for certain that more of them go back to the classical period than we had the right to assume. It is a discovery that has thrown an unexpected and indeed sensational light on early Orphic theology.

So that the reader may see what I am referring to when I refer to episodes in the Rhapsodies, I will give an account of its contents here instead of waiting till the chapter devoted to the poem. In brackets I give references to fragment-numbers

³ Schwabl, 1481.60.

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and occasionally to other sources which apparently echo the Rhapsodies, such as the Hymns and Argonautica and Nonnus' Dionysiaca. A couple of details are added from Apollodorus' Bibliotheca, though this source does not reflect the Rhapsodies directly but the Cyclic Theogony which the Rhapsodies incorporated. For convenience of later reference I have divided the narrative into lettered sections.

Reconstruction of the Rhapsodies Narrative

A

First was Unaging Time (60, cf. 54, 68), represented as a winged serpent and coupled with Ananke (Arg. 12 f., cf. fr. 126, Hymn 12.10). He generated Aither and a huge Chasm, without bottom or boundary (66, 54, 60), overlaid with gloomy darkness and Night (65-7). From (or in) the Aither Time made a shining egg (70), the progeny of Aither and Chaos (= Chasm) (79). In it, enclosed in a bright cloak (of cloud?), Phanes developed (60). He is called the son of Aither (73, 74), and when he emerges from the egg, which is broken by being squeezed by the serpent Time (57), the Aither and the misty Chasm are split (72, cf. 65).⁴ He has many names: Metis, Erikepaios (60, 65, 83, 85, 167a.1), Protogonos (73, 86, cf. Hymn 6),⁵ Eros (74, 83, cf. Arg. 14 f.), Bromios, Zeus (170). He has four eyes and four horns, golden wings, ram, bull, lion and serpent heads, and the organs of both sexes (76-81, cf. Arg. 14, Hymn 6); he is 'the key of the mind' (82). The world is filled with radiance at his appearance, but he himself is invisible except to Night (86).

Phanes carries within him the seed of the gods (85). Conceiving a love not derived from eye-contact (82), he copulates with himself (or should one say herself), and gives birth to a series of gods (?), among them Echidna (58). He also mates with Night, now said to be his daughter (98): a Night existed before he did, but there are said to be three Nights, the second being his concubine (98, 99). From this union spring Uranos and Ge (109). Phanes creates the sun and moon (88, 91-3, 96), and

⁴ In 72.1 read , cf. A.R. 4.1577.

⁵ In 73 read , not . In 64 and 85 is an epithet of , while 75 must be restored .

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arranges a place for gods and men to live (89, 108). At some point he sheds an abundant rain from the top of his 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 same 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 (101).

C

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, Iapetos (57, 114). Of these it is Kronos who is specially nurtured by Night, the nurse of the gods (129, 131, 106). 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 falls on the earth (63). The genitals are thrown in the sea, foam forms round them, and Aphrodite is born; 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

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(Rufinus in 56).⁶ Iapetos' son Prometheus stole fire for men (143). Oceanus is set apart and dwells in his wondrous streams (117). Kronos' rule is tyrannical (101). <He releases the Hundred-Handers and Cyclopes from Tartarus, but then sends them back again (Apollod. 1.1.4-5).> He has children by Rhea (including Hera and Hestia, 161, 163), but swallows at least the males (58, 132, 138, 146). Zeus, however, is concealed in the cave of Night and nurtured by the nymphs Adrastea and Ida, daughters of Melissos and Amalthea (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 of Rhea (150-1). As mother of Zeus, Rhea takes the name Demeter (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 lower world, Poseidon the sea, and Zeus, riding on a goat, is carried to heaven (56 end).

D

In the cave of Night Zeus learns 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 overwhelmed, and asks how he 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 (148-9, 154) and castrates him (137). He takes over the sceptre (101, 107, 157), and the Cyclopes, who must have been released again (cf. Apollod.), give him the thunderbolt (179). But he still has need of the defeated Kronos. He appeals to him for guidance, and Kronos gives him detailed instruction about the new creation to come (155).

Again at Night's instigation, Zeus pounces on Phanesshe points him outand swallows him, thus absorbing all his powers

⁶ The birth of Thaumas, Nereus, and Eurybia is not to be assumed for this poem from 117-18; see Holwerda, 316-18.

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(58, 82, 85, 87, 129). Everything is reunited inside Zeus: aither, heaven, sea, earth, Oceanus, rivers, gods and goddesses, past and future, all become one in his belly (167). By bringing it all forth again in due order he becomes the creator of the present world (168, p. 205 K., cf. 171, 21a). Presumably he follows the directions given him by Kronos.

E

In his dealings with the gods, however, Night remains his adviser. On her instructions he takes Nomos to sit at his side (160), and in his dispensations he is accompanied by Dike, the daughter of Nomos and Eusebia (158-60). He fathers children by a number of goddesses (in what order, we cannot tell):

1. With Themis; Night had prophesied that she would remain a virgin until Rhea bore a son to Kronos (144). The children 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 Hephaestus and gives birth to Eukleia, Euthenia, Eupheme, and Philophrosyne (t 192, Hymn 60; 182).

3. With Hera, who is equal in status with him (132, 153, 163); the children presumably include Hephaestus (179-82).

4. With Leto, producing the virgin Artemis (187) and no doubt Apollo.

5. He pursues Dione, but does not catch her in time, and ejaculates in the sea. Aphrodite (the second) is born, attended by Eros (183-4). (Eros and Peitho seem to be parents of Hygieia, 202; in Hymn 67.7. Hygieia is wife of Asclepius, and this may have come in the theogony.)

6. With his mother, Rhea-Demeter. Being pursued by him, she turns into a snake. He does the same and mates with her, coiling in the Heracleot knot. She gives birth to Persephone-Kore, who has two faces, four eyes, and horns. Rhea is so alarmed that she flees without feeding her, and the child is therefore called Athela (`unsuckled') (58, 153).

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7. With Kore, in Crete, again in snake form, producing Dionysus (58, 153, 303).

From his own head Zeus produces Athena, also called Virtue, to work his will (174-8). She becomes the leader of the Kouretes, and they wear crowns of olive (185-6). She is also associated with Hephaestus as an artificer and pupil of the Cyclopes (179-80).

When Rhea-Demeter hands on the queenship to Kore, she prophesies that Kore will mount the bed of Apollo and bear glorious children with fiery faces (194). Kore stays in her mother's house, guarded by the Kouretes (151, 191), although she has lost her virginity to Zeus. She weaves a flowery robe, and she is just doing a scorpion on it when she is carried off by Pluto; the weaving is left unfinished (192-3, 195-6). To him she bears the nine Eumenides (197, 360).

F

The infant Dionysus is received from Zeus' thigh by Hipta, who puts him in a winnowing-basket on her head with a snake wound round it and hurries to Mount Ida and the mother of the gods (199). There he is guarded by the dancing Kouretes (34, 151), probably for five years.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, Nonn. D. 6. 165 ff.). The Titans, moved by jealousy, or prompted by the jealous Hera (210, 214, 216c, 220), whiten their faces with gypsum (Nonn. 6.169) and deceive him with a mirror made by Hephaestus, which he follows, apples from the Hesperides, a pine-cone (?), a bull-roarer, a ball, knucklebones, wool, and puppets; they 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 the heart, which is still palpitating, and takes it to Zeus in a casket; there is lamentation (35, 210, 214). The Titans are blasted with the thunderbolt (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 them (35, 209, 211, 213, 240). But from the heart a new Dionysus is given life (214, Proclus Hymn 7.14 f., Nonn. 24.48 f.).

⁷ Fr. 257 is so interpreted by Lobeck, 554.

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G

The smoke from the blasted Titans deposits a soot from which Zeus creates a new race of mortals (140, 220, 224). There had been a golden race of men created by Phanes, and a silver race under Kronos that enjoyed 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). When a soul leaves an animal's body, it floats around until another one catches it off the wind; but when it leaves a human body, Hermes leads it below the earth (223). There it is judged: the good have the better fate, going to the meadow by Acheron and the misty lake, while the wicked are led to Tartarus and the plain of Cocytus (222, cf. 123, 125). The Styx is also to be found there, a branch of Oceanus and one of its ten parts (116). A god that swears falsely 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 to go forth from Crete (156), and Dionysus has been appointed with Kore to assist mankind to find their release through regular sacrifices and rites (229, 230, 232).

The Derveni Find

Derveni is a pass some twelve kilometres north-west of Thessaloniki. In this region, between two and three kilometres nearer the city, was discovered in January 1962 part of a papyrus roll probably dating from the late fourth century BCone of the oldest known Greek papyri, and the first to be recovered from Greece itself. It was found at one of a group of six tombs containing many fine objects of the second half of the fourth century.⁸ It is not known with what town the tombs were connected; the nearest known ancient site, about three kilometres away, is Lete, but the excavator considers the finds suspiciously rich for such an insignificant place. The richest of

⁸ Excavation report by Ch. Makaronas, 18(B) (1963), 193-6; cf. G. Daux in Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 2 (1964), 21.

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the tombs, B, contained among other things a gold coin of Philip II and a magnificent crater inscribed in Thessalian dialect `Of Asteiounis son of Anaxagoras from Larisa'. The papyrus was found at tomb A, which (like B and C) contained remains of weapons, suggesting that the occupant was a soldier. The book was not inside the tomb with the ashes of the dead man and the other artefacts, but outside among the remains of the funeral pyre. It was evidently intended to be burnt, but it lay away from the centre of the fire, and one end of the roll survived, though it was thoroughly charred, which is what saved it from later decomposition. The blackened lump looked much like one of the logs that had been burnt on the pyre, and it was only the sharp eyes of the supervisor, Petros Themelis, that saved it from being neglected and lost for ever.

It was of course in a desperately fragile state. It was impossible to unroll it; the only way of getting at its interior was to remove small pieces one at a time, and this was only possible thanks to the patience and unrivalled technical skill of the conservator of papyri at the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna, Anton Fackelmann. He succeeded in making the roll less friable by applying juice of the papyrus plant, and lifted the pieces by static electricity. This produced a collection of over 150 scraps, mostly tiny, of black but still quite legible papyrus. From them it has been possible to reconstruct a sequence of 23 columns of writing, with disconnected fragments from about four more preceding them. The total length of the roll must have been about three metres or a little more. The last written column is followed by a blank sheet. It is the upper part of each column that escaped destruction, eleven to sixteen lines with the top margin; we cannot tell how much is lost lower down. The width of the column varies between about 30 and 45 letters, about the length of a hexameter. When a complete hexameter is quoted in the text, it occupies a line of writing, and the quotation is marked by paragraphoi above and below.⁹

⁹ Description and partial transcript: S.G. Kapsomenos, Gnomon 35 (1963), 222 f.; Bull. Amer. Soc. Pap. 2 (1964), 3-12; 19(A) (1964), 17-25 and Pls. 12-15; further photographs in G. Daux, BCH 86 (1962), 794; R. Seider, Paläographie der griech. Papyri, ii (1970), Pl. I; E.G. Turner, Greek Manuscripts of the Ancient World (1971), facing p. 92; my Pl. 5. I saw the fragments at the Museum in Thessaloniki in 1970. A provisional transcript of all except the smaller unplaced

(footnote continued on next page)

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No precise date has been given for tomb A, but the archaeological evidence from the site as a whole suggests that it is not likely to be later than 300 BC. The date of the tomb is the date when the book was burnt. When was it made? Its script must certainly be compared with the very oldest surviving bookhands, like that of the Timotheus papyrus. Some have considered 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.

The Prose Text

The date of the composition contained in it is a separate question. There are enough miscopyings to satisfy us that we are not dealing with an autograph. It is a prose work containing some verse quotations, nearly all of them from `Orpheus'. The writer's dialect is basically Ionic, though there are some Atticisms, which might be due to the transmission.¹¹ His language sometimes recalls Heraclitus, whom he quotes (perhaps with approval) in the first preserved column. But some elements in his vocabulary and style (not to mention his thought) show that he is considerably later than Heraclitus, probably not before 400. The Heraclitean mannerisms can be compared with those in the Hippocratic De Victu, which dates from the mid-fourth century.¹² A little more will be said presently.

The work has often been described as a commentary. Certainly the greater part of it, from the fourth reconstituted

(footnote continued from previous page)

fragments has appeared in ZPE 47 (1982), following p. 300. The official publication by K. Tsantsanoglou and G.M. Parassoglou is awaited.

¹⁰ See the discussion in Bull. Amer. Soc. Pap. 2 (1964), 7-9 and 15 ff. Turner, Greek Manuscripts, l.c., dates it `325-275 B.C.', and adduces some early 3rd-century parallels for the letter forms. In Scrittura e Civiltà 4 (1980), 26 (cf. 22), he accepts a 4th-century date because of the age of the burial.

¹¹ Consistently as the contraction of not (etc.) not ; nearly always and (once ), and where Attic would retain it; sometimes , sometimes not not .

¹² See CQ 21 (1971), 384.

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column to the end, is taken up by an exegesis of Orphic verses, which appear to be quoted in more or less the proper order; it is in the poet's thought, not the commentator's, that one sees a coherent development from column to column. There are however some signs that the commentary is only just beginning in the fourth column, and it is not clear that what preceded (seven columns or so, including those represented only by detached scraps) can be construed as merely introductory. More than half of it seems to have been devoted to an extended discussion of the Erinyes or Eumenides: their role in punishing perjurers after death (?), their supervision of the cosmic order generally according to Heraclitus, and their identity as souls.¹³ In column iv there is mention of someone, probably Orpheus, who has chosen to speak allegorically of `goddesses': that is, perhaps, to speak of Eumenides for what the author holds to be really souls. (The assumption would be that all other poets took the name from Orpheus.) The author says that the whole poem is allegorical.¹⁴ He then refers to `the first verse', and in what follows he seems to be citing verses from the proem of the Orphic poem. The systematic commentary thus appears to arise out of a particular discussion. The writer conceives his work to be a continuous discourse (): in col. xxii he says that God made the sun `of the form and size explained at the beginning of my discourse', apparently a reference to col. i. His quotations from Orpheus are always introduced by some prefatory words (even if they are only `Next verse:'); his is not the type of commentary which consists of a series of independent blocks each beginning with a lemma. He is no humble servant of the poet, but a man with decided views of his own which it is his primary purpose to expound. The Orphic text merely serves him as a prop. In interpreting it allegorically he licenses himself to find all kinds of meanings in it that it does not naturally bear.

His interest in it is wholly philosophical, not philological. He does quote Homer on a linguistic point, but only because

¹³ Fragments F 9+8, G 5a (cf. Il. 3.278 f., 19.259 f.); cols. i-iii. My column-numbering is higher by one than that used in existing publications.

¹⁴. Cf. x. 5 . Or he may mean poetry generally. Cf. Pl. Alc. B 147b, .

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it affects Orpheus' theology. He gives an etymology of the name Kronos not for the sake of doing so but as part of his philosophical interpretation. His comments on Greek vocabulary 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 else. The consequence is that his interpretations are uniformly false. Not once does he come near to giving a correct explanation of anything in his text. Such consistent wrongness is of course inevitable when the allegorical method of exposition, which assumes as its fundamental postulate that the obvious meaning is not the true one, is applied to a work 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 quarrels, adulteries, and so on, were ridiculous and unworthy if taken at face value. Theagenes explained them as representing physical elements, and their strife as the conflict of elements in nature. When Empedocles came to expound in verse his theory of the mixture and separation of earth, fire, air, and water, he called them by the names of godsZeus, Hera, Nestis, Aidoneusand identified Love and Strife as the two great forces that governed 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 allegorical principle to heroes such as Agamemnon, Achilles, and Hector. Plato is familiar with interpreters who find hidden meanings in the poets' stories of Hera being ensnared by Hephaestus, Hephaestus being thrown out of heaven for interfering when Zeus was beating Hera, or the gods meeting in battle.¹⁵

According to Isocrates (Busiris 39) it was Orpheus above all who dealt in improprieties of that sort. He might therefore seem an obvious subject for the allegorists to exercise themselves upon; only he had nothing like Homer's classic status. While not secret, Orphic poems seem to have had a very

¹⁵ Theagenes DK 8 A 2, Diogenes 64 A 8, Metrodorus 61 A 2-4, Pl. Rep. 378d, cf. Cratylus, passim, Theaet. 194c, Alc. B 147b, Xen. Symp. 3.6; R. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship, i (1968), 9-11, 35 f.

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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 people who lectured or wrote on the poetry of Homer or Hesiod in the fifth and fourth centuries, but practically nothing of the sort where Orpheus is concerned.¹⁶ The Derveni allegorist is thus something out of the ordinary. Although he does deal with several `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 the same spirit.¹⁷ We see something of the same approach in Plato's Cratylus, except that there the ancient writers are cited sporadically and unsystematically (Orpheus is quoted in passing at 402b). We can find systematic interpretation of a whole poem in a section of the Protagoras (339a-347a). But the Derveni text is the only known example of a pre-Alexandrian book which had such interpretation as its main subject-matter, or which was formally laid out in the style of a commentary, with the verses to be discussed written on separate lines from the surrounding prose and marked off from it.

The writer's philosophical outlook is Ionian, like his language. It shows particular affinities with Anaxagoras, Leucippus, and Diogenes of Apollonia. He holds that matter has always existed, new entities being produced only through mixture and separation. Each thing is named according to whatever predominates in it after it has been separated out. This presupposes the Anaxagorean idea of countless different substances.¹⁸ In 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,

¹⁶ Apart from the statements of Ion of Chios and Epigenes on the authorship of certain poems (above, pp. 7-9), there is only a biographical romance by Herodorus (31 T 12, F 42-43) and a monograph on Orpheus by Nicomedes of Acanthus (772 F 3), whose interest lay in Macedonian and Thracian antiquities.

¹⁷SVF ii. 316.12, 16. Cf. Cleanthes, i. 123.14.

¹⁸ P. Derv. xiii. 7, xiv. 3, xvi. 1, xviii. 9, 13; Anaxag. 59 B 12 end, 17. The Derveni writer's phrase (xvi. 1) recalls Theophrastus' formulation in Anaxag. A 41 ().

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and future events.¹⁹ In 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.²¹

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 of the other world; of initiates rightly sacrificing to the Eumenides, who are really souls, and of daimones who attend; of people who participate in public or private rites but fail to understand the meaning of what they see and hear in them.²² In these passages he seems 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 at one point (xix. 11) the not very metrical verse

.

Demeter, Rhea, Mother Earth, Hestia, Deo.

Perhaps he was writing for them, to introduce them to a Diogenean cosmology in which he had been instructed elsewhere.

We must return briefly to the question of his date. He was evidently writing after all the main lines of Presocratic thought had been developed, and combining elements from several of them in an idiosyncratic and not (so far as we can see) a very coherent fashion. The hymn which he quotes, apparently as

¹⁹ P. Derv. xv, xvi. 1-7; cf. Anaxag. B 1, 12; Diog. Ap. A 8, B 5; Democr. 68 A 39.

²⁰ P. Derv. xi. 4, 7, xii. 1, 8, xviii. 2; cf. Anaxag. A 42 § 2, B 1 ; Leucippus 67 A 1 § 31, 10. The writer's expression is paralleled in accounts derived from Theophrastus of the behaviour of Leucippus' atoms: 67 A 1 § 31, 6, 10, 14; cf. 68 A 49, 50, 62.

²¹ P. Derv. xxii. 3-9; cf. Anaxag. A 12, 42 § 6, 71, Leucipp. ll.cc., Democr. A 1 § 45, 83.

²² Cols. ii, iii, xvii

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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 untouched 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 same tradition as that other Anaxagorean allegorist, Metrodorus of Lampsacus: not necessarily as early, but scarcely generations later. We should probably assume an interval of some decades between the composition of his work and the making of the copy burnt at Derveni.

The Orphic Poem:
Its Proem

We can now address ourselves to the fragments of the Orphic poem upon which our preposterous commentator is exercising his ingenuity. We must, of course, pay attention to his interpretation in so far as it provides evidence about the text that he had before him, but no further.

In column iv, as has been mentioned, he appears to be embarking upon his exegesis and referring to the beginning of the poem. According to a brilliant supplement by Burkert, the first line contained the command `Close your doors, ye profane', , which also appeared in the first line of the Jewish Testament of Orpheus (above, p. 34). It is a solemn formula alluded to by many writers from Plato on. They do not in general ascribe it to any author but associate it with mysteries and sacraments; Plato uses baccheia in the same context.²⁵ Originally it must have had a literal meaning: holy things were to be carried through the streets, and the unqualified

²³ Melanippides PMG 764, E. Hel. 1301 ff. (cf. Phoen. 685 f., Bacch. 275 f.), Telestes PMG 809. The equation of Hestia and Earth is attested for Sophocles' Triptolemus (468 BC: fr. 615); cf. E. fr. 944 (Anaxag. A 20b).

²⁴Antike und Abendland 14 (1968), 93-100; Les Études philosophiques 1970(4), 443-55.

²⁵Symp. 218b

(printed by Kern as Orph. fr. 13). Aristides Or. 3. 50 also has for the usual .

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were forbidden to look.²⁶ By Plato's time, however, the doors have become metaphorical doors which the profane are to close over their ears. One author who does ascribe the phrase to Orpheus is Tatian. As a Christian apologist he is likely to have known it from the Testament, but it is interesting that he cites `Orpheus who tells the profane to close their doors' for the story of Zeus' intercourse with his daughter, which came in the Rhapsodies.²⁷

There are two different versions of a first half for the line. In the Testament it appears as `I will speak for those entitled', . 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.l. will sing) for those of understanding', (or aorist subjunctive .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 came first, the chicken or the 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.'³⁰ A cosmic egg appeared in at least two Orphic theogonies, the Hieronyman and the Rhapsodic, and the words `sacred story', , may allude to Hieros Logos as a title of the Rhapsodies. The passage does not prove that `I will sing for those of understanding' came in one of these poems, and

²⁶ See Call. H. 6.3-6. The scholiast on the passage informs us that the procession in question was introduced at Alexandria by Ptolemy Philadelphus in imitation of that at Athens.

²⁷Ad Graecos 8 (Orph. fr. 59).

²⁸ D.H. Comp. 194-5, Aristid., l.c. Lobeck, 450 n., notes that is standard sacral language.

²⁹ Plut. fr. *202 (Stob. 3.1.199), Gaudent. Harm. p. 327.3 Jan, Olympiod. in Categ. CAG xii (1).12.11, sch. S. OC 10; printed by Kern as Orph. fr. 334. In Stob. 3.41.9 the verse appears on its own under the name of Pythagoras, but this looks like a misunderstanding arising from the Plutarch fragment which Stobaeus has used earlier.

³⁰Quaest. conv. 636d, cf. 636e (holiness of the egg in Dionysiac orgies), 635e.

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if it came in the Rhapsodies it is surprising that the Neoplatonists do not cite it from Orpheus; the only one of them who does quote it, Olympiodorus, attributes it to some unspecified priest of the past. But the association in Plutarch is suggestive, and now that we find what looks like `close 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 from 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 form the verse is exactly like Hesiod, Theogony 106, `(Celebrate the family of the immortals,) those who were born from Earth and starry Heaven', and 111, `and those who were born from them, gods givers of blessings'. The Derveni text in fact breaks off before the most important children of Zeus are reached, but they must have been significant for the poet. Presumably it was Zeus' divine children that were meant, not heroes.

Zeus and His Predecessors

The commentator proceeds to quote and interpret the verses

Zeus, when from his father the prophesied rule
and strength in his hands he took and the glorious daimon

(v. 4-5). Our immediate impression is that he has leapt from the proem to a much later part of the poem, for Hesiod's Theogony and all other theogonies that we know of lead us to expect an account of the beginning of the world and of the rulers who preceded Zeus before we come to his reign. But the first verse, which has no connecting particle but a forward-looking , is perfectly formulated to begin a narrative. A more telling consideration is that we presently meet a series of fragments in which the poet goes out of his way to refer back, in brief relative clauses, to the most important chapters in the

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history of events before Zeus, as if to sum up what he had left out in beginning with Zeus' achievement of supremacy:

x. 4       (the god) . . . who first sprang forth into the aither.
xi. 5-6    (Kronos) who did a mighty deed
         to Uranos, son of Night, who became king first of all;
xii. 6   following him again Kronos, and then Zeus the contriver.

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 on 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 commentator was faulty. In column x he quotes the verses

Zeus, when, from his father the prophecy having heard,

and

the reverend one he swallowed, who first sprang forth into the
aither.

The commentator interprets as if it were a noun meaning `sexual organ', but it is clear both from the masculine pronoun that follows and from a later fragment that it was originally intended as an epithet of the `Firstborn king' whom Zeus swallowed.³¹ The epithet cannot stand in isolation, but the difficulty is solved by transferring the second line of the fragment in column v to precede this one. Zeus did not take `power, strength, and the glorious daimon' into his hands, but

strength in his hands he took, and the glorious daimon,
the reverend one, he swallowed, who first sprang forth into the aither.³²

The verse was displaced because of the similarity of the one before it (`Zeus, when . . . the prophecy having heard') to the one quoted in v. 4, which I estimate to have stood only about

³¹ xiii. 3 .

³² For cf. Hes. Op. 257 (of Dike) .

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six lines earlier in the poem. The similarity of those two lines caused further confusion between them: whereas Zeus took `the prophesied rule' from his father Kronos, the prophecy did not come from his father but, as we are informed in columns vii and viii, from the goddess Night. It follows that in the line

Zeus when from his father the prophecy having heard,

the middle part has been accidentally assimilated to the earlier line. The first passage, I conjecture, originally went

Zeus, when from his father the prophesied rule
and sceptre in his hands was about to take,

and the second passage (after some lines about the prophecies of Night) went

Zeus then, from the goddess the prophecy having heard,
strength in his hands did take, etc.

In the intervening lines Night was described as a `nurse' (vii. 11), and as prophesying from a sanctum (, viii. 1). She revealed to Zeus everything that he needed to do (?) in order to rule (?) on the fair seat of snowy Olympus (viii. 10, ix. 2).

At this point we may pause and review what we have learnt so far of the history of the world according to the poet. The first who sprang into the aither was a glorious god with the title Firstborn (Protogonos). But the first to exercise kingly power was Uranos, who was the son of Night. He was succeeded by Kronos, who `did a great deed' to himno doubt an allusion to the traditional myth of his castration. Kronos in turn was succeeded by Zeus, to whom Night, who was a `nurse', gave oracular advice from her sanctum. In obedience to this advice Zeus swallowed Protogonos.

If the reader turns back to pp. 70-3 he will see that all this agrees with the account given in the Rhapsodic Theogony. There too we have the succession UranosKronosZeus, Uranos being the son of Night. There too Zeus' accession to power is master-minded by Night, who prophesies from her cave or sanctum and is called `nurse of the gods'. She tells him how to overthrow Kronos, and that he must swallow the god Phanes, one of whose names is Protogonos. This god came into existence at an early stage in the cosmogony: he came from

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a shining egg made from aither, and the aither split when he emerged. The Rhapsodic narrative, of course, contained far more detail than the cursory allusions in the Derveni poem. Some of this detail may represent secondary elaboration. For instance, in the Derveni poem Uranos is explicitly called the first king, whereas in the Rhapsodies he was the third, Phanes and Night being considered to have reigned before him. But I have no doubt that if we had the full Protogonos Theogony that the Derveni poet has abridged, we should find a good deal more in it that corresponded to the Rhapsodies. In particular I think it virtually certain that the Firstborn god sprang from an egg made by Unaging Time out of aither, that he was a radiant figure with golden wings, and that he generated further gods by mating with himself. For we shall see later that this myth is all of a piece, and the presence of Protogonos presupposes the rest. The reference to Night as a nurse (very likely `nurse of the gods, ambrosial Night', as this phrase, attested for the Rhapsodies (106), fits in neatly with the neighbouring lemmata, cf. p. 114 line 9) probably implies the story that she nurtured the Titans for Ge (129, 131). Uranos had thrown his first sons, the Hundred-Handers and the Cyclopes, into Tartarus, it having been prophesied to him that he would be deposed by his own children. Ge therefore concealed the birth of the Titans and entrusted them to Night to rear in the secrecy of her cave. It was Night, no doubt, who had made the prophecy to Uranos. The inference that this story came in the Protogonos Theogony is supported by the fact that it is attested for the Hieronyman Theogony (fr. 57), which was, as we shall see in Chapter 6, essentially the Protogonos Theogony in modern dress.

In a fragmentary verse the Derveni poet apparently associated Zeus' royal power with Metis.³³ This is easily understood in the light of Hesiod's Theogony, where Zeus, on becoming king of the gods, marries and then swallows Metis. He does this on the advice of Gaia and Uranos, who warn him that she will bear dangerously bold and clever children who will be a threat to him. The parallel between Hesiod and Orpheus is obvious. In Hesiod Zeus swallows Metis because of prophetic advice from Gaia and Uranos; in Orpheus he swallows

³³ xii. 13 .

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Protogonos because of prophetic advice from Night; in both cases it is one of the first acts of his reign. The Orphic myth has been influenced by the older Hesiodic myth. In the Rhapsodies, at least, the bisexual Phanes was explicitly identified with Metis, and the same may well have been true in the Derveni Theogony.

A more substantial disagreement between the Derveni poem and the Rhapsodies than we have detected hitherto is implied by the commentator's statement in column xi that Orpheus said Kronos was born from the Earth and the Sun. `The sun' was the commentator's interpretation of the `reverend one'the sexual organ, in his viewthat Zeus swallowed in the preceding column. So it looks as if the poem, as the commentator read it, represented the swallowed god, that is Protogonos, as the father of Kronos by Ge. This is strange. In the Rhapsodies, as in Hesiod and elsewhere, it was Uranos who was the father of Kronos and husband of Ge. In the Derveni poem itself Uranos was succeeded by Kronos in the kingship. The anomaly may arise from a misinterpretation by the commentator, who is in general the least trustworthy of guides. After mentioning Protogonos as the god who first sprang forth, the poet may have said `He generated Ge and Uranos; and to him [meaning Uranos] Ge bore Kronos, who did a great deed to Uranos'. There are several examples in Hesiod's divine genealogies of ambiguous pronouns, and one such may be the cause of the oddity here.³⁴

The World Absorbed in Zeus

In column xiii comes the longest quotation from Orpheus in the papyrus, four lines, to which I will prefix a fifth by way of supplement:

[So Zeus swallowed the body of the god,]
of the Firstborn king, the reverend one. And with him all
the immortals became one, the blessed gods and goddesses
and rivers and lovely springs and everything else
that then existed: he became the only one.

The verb , which I have rendered `became one with him', means literally `grew on to him' so as to become part of him. Homer uses it of attaching oneself inseparably to a tree

³⁴ Hes. Th. 295, 319, 326.

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like a bat, or to a man's flesh like a leech. In the Problems ascribed to Aristotle it is used of food being assimilated by the body. It seems that all the other gods and the cosmic elements that they represented became absorbed in Zeus. Again the Rhapsodies are in agreement (fr. 167):

So then, by engulfing Erikepaios the Firstborn,
he had the body of all things in his belly,
and he mixed into his own limbs the god's power and strength.
Because of this, together with him, everything came to be again inside
  Zeus,
the broad air and the lofty splendour of heaven,
the undraining sea and earth's glorious seat,
great Oceanus and the lowest Tartara of the earth,
rivers and boundless sea and everything else,
and all the immortal blessed gods and goddesses,
all that had existed and all that was to exist afterwards
became one and grew together in the belly of Zeus.

By swallowing Protogonos, then, Zeus has swallowed the universe. The logic of this is not at all clear, because, whatever exactly Protogonos represents, there is no suggestion that he was identified with the world and with the totality of gods. He did, however, (according to the Rhapsodies) do much to give life and light to the world, and evidently it depended upon him in such a way that when he went down Zeus' throat everything else was drawn in with him. From this point on, Protogonos disappeared from the story. His role was finished.

In the next three columns of the papyrus, xiv-xvi, the commentator has in view a hymn-like passage about Zeus which is identical or similar to a passage already known from other sources. It was known in two versions: one quoted in the late Stoic (pseudo-Aristotelian) work De Mundo, probably after an earlier Stoic source, and a greatly expanded version quoted by the Neoplatonists. The longer version (fr. 168) stood in the Rhapsodies; the shorter, Stoic version (fr. 21a) must have stood in the earlier Protogonos tradition. Common to the two versions (with minor variants) are the lines

Zeus was born first, Zeus last, god of the bright bolt:
Zeus is the head, Zeus the middle, from Zeus are all things made.³⁵

³⁵ Pl. Lg. 715e, `God, as the ancient story has it, encompassing the beginning and end and middle of all that exists', has usually (since his scholiast) been understood as an allusion to this verse (fr. 21 K.). Plato adds that this God is always

(footnote continued on next page)

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Zeus was male, Zeus was an immortal nymph.
Zeus is the foundation of earth and starry heaven.
Zeus the king, Zeus the ruler of all, god of the bright bolt.

At least three of these five verses (the first two and the fifth, in the same order) came in the Derveni poem. We are told that Moira was also mentioned, presumably as another predicate of Zeus. Perhaps `Zeus was an immortal nymph' in the later versions was a substitute for `Zeus was/is Moira'. The bisexuality that the equation with Moira suggested might seem a suitable expression of Zeus' comprehensiveness, especially when he had swallowed a bisexual god.³⁶

The New Creation

Something no less noteworthy follows in the Stoic version and (in a slightly different form and after a lengthy insertion) in the Rhapsodies:

After he had hidden them all away, again into the glad light
from his holy heart he brought them up, performing mighty acts.

In the Stoic version `them all' is , masculine, that is, all the gods; in the Rhapsodies it is , all things. When Zeus engulfed the universe it did not remain as it was. We were told that everything grew together and became one. He had to re-create the gods and the world out of himself. He brought them up again just as Kronos in Hesiod brought up again the children he had swallowed. But greater dignity is lent to the process by avoiding Hesiod's word `vomit' and by saying `brought up from his holy heart', which suggests the god forming designs and then giving them reality. It was no mere physical reaction, like Kronos' regurgitations, but intelligent creation.

The poet of the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (22-3) refers to Hestia as being the eldest of Kronos' children and again the

(footnote continued from previous page)

accompanied by Dike who punishes those who fall short of the divine law: this is perhaps a paraphrase of Orph. fr. 158, (Burkert, Phronesis 14 (1969), 11 n. 25).

³⁶ The commentator explains Moira as a current (pneuma) in the universal Air. But there is no reason to think that he had in his text the verse `Zeus is the breath of all, Zeus the impulse of tireless fire' which appears in the Stoic version of the passage. It is absent from the Rhapsodies version, and looks like a specifically Stoic interpolation. See p. 219.

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youngest by the will of Zeus. In other words she was born first and swallowed first, but came up again last from Kronos' belly, which counted as a second birth. It is in the same sense that Orpheus referred to Zeus as `born first and last'. He was the youngest of the children of Kronos, the last god to be born before he swallowed Protogonos, but then all the other gods had to be born again from him and became his juniors.

When we next pick up a signal from the Derveni commentator, in column xviii, he is discussing a word or name QOPNHI, new to us but evidently derived from the root thor-, whose semantic field covers `springing' (as Protogonos sprang into the aither, ) and the ejaculation of semen. According to the exegete the reference is to particles of matter (what Anaxagoras called seeds, in fact) jumping about and mingling with each other in the air in the process by which the present world developed. He identifies this process with the deities Aphrodite Urania, Zeus, Peitho, and Harmonia, presumably because they appeared in association at this stage of the Orphic narrative. He speaks of Aphrodite, Peitho, and Harmonia `being named' in the mixing process; this is his rendering of `being born' (cf. xiv. 4-5). What he is interpreting, then, is an account of the birth of Aphrodite, attended by Peitho and Harmonia, as in Hesiod she is attended at her birth by Eros and Himeros (Th. 201) and in the Rhapsodies by Eros (fr. 184) or by Zelos and Apate (fr. 127.5). Both in Hesiod and in the Rhapsodies the birth of Aphrodite is the result of an escape of divine semen. In Hesiod she grows from the foam (, accounting for her name) which appeared round the severed genitals of Uranos as they floated in the sea. In the Rhapsodies, because of the combination of different sources, she had two births, the first (section C) as in Hesiod, the second (E 5) from an ejaculation of Zeus which again fell into the sea. In the light of these stories it seems probable that the dative in the Derveni poet's account of Zeus' creation of Aphrodite means `from his seed' or `by an ejaculation'.³⁷ We need not suppose that Zeus was pursuing Dione as in the Rhapsodies. Rather it was a considered, solitary act of

³⁷ In the account of her second birth in the Rhapsodies we read (fr. 183.1-2) . The formation of the word may have been influenced by the sound of .

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divine creation. He brought forth other gods from his mouth, Aphrodite from his loins.

It looks as if she was one of his first creations, before the physical world. The inference is that the poet thought of her as fulfilling a cosmic role. Hesiod and others placed Eros among the most ancient powers; as for Aphrodite, she appeared as a demiurge in Parmenides (if not under her own name), she is certainly one of the two powers that govern the working of Empedocles' cosmos, and her responsibility for the fructifying union of sky and earth is celebrated in famous fragments of Aeschylus and Euripides.³⁸

In columns xx-xxii of the papyrus the commentator is concerned with Zeus' creation of Oceanus and the rivers (the `sinews of Achelous'), and of the sun, moon, and stars. The verb used in the verse about the creation of Oceanus was , `contrived'. Again the deliberate intelligence of the creation is conveyed. Achelous apparently stands for the world's fresh-water streams; they form a network like the sinews of the body.³⁹ We have not got the verses in which the poet described the contriving of the moon, but we have got a fragment of the Rhapsodies (91) which would fit here very well:

And he contrived () another vast earth: Selene
the immortals call it, but men on earth Mene.
Many mountains it has, many cities, many halls.

It first so well because of the verb , and because the terms in which the moon is imagined in the third line suit a pre-Hellenistic text (see p. 49).⁴⁰ 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

³⁸ Eros: Hes. Th. 120 (see my note), Sappho 198, Parm. B 13, Acusil. 2 F 6, Ar. Av. 700, Simmias Wings; Protogonos = Eros in the Rhapsodies. Parmenides: below, p. 109. Emp. B 17.24 (= Philotes), 22.5, etc.; A. fr. 125 M., E. fr. 898.

³⁹ The tragedian Choerilus used a similar metaphor when he called rivers `Earth's veins' (2 F 3). (Pindar used a different organic metaphor when he referred to springs as `the leaves of Oceanus' (fr. 326), picturing the underground channels which connect them to the main stream as the hidden branches of a great tree.) Achelous was the greatest of rivers (cf. Il. 21.194-5, Acusil. 2 F 1). For the use of the name to stand for water generally see LSJ, and Dodds on E. Bacch. 625-6; Servius ascribes it to Orpheus (= fr. 344 K.).

⁴⁰ The distinction made between the gods' and men's names for the moon has no religious significance but is a poetic mannerism. See my note on Hes. Th. 831.

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meant spherical.⁴¹ The realization that the moon shone by reflected sunlight (and was therefore 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 reference to its sphericity in the classical period. Orpheus also said that it shines for many mortals on the boundless earth. His use of `many' rather than `all' 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 went by the stars.⁴² If Orpheus' `many' has a point, I wonder whether he imagined that the moon's phases were different as seen from different parts of the earth, so that there were always some peoples to whom it was invisible. Such a notion could not, of course, coexist with any clear sense of spatial geometry.

The Rape of Rhea-Demeter:
Younger Gods

By column xxiii, the last in the papyrus, the story has moved into a new phase. Zeus is no longer the solitary demiurge producing things from his insides: he has begun to lust after others.

He wanted to unite in love with his mother.

His mother is normally Rhea; when he is called the son of Earth,⁴³ we may suppose that Rhea is identified with Earth. When he impregnates his mother, it is Rhea identified with Demeter, the basis for identification being that both are Earth. In column xix the commentator has argued the identity of Earth, the Mother, Rhea, Hera, and Demeter, perhaps just as an illustration of how men give different names to the same entity. He added that the goddess is also called Deo `because

⁴¹ I assume that `from the centre', , is not just an addition in the commentator's paraphrase but represents in the original. Cf. Parm. B 8.43 f. .

⁴² See my Hesiod, Works and Days (1978), 376 ff.

⁴³ A. Supp. 892, S. Phil. 392. Even in Hesiod Ge plays a part in the story of Zeus' birth in which she seems a double of Rhea; cf. Nilsson, The Minoan-Mycenaean Religion (2nd ed., 1950), 572.

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she was ravaged () in her copulation, as he (Orpheus) will make all too (?) plain according to what comes later (?)'. The copulation foreshadowed by the verse in column xxiii, then, was in some way violent. `He wanted' indeed implies that there was a difficulty in Zeus' way. But we may be sure that he overcame it. There can be little doubt of a connection with the story told in the Rhapsodies (E 6). Zeus pursued the goddess, and they mated in the form of a pair of snakes. The result was that she gave birth to Persephone, who had two faces, four eyes, and horns. The birth of Persephone, whether with these distinctive features or not, must surely have followed in the Derveni Theogony.

The poem cannot have come to an abrupt end at that point. The commentator might have broken off his analysis here for some inscrutable reason; but even if he did, it is impossible to believe that he was able to bring his own discourse to a conclusion in a few more lines. Column xxiii is followed by a blank sheet. But that is usual at the end of a papyrus roll. We must conclude that the reason why there is no more writing is not that the end of the work had been reached but that the roll was full, or as full as it was customary to fill a roll. In all probability the text continued in another roll, or several, which perhaps perished on the funeral pyre shortly after volume 1 rolled off it.

How, then, did the poem continue? The answer is no doubt there in the Rhapsodies narrative, if only we can pick it out. There Zeus is involved in a whole series of unions with different goddesses, and many children are born. Only two of them, however, Kore and Dionysus, have a special role as saviours of mankind. Salvation is what we should expect the Derveni Orpheus to be ultimately proclaiming, especially as he has dealt so summarily with all that happened before Zeus' reign and with Zeus' own re-creation of the world. I estimate that all of that occupied only about forty lines (see the reconstruction on pp. 114-15). It is significant that as soon as the poet had got the world back into shape he went straight to the act which resulted in the birth of Kore. She must have been an important figure in his gospel. So we must concentrate on what the Rhapsodies had to say about her, and try to decide how much of that is to be attributed to the Derveni poem, or at least to the Proto-

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gonos Theogony of which the Derveni poem represents one recension.⁴⁴

There are two distinct themes in Kore's story as the Rhapsodies had it. One is a development of the traditional myth of her abduction by Pluto, with the special features (i) that she bore him children, the Eumenides, (ii) that it was prophesied she would bear these children to Apollo, (iii) that she was guarded by the Kouretes, and (iv) that she was weaving a robe until she was carried off. The other continues the motif of Zeus mating as a snake. He mates in this guise with Kore, in Crete, and she gives birth to Dionysus, who after being killed by the Titans and restored to life becomes her partner in helping men to escape from the cycle of reincarnation.⁴⁵

There are several indications that separate accounts have been conflated in this complicated saga. For one thing the snake-Zeus who mates with Persephone must be the chthonic Zeus; but chthonic Zeus is often identified with Hades-Pluto and never distinguished from him, so the myth of the snake-mating cannot well coexist with that of the chariot-snatch. Secondly there is the discrepancy between the prophesied and the actual father of the Eumenides. We can if we like gloss it over by saying that when Rhea-Demeter said it would be Apollo, this was a casuistry of the kind proper to oracles, the name standing for Hades as `the destroyer'.⁴⁶ But the point of misleading oracles is normally that they cause the recipient to take the wrong evasive action, or prevent him from realizing when he is approaching danger: we can detect nothing of the sort in Persephone's case. So perhaps an account in which she did bear the Eumenides to Apollo has been elided into the more familiar story of her marriage to Pluto, which is usually represented as childless, being a complete myth in itself. Thirdly there is a mixture of ingredients from different local mythologies. Zeus' union with Kore is placed in Crete, and it is from there that purification ceremonies are made to spread through the world. The Kouretes who guard first Kore and then Dionysus are a distinctly Cretan element, and they are

⁴⁴ The compiler of the Rhapsodies clearly did not use the Derveni poem itself but the original Protogonos poem or some subsequent (full-length) recension of it.

⁴⁵ For fuller details see p. 74.

⁴⁶ This sense was often heard in Apollo's name. See Fraenkel on A. Ag. 1081.

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playing the same role as in the Cretan story of the infancy of Zeus. The goddess Hipta who takes Dionysus from Zeus' thigh and carries him to Ida belongs to Asia Minor, especially to Mount Tmolus in Lydia. She was a chthonic Mother-goddess, perhaps identical with the Hurrian-Hittite Hepat *, and she was associated in cult with Sabazios.⁴⁷ Her presence in the Orphic account is the result of identifying Sabazios with Dionysus and incorporating a myth about the birth of this Dionysus-Sabazios with the rest. The boiling of Dionysus was known to Callimachus and Euphorion as a Delphic myth,⁴⁸ and this is reflected in the Rhapsodies by the burial of his limbs on Parnassus by Apollo.

We can identify two sources used by the compiler of the Rhapsodies for his account of Zeus and the younger gods: the (or a) Protogonos Theogony, and the Eudemian Theogony. The latter, as we shall see in the next chapter, probably included the Cretan version of the birth of Zeus, with the Kouretes' dance. It is surely likely that the repetition of this motif in connection with Kore and Dionysus and the references to Crete came into the Rhapsodies from the same source. The Kouretes' protection of Dionysus implies that he is threatened by the Titans, as Zeus was threatened. If his dismemberment and resurrection take us from Crete to Delphi, that need not mean a change of poem. There were early links between the the two places in religious myth. They both play a part in Hesiod's account of the birth of Zeus, and the Pythian Hymn to Apollo tells us that the first priests at Delphi were Cretans.⁴⁹ The Kouretes and the Titans, then, and the whole story of the rending of Dionysus, can be left out of our reconstruction of the Protogonos Theogony. In any case it seems unlikely that when the poet spoke of Zeus bringing forth again the gods he had swallowed, he had any other gods in mind than those of the present world. The Titans, I assume, like Protogonos, had faded from the scene.

Just as the Kouretes' dances round Kore and Dionysus continue a motif from the Eudemian Theogony, so Zeus'

⁴⁷Denkschr. Wien. Ak. 54 (1911), 85, No. 169 ; 96, No. 188 ; BSA 21 (1914/16), 169 (all from Maeonia below Tmolus); cf. Orph. Hymn 48 and 49.

⁴⁸ Call. fr. 643, Euph. fr. 13 Powell. Cf. p. 151.

⁴⁹ Hes. Th. 477 ff., 499, cf. my commentary, pp. 291-3; Hymn. Ap. 388-544.

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assumption of snake form to impregnate Kore continues a motif which we have seen reason to ascribe to the Derveni poem. It may not have been an exact replay of his snake-coupling with Rhea-Demeter, because in that scene both partners were snakes, whereas we do not hear that Kore became a snake. As Nonnus describes it, she remained in human form, the snake gliding over and licking her body.⁵⁰ The myth may be related to the practice in the cult of Sabazios of letting a golden snakeearlier, presumably, a live oneslip through the initiand's clothing next to the skin and then pulling it back again. The act was described in the mystic formula , and whatever its original meaning, in later times it was taken to be a symbol of Zeus' union with his daughter.⁵¹ We have already identified a Sabazian element in the Orphic story in the nurse Hipta. She must come from the same line of tradition as the divine snakes; and it looks as if this was the Protogonos tradition. Incidentally, the motif of copulating snakes (as in the episode of Zeus and Rhea) probably appeared also at the beginning of the Protogonos Theogony, for the union of Chronos and Ananke seems to have been pictured so (p. 194).

I observed that the myth of the chthonic Zeus-snake could not well coexist with a chariot-snatch of Persephone by Hades-Pluto, and we can exclude this from the Protogonos poem without misgivings. The weaving of the robe which is associated with the Pluto episode in the Rhapsodies can also be left aside: not that the association is a necessary one, for the weaving might stand on its own, as it perhaps did in the Pythagorean-Orphic Robe.⁵² It is possible that the compiler of the Rhapsodies used the Robe among his other sources. But at any rate there is nothing to link the weaving with the Sabazian motifs which

⁵⁰D. 6.155 ff. Apparently so also Ovid, M. 6.114. Athenagoras' phrase in fr. 58, `violating her too in serpent shape' () is ambiguous. Certain Selinuntine coins of the late 5th or early 4th century BC show what appears to be an erotic confrontation between a large snake and a woman or goddess; see Zuntz, 397.f.

⁵¹ Clem. Protr. 2.15, Tatian ad Graecos 8, p. 9.10 Schw., Arnob. 5.20 f., Firmic. Matern. 10; A. Dieterich, Eine Mithrasliturgie (3rd ed., 1923), 123 f.; A.B. Cook, Zeus, i (1914), 392 ff.; Nilsson, Gr. Rel., ii. 660 f. For Moroccan and Kentucky parallels to the act see R. Brunel, Essai sur la confrérie religieuse des `Aîssâoûa au Maroc (1926), 150; Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational, 276; Weston La Barre, They Shall Take Up Serpents (1962).

⁵² Cf. p. 11. On the other hand the interruption of the weaving by the abduction may already have stood in the Robe.

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on our hypothesis characterized the Protogonos poem. The birth of the Eumenides from Persephone, on the other hand, may well have appeared there. The Derveni commentator, we know, had a strong religious interest in the Eumenides, and there are signs that they appeared in his Orpheus (p. 78). It is fairly clear that they were not mentioned among the older gods, in the brief allusions to the generations before Zeus, so they can only have been sprung from the younger ones if their parentage was recorded. Persephone is then, so far as one can see, the only suitable mother for them. As for their father, the elimination of Hades-Pluto from the narrative leaves the field clear for the father named in the prophecy in the Rhapsodies, Apollo. If there was a corresponding prophecy in the Protogonos poem, it is possible that it served in lieu of an account of the event. The poet can hardly have gone on to record Apollo's intercourse with Persephone unless he first gave an account of Zeus' union with Leto and the birth of Apollo and Artemis.

Mankind

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 turn by Phanes (golden), Kronos (silver), and Zeus mustunless it was an innovation by the compiler of the Rhapsodiescome from the line 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 associated 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 Rhapsodies, the theory of reincarnation and the rewards and punishments in the other 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

⁵³ According to the arithmetic of `Hesiod', fr. 304, that would be equivalent to 972 human generations.

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such matters. No one would take it for Hellenistic; in any case part of it is pretty clearly cited by Aristotle.⁵⁴ There is nothing about the soul rejoining its kindred aither: good and bad souls alike are led below the earth. It is all closer to Empedocles than to anything else. There is the same preoccupation as in Empedocles with the idea of relatives being reincarnated in unrecognized forms (224a, cf. Emp. B 137). In 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 the 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. It is not our method to include whatever we are unable to exclude. I propose nevertheless to include it, because if it is as early as it looks, it is too early for any other Orphic theogony detectable in the Rhapsodies, and because its relationship to Hesiod and to Empedocles is very similar to what we shall find when we consider the affinities of the rest of the Protogonos poem.

In fr. 232 someone is telling Dionysus that

men will send hecatombs always in annual season
and perform the rites, seeking release from their forefathers'
unrighteousness; and you in power over them
will free those you wish from toils and endless frenzy.

The speaker may be Zeus; but the author of the Orphic Argonautica refers to `holy oracles of Night about the lord Bacchus', which must have stood in the Rhapsodies,⁵⁶ and

⁵⁴ Orph. fr. 228ab, 223.4-5; Arist. De anima 410b29 = Orph. fr. 27. Cf. also Hecataeus of Abdera 264 F 25 § 96.5-6.

⁵⁵ Hes. Th. 793-804, Orph. fr. 295, Emp. B 115. In Empedocles the god spends the time passing through mortal incarnations. In Orpheus the god spent however many years it was in Tartarus; but it is possible that he may have undergone mortal incarnations as well, since Numenius was able to interpret the Orphic Styx as an allegory of sperm (Orph. fr. 124, cf. EGPO 25 f.). However, he seems to have done likewise with Hesiod's Styx.

⁵⁶Arg. 28. The line must be transposed to a place in the passage concerned with the Rhapsodies (12-20); as it stands it breaks the link between the Cabiri (27) and Lemnos and Samothrace (29) (above, p. 37).

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presumably came there from the same source-poem as the earlier oracles of Night, those in which she instructed Zeus on how to take command of things. Oracles about Bacchus were not necessarily addressed to him, but there is no reason why an account given to him of his future functions should not have been so described.

Recapitulation:
Structure and Contents of the Derveni Poem

In a brief proem Orpheus announced that he would sing, for those with insight, of the wondrous works of Zeus and the gods born from him. His narrative began at the moment where Zeus was due to assume power and took advice from Night. Zeus swallowed Protogonos; at this point the poet worked in a mention of the outstanding events of earlier ages, Protogonos' first appearance, the genealogy Protogonos/NightUranosKronos, the castration of Uranos, the kingship succession UranosKronosZeus. With the swallowing of Protogonos everything became one in Zeus, whose universality was celebrated in a hymn-like section.

Then Zeus began to bring the gods forth again from his mouth; ejaculated seed which became Aphrodite; and created anew earth, heaven, rivers, and luminaries, among which the moon claimed the poet's particular interest. Once the world was restored Zeus conceived a desire for his mother, Rhea who was also Demeter. They mated as snakes, and Rhea gave birth to Kore. Still (or again) in the form of a snake Zeus impregnated Kore, and she gave birth to Dionysus, whom the nurse Hipta carried away in a winnowing-basket with a snake wound round it.

Kore and Dionysus both perhaps received instruction about their future destinies, Kore from her mother, Dionysus from Night. Kore was to bear the Eumenides in union with Apollo (and, no doubt, to reign in the lower world, supervising the treatment administered there to souls). Dionysus was to rule in the upper world, receiving sacrifices from initiates and rewarding them with salvation.

This is the third race of men, this one that lives under Zeus' dispensation. There was a golden race under Protogonos, and a silver one under Kronos. The soul is immortal, and passes through different human and animal bodies. After a human

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incarnation it stands trial, and the good and wicked go separate ways. Tartarus, where the wicked go, also accommodates gods who have sworn falsely on the water of Styx. After 300 years the souls are reincarnated. Such are the hardships from which Dionysus is able to deliver men. (And perhaps all this was set out in the revelation he received from Night.)

Behind the Derveni poem there must lie a fuller one, the `Protogonos Theogony', which began at the beginning of things and set out the whole story of the creation of the cosmic egg, the hatching of Protogonos, and the gods who reigned before Zeus. The compiler of the Rhapsodies used it, or a subsequent recension of it, not the Derveni poem. The above reconstruction assumes that the Derveni poem in its latter parts contained everything that I have inferred (on the basis of the Rhapsodies) that the Protogonos Theogony contained. But not much depends on this, for from now on we shall be more concerned with the origins of the Protogonos Theogony than with the secondary version attested by the Derveni papyrus.

Sources of the Protogonos Theogony

The basic succession, UranosKronosZeus, with the castration of Uranos, is in accord with Hesiodic tradition. Night is not the mother of Uranos in Hesiod, but she precedes him in order of appearance, and she always comes very early in divine genealogies.⁵⁷ The oracular and nursing functions attributed to her are paralleled by those which Hesiod attributes to Ge and Uranos: they foretell the overthrow of Kronos, they advise Rhea how to save Zeus from KronosGe undertakes to rear him in a caveand later they instruct Zeus to secure his power by swallowing Metis.⁵⁸ The emergence of Night in these roles, however, is bound up with a version of the story of Uranos which is deliberately anti-Hesiodic.

⁵⁷ Acusil. 2 F 6(b), ps.-Epimen. 457 F 4, Ar. Av. 693, Orph. fr. 28 (Eudemian Theogony), Musaeus B 14, Cic. ND 3.44 (= Acusilaus? Holwerda, Mnem.² 22 (1894), 300), Hyg. Fab. praef. 1.

⁵⁸Th. 463, 475 ff., 891 ff. Night had an oracle at Megara (Paus. 1.40.6), and she is named in sch. Pind. P., p. 2.6 Drachmann as the first occupant of the Delphic oracle; she shared it with Apollo in an Orphic poem mentioned by Plutarch (see p. 12).

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The bizarre story of the castration of Uranos and his succession by Kronos and Zeus is based on a myth that came to Greece from the Near East sometime before Hesiod.⁵⁹ One of the two main relevant oriental texts is the Babylonian poem Enûma Elis *, dating from about the eleventh century BC. There the two primeval parents are Apsû and Tiâmat, the male fresh water from which rivers have their source and the female salt water of the sea. Their waters are mingled in one body, and their children and children's children are born within them. These gods are obstreperous. Apsû says to Tiâmat,

Their ways are verily loathsome unto me,
By day I find no relief, nor repose by night.
I will destroy, I will wreck their ways.⁶⁰

But he is put to sleep, stripped of his regalia, and slain by the wise Ea. This parallels Hesiod's tale of the primeval parents Uranos and Ge, whose children remain confined within Ge because Uranos is revolted by their monstrous nature; but when Uranos comes to sleep with Ge he is ambushed and castrated by the cunning Kronos.

Originally, then, it is the main body of Uranos' children, the Titans, whom he oppresses and shuts away inside the earth. In a pre-Hesiodic version it must have been his unremitting intercourse with Ge that kept them there; that is why his castration releases them.⁶¹ But after recording the birth of the Titans Hesiod adds two further groups of children, the Cyclopes and Hundred-Handers, to account for their presence later in the poem. The addition has all the appearance of an afterthought, and it introduces some unclarity into the narrative. As he has put it, they must be understood to be shut away with the Titans, but they are somehow not released with them. They remain in storage until needed. Zeus releases the Cyclopes before the Titanomachy (they give him the thunderbolt) and the Hundred-Handers after ten years of it (they bombard the Titans with rocks from their 300 hands).⁶²

⁵⁹ See my Hesiod, Theogony, 18-30; P. Walcot, Hesiod and the Near East (1966), 1-54.

⁶⁰ i. 37-9, trans. E.A. Speiser in ANET 61.

⁶¹ See my note on Hes. Th. 158.

⁶²Th. 139-53, 501-6, 617-75, 713-17.

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The Orphic version represents an effort to make the story clearer and more logical. The poet did not see how the Titans could castrate Uranos if they were confined within the earth. So in his account the Hundred-Handers and Cyclopes are born first and suffer imprisonment. Their place of confinement is identified as Tartarus. The Titans escape this fate because Ge, having seen what sort of a father Uranos is, keeps their birth secret and entrusts them to their grandmother to rear in a cave. This motif is borrowed from Hesiod's account of Zeus' birth, as also is the detail that the grandmother had warned the father that his son or sons would overthrow him.⁶³ The consequence of these innovations is that when the Titans castrate Uranos, it no longer releases anyone from confinement but appears merely as a rough method of disabling the tyrant.

Hesiod accounts for only part of the framework of the Protogonos Theogony. Some very striking extraneous elements have been incorporated. First there is Protogonos himself, the bright god who first sprang into the either from the egg made by Unaging Time. This is a motif of distinctly non-Greek origin, to be compared with three oriental cosmogonies:

1. In the Phoenician cosmogony recorded by Laitos and ascribed to Moch * of Sidon, `Ulom*, that is Time or Eternity, united with himself and produced an egg and the divine craftsman Chusor*. Chusor opened the egg, and the heaven and earth were formed from it.⁶⁴

2. In the Zoroastrian cosmogony Zurvan* akarana, Infinite Time, united with himself and produced the twin brothers Ohrmazd and Ahriman. In another version they exist from the beginning with Zurvan; Ohrmazd creates the material world, the first recognizable stage being the appearance of heaven in the form of a shining metal egg.⁶⁵

⁶³Th. 463-84. Fr. 121,

When he observed that they were stern of heart
and lawless in their nature [. . . .],
he hurled them into earth's deep Tartarus,

still reflects the Hesiodic version of the story, in which Uranos is motivated simply by displeasure at the character of his offspring. It may go back to the Protogonos Theogony. The rare phrase `Tartarus of the earth' is paralleled in fr. 167 (p. 89). (For other instances see Hes. Th. 841 with my note.)

⁶⁴FGrHist 784 F 4. For more on this and other Phoenician cosmogonies see EGPO 28 f.

⁶⁵ For a fuller account with source-references see EGPO 30-3.

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3. In the Indian Atharvaveda Kala * (Time) appears as the unaging god who generated heaven and earth. His first progeny was the divine creator Prajapati*, who is known from older poetry as an aspect of the sun, or as the `golden embryo' which generates and upholds earth, sea, and sky. In some accounts he too is born from an egg.⁶⁶

In my Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient I have argued that these accounts have a common Near Eastern source, to be dated to the sixth century BC or not long before. I do not mean a literary source but a newly-evolved cosmogonic myth to the effect that Time was the first god, and that he generated out of his seed the materials for the world's creation. He did not himself fashion the world; that was done by another god, a bright demiurgic figure who was also born from Time, or else existed from the beginning beside him. The influence of this myth, I argued, is to be seen in one of the earliest of Greek prose works, the Theology of Pherecydes of Syros, in which the god Time was represented as creating out of his own seed. We can now recognize the myth in the Orphic cosmogony too. There can be no question of deriving the Orphic version from Pherecydes, for it has several features in common with oriental versions that are lacking in Pherecydes. Firstly, Chronos' title `unaging' is also applied to Time in the Iranian and Indian versions of this theology. Then there is the egg. Out of the celestial light Ohrmazd fashioned a white, round, shining fire, which, however, remained for a long time in a moist state, `like semen' as the source says. Eventually its surface became hard, like a shining metal egg: that is our heaven, and our world was created inside it. The Orphic account is similar. Out of the either Chronos fashioned a shining egg. When broken it became the heaven and the earth, and the demiurge Protogonos was revealed inside. Moch* the Phoenician has a like tale to tell. Time, uniting with himself, produced a cosmic egg and a demiurge who split it to make heaven and earth. In the Indian texts, while we do not read of Time producing an egg, we read of Time begetting the shining creator Prajapati, and also of Prajapati's* being born from an egg.

⁶⁶EGPO 33 f.

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Then there is Protogonos, the resplendent creature who comes out of the egg to fashion the material world in detail. In the Phoenician version the demiurge born from Time, and the opener of the egg, is Chusor *. He is simply the craftsman in the Canaanite pantheon, the Ktr(-wa-Hss)* of Ugaritic texts. The Phoenician adapter of the myth has, as it were, chosen his local Hephaestus for this part in the play. Something similar happened when the Persian version took shape. The traditional belief, proclaimed by Zoroaster, Darius, Xerxes, and others, had been that the world was created by the Wise Lord, Ahura Mazdah* (Ohrmazd). So in the Time-cosmogony it is he who plays this part, as the son of Time. The creator of evil, Angra Mainyu (Ahriman), whom Zoroaster had conceived as one of the twin sons of Ahura Mazdah, now becomes his twin brother, so that he too is the son of Time.

When we turn to the Indian Prajapati*, we find something closer to Protogonos. He has solar associations: Protogonos filled the world with light on his appearance. As well as generating earth, sea, and sky, Prajapati is conceived as upholding them: we recall that when Protogonos is swallowed by Zeus, the universe is absorbed with him. Prajapati's* name, which might be translated Pro-geni-potens, implies the same procreative power as Phanes' hermaphrodite nature; and when he is made the `firstborn son' of Kala*, he really does appear as the Indian Protogonos.

I argued further in my earlier book that the divine progenitor Time, who emerged between the sixth and the fourth centuries BC in India, Iran, Sidon, and Greece, developed out of the figure of the Eternal Sun, whose worship was particularly ancient and important in Egypt. The potent myth of , ruler of eternity, eldest of the gods, creating the others from his own seed, was refined into the more abstract myth of the selffertilizing Time. is at the same time an important parallel to Protogonos. too came from an egg, and was celebrated as `firstborn of the gods'. According to the Rhapsodies Protogonos had four eyes and a serpent on his head; he filled the world with light but was himself unseen; he copulated with himself; and he finally took his seat on the highest ridge of heaven (fr. 56). has countless eyes and ears, and wears the uraeus-snake on his head; the source of all light, he is

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himself unseen; he creates other gods by a sexual act with himself; he `maketh his seat in the uttermost limits of the heavens'.⁶⁷

We are also told that produced gods out of his mouth, by speaking, spitting, or sneezing, after planning them in his heart.⁶⁸ This corresponds very much to what the Orphic Zeus does after swallowing (and so replacing) Protogonos. is parallel to Zeus also in that he remains the king and master of the gods and is celebrated in hymns which list his qualities in a spirit of real religious enthusiasm.⁶⁹ We can now begin to appreciate the significance of Zeus' swallowing of Protogonos and the rest of the gods. In Hesiod it is Kronos who swallows gods and brings them up again; Zeus only swallows Metis, and she remains inside him as a permanent adviser. The Orphic poet makes use of the motif in order to reconcile the oriental Protogonos myth with the usual Greek idea that the supreme god, Zeus, was one of the younger gods. When Zeus' ancestry has been established, he swallows it, and that puts him in the same position as the foreign god, ready to produce everything else from his own resources.

Of quite separate origin from the cosmogony is the myth of the snake-Zeus' mating with his mother and with the goddess born from that union, and the birth of Dionysus. We have seen that this has connections with the Lydian and Phrygian cult of Sabazios and Hipta. But as in the case of the cosmogony,

⁶⁷ E.A.W. Budge, The Book of the Dead (1913; University Books ed., New York, 1960), 366 `the firstborn of the gods'; Hymn to (Budge, 108; ANET 365; A. Erman, The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians (1927, = The Ancient Egyptians, 1966), 283), `eldest of heaven, firstborn of earth . . . in whose beauty the gods rejoice . . . who made the gods, raised the heaven and laid down the ground'; Budge, 112 f. `traverser of eternity . . . who possesseth myriads of pairs of eyes and innumerable pairs of ears . . . who is the most hidden of the gods, whose deputy is the solar disc; the one incomprehensible, who hideth himself from that which cometh forth from him; the flame which sendeth forth rays of light with mighty splendour'; 498 `thou passest over the sky, and every face watcheth thee and thy course, for thou thyself art hidden from their gaze'; 550 `I am the firstborn of the primeval god . . . my created form is the god Eternity, the Lord of Years, and the Prince of Everlastingness. I am the Creator of the Darkness, who maketh his seat in the uttermost limits of the heavens'. Uraeus-snake: Roscher, iv. 1204. Selffructification: Budge, 267, 379, and The Gods of the Egyptians (1904), i. 310; ANET 6; Schwabl, 1500, 1502.

⁶⁸ Budge, 267, 379; ANET 3 bis, 6, 366(iv), (vi), 370; Erman, 286, 298 f. Cf. the creation by Ptah in the theology of Memphis, ANET 5.

⁶⁹ANET 365-71; Erman, 138-40, 283-91, 302-4.

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barbarian myth has been adapted to fit Hellenic tradition. Sabazios has become Dionysus, and there is nothing to indicate that the Anatolian name was mentioned in the poem.⁷⁰ Hipta was named, but not as the Great Mother, only as a minor figure, a go-between. The part of the mother is divided between Rhea-Demeter (who is a synthesis of two mother-figures) and Kore (as chthonic queen). The combination with the Greek mother and daughter pair, Demeter and Kore, makes an extra generation and probably accounts for the duplication of the snake-mating.

The Orphic poet's account of the successive races of men is adapted from Hesiod's. His story involved a double creation in any case, first by Protogonos and later by Zeus. It occurred to him to make sense of this, so far as mankind was concerned, by equating the original human race created by Protogonos with the golden race of Hesiod. In Hesiod it had lived under Kronos (Op. 111). Now Kronos had to be content with the silver race. As `the life under Kronos' was proverbially paradisiac,⁷¹ the Orphic poet emphasized the immensely long life enjoyed by this race and the absence of grey hair.⁷² His system left room for only one further race, the one created by Zeus. If he gave any thought to its correlation with traditional mythology, he must have seen that it covered the last three of Hesiod's eras, the bronze and heroic races as well as the iron, and he probably gave it no metallic label.⁷³

He no doubt attached more importance to his theory of transmigration of souls and to the eschatology associated with it. Transmigration through animal bodies is another doctrine of oriental origin. As was noted on p. 19, it appears in Greece after the mid sixth century. Pythagoras was notorious for his belief in it, though it was not peculiar to him and his followers.

⁷⁰ Diodorus 4.4 identifies the Dionysus born from Zeus and Persephone as `the one called by some people Sabazios'. Locally, being the most important male god, Sabazios was identified with Zeus: see above, n. 47 and Orph. Hymn 48.1.

⁷¹ See H.C. Baldry, CQ 2 (1952), 83-92.

⁷² Exemption from old age was a feature of Hesiod's golden race, Op. 114; cf. `Hes.' fr. 1.8-13.

⁷³ A divergent Orphic system is attested in fr. 29a (Nigidius Figulus fr. 67 Swoboda) and 139 (from Varro?): Kronos is the first ruler of men, Zeus the second, Poseidon the third, and Hades the fourth. The identity of the sources suggests a Neopythagorean origin for this.

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Date and Place of Origin

The Derveni Theogony, which is an abridged version of the original Protogonos Theogony, was known, under the name of Orpheus, to an Ionian commentator of the early fourth century BC. So it can scarcely have been composed later than the fifth century.

The oriental myth of the god Time as the first progenitor and the theory of transmigration of souls both make their first dated appearance in Greek in Pherecydes of Syros, about 540 BC. It would be surprising if the Protogonos poem were much earlier than this; and if it is true that the earthy moon appeared in it, it cannot be much earlier than 500.

We noted that the poet's account of transmigration resembled that of Empedocles, and that his teaching about perjured gods looked older than Empedocles'. This impression is corroborated by another comparison with the same author. The only classical parallel for Orpheus' startling conception of a god who absorbs the universe and then regenerates it from out of himself is Empedocles' divine Sphere, who, when the four elements are thoroughly blended by Love into one blancmange-like mass, `rejoices in his circular solitude', until the return of Dissension sends tremors through his body and the separating elements begin to take the shapes of all the beings that are now in the world.⁷⁴ Empedocles' theory, however, is a fully-fledged physical system. It is expressed in theological language but nevertheless scientific in its assumption of universally operative laws and recurrent processes. We cannot derive the Orphic Zeus from Empedocles; as we have seen, he is the necessary product of the combination of the oriental Protogonos with Hesiodic tradition. No, the Orphic myth surely belongs on the far side of Empedocles. This is not necessarily to say that Empedocles knew the Protogonos Theogony; but if he did know it, or something related to it, it certainly becomes easier to account for his Sphere that periodically absorbs everything and becomes solitary and then has the universe reconstituted from its body. The Orphic narrative provides a mythical prototype for his philosophical vision.⁷⁵

⁷⁴ DK 31 B 27-31, 35. I have commented on Empedocles' Love as a parallel to Orpheus' cosmic Aphrodite, p. 92.

⁷⁵ The connection was first made by Walter Burkert in a letter to me dated 31 July 1971.

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Empedocles has an obvious poetic precursor in Parmenides. He too has some points of contact with the Orphic theogony. In his `true' cosmology, from which all motion, change, and differentiation of qualities are excluded, there is of course no place for gods or events that might be compared with those in the Orphic narrative: there is only Being itself. But Parmenides' sense that Being is all one and continuous has something in common with the theological myth in which the entire universe is united in the body of Zeus, and when he calls Being `whole, unique' (B 1.4 ), this recalls the Orphic poet's phrase, that Zeus `became the only one' (). Zeus' creation of a cosmic Aphrodite and his intelligent `contriving' of Oceanus and other entities () find echoes in Parmenides' `apparent' cosmology, where a `goddess who steers all things, for she rules over all birth and union, sending female to unite with male and male with female,' was said to `contrive' other gods, beginning with Eros.⁷⁶ The Orphic description of the moon as another earth implies that it does not give out light of its own: Parmenides is the earliest dated author who is aware of that fact.⁷⁷ A phrase used by the Orphic poet in describing the moon's shape is strikingly similar to one used by Parmenides about Being.⁷⁸ Another phraseological parallel is , `Dike rich in penalties', if indeed this appeared in the Protogonos poem.⁷⁹ Finally, if Burkert is right in arguing that the chariot-journey which Parmenides describes in his proem took him into the house of Night, and that it was she who revealed to him the truth about the world, we cannot avoid thinking of the oracular sanctum of Night in the Orphic poem.⁸⁰

Parmenides' poem perhaps dates from the 490s.⁸¹ Its points of contact with the Orphic poem are not such as clearly to suggest the priority of the latterthe fact that `Orpheus' is quite untouched by Parmenides' philosophy is hardly decisive

⁷⁶ B 12.3-6; 13 . Plutarch, Amat. 756f, names the goddess as Aphrodite; Parmenides apparently called her Dike and Ananke (A 37), but she certainly has Aphrodite's functions.

⁷⁷ Cf. p. 49 with n. 45.

⁷⁸ Above, n. 41.

⁷⁹ Orph. fr. (21 ~) 158 (above, n. 35); Parm. B 1.14.

⁸⁰ Burkert, Phronesis 14 (1969), 1-30; the Orphic parallel is noted by him on p. 17.

⁸¹EGPO 220 n. 3.

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but they do suggest proximity, a single stream from which both drew. Parmenides and Empedocles, considered by themselves, appear to constitute a western tradition, the one writing in Italy, the other in Sicily. But philosophy came to the west across a bridge, the other end of which was in Ionia. Many of Parmenides' elders in Elea must have been among the original colonists from Phocaea. The Orphic poem is more likely to have been composed on the eastern side of the bridge than the western, in view of its connection with the Anatolian Sabazios cult. Knowledge of it crossed the bridge, however, if its influence is rightly detected in Empedocles. And if it began with the words `I sing for those of understanding', we can compare this on the one hand with Heraclitus in the east denouncing his hearers for their lack of understanding, and on the other with Pindar telling Theron of Acragas, in a poem famous for its (so-called Orphic) eschatology, that he has much unused ammunition which is `meaningful to those of understanding'.⁸²

To sum up: the Protogonos Theogony was composed for what may fairly be called a Bacchic society, probably in Ionia. If we date it to 500 BC we may feel a certain amount of confidence that we are not in the wrong generation. A gospel of salvation by Dionysus was combined with metempsychosis theory, and a story of Dionysus' birth, a Hellenized version of a Sabazian cult myth, was set in the framework of a complete cosmogony, which was a compromise between Hesiodic tradition and an arresting cosmogonic myth of very different character recently imported from the Near East.

The poem shares with early Pythagoreanism the theory of metempsychosis and the use of the name Orpheus. But it is

⁸² (pp. 83-4); Hclt. fr. 1 = B 1 , cf. 2 = B 34 ; Pind. O. 2.85 . The eschatology of this ode is indeed close to that of the Orphic poem. There is judgement of the dead (56-60), a pleasant existence for the good with those gods who have not perjured themselves (61-7), a hell for the wicked, presumably with the perjurer gods (67), repeated reincarnations with the possibility of final escape to the Isle of the Blessed where the heroes live (68 ff.). Cf. Pind. fr. 129-30, 133; 131a Orph. fr. 232.5. In 133 those who have nearly qualified for hero status return to earth for their last mortal life `in the ninth year': the Orphic period of excarnation is given as 300 years, but cf. the nine(?)-year ordeal of perjurer gods. If Pindar thought of these souls as having begun their career as fallen gods, the `ancient grief' for which they atone should be their original offence (perjury or bloodshed, as Emp. B 115?). Cf. p. 22. Is it coincidence that in the same poem (17) Pindar refers to `Chronos, the father of all'?

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not in any sense Pythagorean; it belongs in the sphere of Ionian Bacchica identified on pp. 15-18. In the section there headed `The point of convergence' I have indicated how I see these Bacchica and Pythagoreanism as developing from a common background.

The Early Transmission of the Poem

The poem did not circulate as literature in the way that, say, Hesiod did. It was transmitted among religious circles, perhaps in many variant versions. The Derveni commentator had one secondary redaction, and we have no reason to suppose it was the only one.

This commentator, it was suggested, was himself an initiate, still from the Ionian area, writing in the first half of the fourth century. Sometime later in the century we find a copy of his work (if not of the Orphic poem) in Macedon, a country in which Dionysiac cults flourished. The poem seems also to have reached Sicily in the early fifth century; there is no telling how long it survived there. Evidence for knowledge of it at Athens is scanty. The beginning of the parody-cosmogony in Aristophanes' Birds shows some similarity to the Protogonos myth:

There was Chaos and Night and black Erebos first, and Tartarus'
  broadness,
but no earth was, nor air nor sky. Then in Erebos' limitless bosom
as her first brood the black-winged deity Night gave birth to a wind-egg,
from which as the turning seasons revolved grew Eros the lovely,
with gold-gleaming wings on his back, the image of wind-spin swiftness.
He, secretly mixed with the wingèd Chaos in Tartarus' broadness,
hatched forth our avian race and first brought it into the daylight.
No race of immortals existed till Eros mixed all things together,
but out of the various mixings the heaven was born, and the Ocean,
and earth and the whole deathless race of the blessed ones. (693-702)

There is no mention of Time here, but there is Chaos, gloom, and Night at the beginning, and a shining, winged, firstborn god, identified as Eros, who comes from an egg and is responsible for the creation of heaven and earth. Of course Aristophanes' purpose is comic, and he brings in an egg and several winged deities because they are specially appropriate to a birds' cosmogony. But he chose these motifs, he did not invent them.

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Much of the delicate humour lies in his use of elements from serious theogonies.⁸³ We cannot say that he knew the Protogonos Theogony as such, but he has certainly heard of some of the motifs it contained. The egg also played a part in pseudo-Epimenides' theogony, which I have suggested was composed in Athens some years before the Birds. There may be an explicit allusion to Protogonos in some tantalizingly fragmentary lines from a chorus in Euripides' Hypsipyle.⁸⁴ The word [is there, and in the immediate vicinity probably `sightless Chaos' or `unfathomed light' (.]) and Aer or Aither; perhaps Eros; possibly Night. The subject of the preceding strophe is apparently a Dionysiac miracle.

Isocrates names Orpheus as the poet who, more than any other, related unseemly stories about the gods, stories of the sort exemplified by Kronos' castration of his father and consumption of his children.⁸⁵ He presumably has a theogony in mind, but although the Protogonos Theogony has its share of violence, there is nothing to show that this is the one Isocrates is thinking of. Plato knows an `ancient' account, related by certain priests and priestesses, about reincarnation, and he or the author of the Seventh Letter attributed to him also knows of an `ancient holy account' to the effect that the soul is immortal and suffers judgement and punishment in the other world.⁸⁶ We have noted one probable allusion in Plato to a verse attested by the Derveni papyrus (p. 89 n. 35), and another in Aristotle to an Orphic doctrine about the soul which appears in the eschatology that we have attributed to the Protogonos Theogony (p. 99). Yet we cannot be sure that the verses in question were peculiar to this poem. If Plato and other Athenians of the classical age did know the poem, it is strange that they make no reference to its extraordinary account of Zeus

⁸³ See the analysis by Schwabl, 1473. The birds' derogatory opening address of men as

                                frail of life, like the leaves' generations,
feeble figments of clay, like shadows, hordes without substance,
unfledged things of a day, like dream-creatures, suffering mortals

(685-7), stands in a tradition of divine revelations (h. Dem. 256 f., etc., cf. Richardson, ad loc., p. 243) which is drawn on by Orpheus (fr. 233), Parmenides, and Empedocles.

⁸⁴ 1103-8 (p. 45 Bond, with commentary, pp. 121 f.) = Orph. fr. 2.

⁸⁵Busiris 38 f., cf. Pl. Euthyphr. 5e-6b (Orph. fr. 17).

⁸⁶Phaed. 70c, Meno 81ab, Ep. vii. 335a.

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ingesting the gods and the world.⁸⁷ Where Plato and Eudemus do refer to an Orphic genealogy of gods, it disagrees with the scheme of the Protogonos Theogony, as we shall see in the next chapter.

In the next century the Stoics Cleanthes and Chrysippus clearly did know the story of Zeus swallowing the gods. They adapted it to their own physical theory. The cosmic elements, they said, were gods, but not deathless: only Zeus, the divine aspect of the cosmos as a whole, was eternal, periodically consuming the rest and regenerating them out of himself.⁸⁸ In Chapter 6 we shall make the acquaintance of a Stoicizing adaptation of the Protogonos Theogony, and in Chapter 7 we shall see how the late Hellenistic compiler of the Rhapsodies combined the poem with the other Orphic material at his disposal.

⁸⁷ Aeschylus' famous lines `Zeus is the air, Zeus earth, and Zeus the sky; Zeus is the universe, and all beyond' (fr. 105 M.), like Parmenides' doctrine of homogeneous Being, express a sense of the world's indivisible oneness which is analogous to that implied in the Orphic myth, but they certainly need not be taken as an allusion to it.

⁸⁸SVF i. 121.24, ii. 168.7, 185.43, 309.26; Plut. De comm. not. 1065b. In De defectu orac. 415f Plutarch talks of Orphic verses being forcedly interpreted to refer to the Stoic ecpyrosis.

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Appendix:
An Exempli Gratia Reconstruction of the Derveni Theogony

(the portion covered by the surviving parts of the commentary)

  1 col. iv+fr. 13/334       5-7 col. v/x     7: hoc loco traditur 13     8-11 col.
vii-ix+frr. 104-6      12-14 col. x/v        12  pap. sicut 6;
13 post 6 traditur    15 col. ix      16-19 col. xi-xii        17 
pap.            21-24 col. xiii        21  pap.                25 col. xiii. 14
26-29 col. xiv-xvi+fr. 21a. 1-7

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30                  

<><><><><><><><><><><><>

  30-31 fr. 21a.8-9      32-34 col. xviii      36-37 col. xx      38-40 fr. 91
41-42 col. xxi    43-44 cf. col. xxii      45 col. xxii     47 col. xxiii

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IV
The Eudemian and Cyclic Theogonies

The third of the three theogonies cited by Damascius (above, p. 68) was `the theology recorded in the Peripatetic Eudemus as being that of Orpheus'. In one of his works, we do not know which, Eudemus surveyed the theogonic doctrines of earlier thinkers, both Greek and barbarian. Besides Orpheus he discussed Homer, Hesiod, Acusilaus, Epimenides, Pherecydes, the Babylonians, Persians, and Phoenicians. We know all this from the same long passage of Damascius, in which Eudemus is repeatedly mentioned and is evidently the primary source.¹ Eudemus is much quoted by the Neoplatonists, and there is no doubt that they had direct access to his works. There are several indications that Damascius' account of his theogonic discussion is substantially accurate.²

The Genealogical Framework

It appears from Damascius' words that Eudemus described a theogony and said that this was the theogony of Orpheus, or the one said to be by Orpheus. In other words Eudemus knew one Orphic theogony, and was not troubled as we are by the complication of knowing more than one. Damascius unfor-fortunately reproduces only one fact about it. It began from Night, and nothing was mentioned before Night.

Aristotle, too, speaks of `theologians' who derive everything from Night.³ He is clearly not thinking of theogonies like those ascribed to Musaeus and Epimenides, which began from a pair, Tartarus and Night, or Aer and Night. He has in view a theogony where Night alone occupied the first place, and it was surely the Orphic one described by his pupil and colleague Eudemus. Two additional details can be gathered from what he says. The theogony did not represent Night itself as having

¹ See F. Wehrli, Eudemos von Rhodos (1955), fr. 150, with commentary, pp. 121-3.

² Wehrli, l.c.

³Metaph. 1071b27 = fr. 24 Kern; cf. 1072a8, and the `ancient poets' in 1091b4 (Night and Heaven).

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a beginning: it did not say that Night `came into being' (as Hesiod says `First Chaos came 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 (40e) 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.⁴ 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 his survey. Hellenistic authors knew one, but we cannot detect any points of contact between it and the divine genealogy of the Timaeus.⁵ 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 same poem. It is also likely to be the same 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 and all of that brood; from Kronos and Rhea, Zeus and Hera and all their brothers and sisters we hear tell 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. In 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 (40c) 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 Uranos, and there is nothing against supplying Night there. There is in fact a passage of John

⁴Rep. 364e/366b. Cf. Staudacher, 79 n. 14. Linforth, 109 is hypercritical.

⁵ Cf. p. 42.

⁶Metaph. 983b28, Meteor. 347a6 ~ Crat. 402b, Theaet. 152e; Metaph. 984b23 ~ Symp. 178b; 986b21 ~ Soph. 242d.

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Lydus where the first principles 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 Rhapsodies, and the most likely hypothesis is that he got it directly or indirectly from Eudemus.⁷

We can accordingly put together a genealogy as follows:

Here are six generations; and in Philebus 66c (= fr. 14 Kern) Plato quotes a verse of Orpheus

In the sixth generation 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

In Cratylus 402b (= fr. 15 K.) Plato quotes the verses

Oceanus first, the fair-flowing, initiated marriage;
he was husband to Tethys, his own sister from one mother.

He quotes them in support of a playful argument 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 stage, before those of Phorkys and Kronos. But `first initiated marriage' is problematic if Oceanus and Tethys were

⁷ Lyd. De mens. 2.8 = fr. 310 Kern. The Eudemus he cites in De mens. 4.98 seems to be another. His other quotations from Orpheus come from the Neopythagorean Hymn to Number (frr. 309, 312, 316, probably also 276), which cannot be in question here.

⁸ Schuster, 13; O. Gruppe, Jahrb. f. cl. Phil., Suppl. 17 (1890), 694 n. 1; cf. Hes. Th. 105 ff. `In the sixth generation' should not be taken to mean that there were only five generations (Linforth, 149); see Holwerda, 371 n. 1. In my identification of the six generations I follow Gruppe, 703, and E. Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen (6th ed. rev. W. Nestle, 1919-20), i. 123 n. 2. I can see no ground for the idea of A. Dieterich, Abraxas (1891), 128 n. 2, and Moulinier, 22, that human generations in a myth of Ages are meant. These are in Hesiod, not , and in the only known Orphic version (pp. 75, 97, 107) there were only three of them, not six.

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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 Greek word can be used of any mating. If the meaning is that Oceanus was the first of his generation to marry,¹⁰ then the question arises what brothers or sisters he had besides Tethys. Plato does not mention anythough he might have omitted figures such as Pontos, Sea (born from Ge in Hesiod) in order to concentrate on the main line of descent. I shall suggest another answer presently.

It is clear that this poem cannot be identified with the Protogonos Theogony. There too Night was the mother of Uranos and Ge, but she was not the first deity of all. There was no intermediate generation between Uranos and Kronos.

The Primeval Parents

So much for the fourth-century Athenian evidence. It will be possible later to enlarge our knowledge of the poem from another source. But first let us reflect on what we have put together so far and compare it with the Hesiodic genealogy of gods.

In Hesiod the children of Uranos and Ge comprise twelve Titans, three Cyclopes, and three Hundred-Handers. The Titans include Oceanus and Tethys and Kronos and Rhea. Oceanus and Tethys, however, seem somewhat out of place in this company, for the Titans are essentially gods who have been condemned to Tartarus, and Oceanus was never in Tartarus; he is part of the upper world. Hesiod even represents him as assisting Zeus against the Titans by sending his daughter Styx with her children Zelos, Nike, Kratos, and Bie (Th. 389-98). In Homer, too, Oceanus and Tethys stay well out of the Titanomachy: Hera is evacuated to them (Il. 14.200-4). In the same passage they are referred to as

Oceanus the genesis of the gods, and mother Tethys,¹¹

⁹ Schuster, 9-11. `From the same mother' carries no implication that they had no father. Cf. Ar. Nub. 1371-2, `And at once he started some Euripidean speech about a brother who (Lord save us) screwed his sister from the same mother', with the scholium, `As the Athenians permit marriage with half-sisters from the father, he added ''from the same mother" to emphasize the outrage'.

¹⁰ Lobeck, 508; O. Kern, De Orphei Epimenidis Pherecydis theogoniis quaestiones criticae (1888), 43; Holwerda, 314; Staudacher, 93.

¹¹ 201. Cf. 246, `Oceanus, who is the genesis of all'.

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which puts them in an earlier generation than the Titans. Hesiod's accommodation of them in the list of Titans, then, appears to be something secondary and artificial, a matter of administrative convenience, whereas their position in an anterior generation in the Orphic theogony is a better reflection of their status in mythological tradition.

But in Homer Oceanus and Tethys are not children of Uranos and Ge, they are themselves the primeval parents, long estranged from each other.¹² The Orphic genealogy is a compromise between the primacy of Oceanus and Tethys and the primacy of Uranos and Ge. This suggests a new explanation of the verse `Oceanus first, the fair-flowing, initiated marriage'. Perhaps it was originally composed for a theogony in which it was literally true, and the Orphic theogony known to Plato was an adaptation of such a poem, in which the verse was allowed to stand but made to bear a different, forced sense.

The Iliad passage has another point of contact with the Orphic theogony. It mentions the goddess Night, and it mentions her as being a goddess of such high status that even Zeus in a rage is afraid to offend her (261). Otto Gruppe, following Damascius, conjectured that Homer knew a genealogy in which she stood even before Oceanus and Tethys.¹³ In that case we would have a direct precedent for the Orphic genealogy; Uranos and Ge would simply have been inserted between Night and Oceanus.

Hera says in the Iliad passage that Oceanus and Tethys have long been estranged from each other by quarrelling (205). Behind this Olympian gossip there may lie a cosmogonic myth, for the separation of primeval parents who were originally united is a familiar cosmogonic motif. Usually they are Earth and Heaven.¹⁴ But in the Babylonian Enûma Elis * they are, as

¹² 205-7. The Olympians however are , 1.570, al. An ancient scholar whose view is reproduced in the Etymologicum Genuinum and Magnum s.v. explained Acmon, the father of Uranos according to certain poets, as equivalent to Oceanus: a false theory, but based on the idea that Oceanus had been regarded as father of Uranos. Perhaps only a construction from Homer. Theodoretus, Curat. Affect. Gr. 2.28, oddly attributes to Hesiod a genealogy in which Oceanus and Tethys do precede Uranos and Ge, being themselves preceded by Chaos.

¹³Die griech. Culte und Mythen, i (1887), 618. We may not argue against this conjecture with Schwabl, 1438 that `genesis of the gods' means that there was nothing before Oceanus.

¹⁴ See Staudacher's monograph.

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was mentioned earlier, the aquatic figures Apsû and Tiâmata suggestive parallel to Oceanus and Tethys.

The Titans

The children of Oceanus and Tethys in the Orphic poem are named as `Phorkys, Kronos, Rhea, and all the rest'. 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. 114), 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.

If Dione was a Titan, Aphrodite was probably made her daughter by Zeus instead of being born from Uranos' genitals. Perhaps the whole story of the castration of Uranos was absent from this poem, as the Titans were not his children but his grandchildren. As we have noted similarities between the Orphic poet's system and that of the Iliad, it may be worth observing that Zeus and Dione are Aphrodite's parents in that poem.¹⁵ In 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 ejaculation while pursuing Dione.¹⁶

The Cyclic Theogony

We have not finished with the Eudemian Theogony, but to get further with it we must at this point start off on a new line of investigation.

At the beginning of Apollodorus' Bibliotheca (1.1) we find an account of the early history of the gods, from the reign of

¹⁵ Cf. also the list of gods in Hes. Th. 11-21, which associates Dione with Aphrodite (unlike the main part of the poem, where she is merely a nymph) and ends with Ge, Oceanus, and Night.

¹⁶ Frr. 183-4, cf. p. 73. The combination is obviously modelled on the myth of the birth of Erichthonios, in which Hephaestus, pursuing Athena, ejaculated on her leg, and she wiped the semen off with a piece of wool (erion) and threw it on the ground (chthon). (This version Apollod. 3.14.6.3, sch. Pl. Tim. 23e; others in E. fr. 925 (Hyg. Fab. 166) and Amelesagoras 330 F 1.)

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Uranos to the nurture of Zeus in Crete, which agrees in most details with section C of the Orphic Rhapsodies (p. 71).

Rhapsodies

Apollodorus

Uranos was the first king after his mother Night; he and Ge contract the first marriage. She gives birth to the Moirai;
Kottos, Briareos, Gyges (100Handers); Brontes, Steropes, Arges (Cyclopes).
Uranos was the first ruler of the world.
He marries Ge.

She gives birth to
Kottos, Briareos, Gyges (100Handers); Brontes, Steropes, Arges (Cyclopes).
1.1.12

Uranos has heard that he will be deposed by his own children, and when he sees this stern, lawless brood, he throws them into Tartarus. Ge is angry, and secretly gives birth to the Titans and Titanides:
Themis Tethys Mnemosyne Theia
Dione Phoibe Rhea + Koios Kreios
Phorkys Kronos Oceanus Hyperion
Iapetos. Kronos is specially nursed by Night.
Uranos binds them and throws them into Tartarus, which is as far below the earth as earth is below heaven.

He fathers more children on Ge: the Titans and Titanides:
Tethys Rhea Themis Mnemosyne
Phoibe Dione Theia + Oceanus Koios
Hyperion Kreios Iapetos Kronos.
1.1.23

Ge incites the Titans to castrate Uranos. Oceanus alone is unwilling and stays aloof. The deed is done when Uranos comes to lie with Ge. Uranos is cast down from his car (?). The genitals are thrown in the sea, foam forms, and Aphrodite is born; she is received by Zelos and Apate. From the blood the Giants are born.
Ge, angry, incites the Titans to castrate Uranos, and gives Kronos an adamantine sickle. They attack Uranos, Oceanus remaining aloof. Uranos is deposed and the imprisoned brothers released. The genitals are thrown in the sea.
From the blood the Erinyes are born, Alecto, Teisiphone, and Megaira.
1.1.4

Kronos is now king, enthroned upon Olympus.
The Titan brothers and sisters marry one another. Oceanus is set apart and dwells in his remote streams. Kronos' rule is tyrannical. He has children by Rhea (incl. Hera and Hestia), but swallows at least the males.
Kronos is given the kingship. He reimprisons the brothers just freed from Tartarus. He marries Rhea. (For the other Titan marriages Ap. follows Hesiod, 1.2.2-5, and adds Pontos' family from the same source.) Ge and Uranos foretell that Kronos will be deposed by one of his children, so he swallows them: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Pluto, Poseidon. 1.1.5

Zeus, however, is concealed in the cave of Night, and nursed by the nymphs Adrastea and Ida, daughters of Melissos and Amalthea. Adrastea clashes bronze cymbals at the cave entrance, and mother and child are also guarded by
Rhea, angry, goes to Crete when pregnant with Zeus, and he is born in a cave on Dicte and nursed by the Kouretes and the nymphs Adrastea and Ida, daughters of Melisseus, who rear him on the milk of Amalthea.

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the three Kouretes, who are themselves sons of Rhea. As mother of Zeus Rhea becomes `Demeter'. She gives Kronos a swaddled stone to swallow, which makes him vomit up his children.
The Kouretes guard him, clashing spears on shields. Kronos is given a swaddled stone to swallow. 1.1.67
On maturity Zeus takes Metis as his helper; she gives Kronos a drug which makes him vomit up the stone and his children. 1.2.1.1

Apollodorus' narrative continues with an otherwise unknown version of the Titanomachy, in which, after the war has gone on for ten years, Ge prophesies that Zeus will be victorious if he enlists the aid of the gods imprisoned in Tartarus. He goes and releases them, killing their warder, the monster Kampe. The Cyclopes then arm Zeus with the thunderbolt, Pluto with the helmet of invisibility, and Poseidon with the trident. With the advantage of this special equipment they defeat the Titans, consign them to Tartarus, and set the Hundred-Handers to guard them. The conclusion again parallels the Rhapsodies:

Hades occupies the lower world, Poseidon the sea, while Zeus rides a goat up to heaven.
They draw lots, and Zeus obtains power in heaven, Poseidon in the sea, Pluto in Hades. 1.2.1.4

At first glance the significance of these comparisons may seem questionable. A sceptic could point to the presence in Hesiod of nearly all the constituents of Apollodorus' account. There are, however, several features in which it differs from Hesiod and agrees with the Orphic narrative:

1. Uranos is expressly designated as the first ruler of the world (with a qualification in the Rhapsodies).¹⁷

2. The Hundred-Handers and Cyclopes are born before the Titans, not after. Uranos throws them into Tartarus, and it is this that leads the Titans to castrate him.

3. Dione appears as a Titan in addition to the Hesiodic twelve.

4. Oceanus is expressly excluded from the assault on Uranos.

5. Zeus is nurtured by the nymphs Adrastea and Ida, daughters of Melissos or Melisseus, and guarded by the Kouretes. Amalthea is also mentioned.

¹⁷ Fr. 111 `who first became king of the gods, after his mother Night'. In Hesiod only Kronos and Zeus are called kings.

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6. The division of the universe among the three sons of Kronos is described.

There are a few discrepancies between Apollodorus and the Rhapsodies. Some of them can be explained from Apollodorus' own disposition of material. He omits the Moirai from among the children of Ge because he is going to present them as daughters of Zeus and Themis in 1.3.1.1. He omits Phorkys from the list of Titans because in 1.2.6-7 he is going to reproduce Hesiod's stemma of the children of Pontos, and Phorkys has his place there. He omits the birth of the Giants from the drops of blood because he is reserving their birth for 1.6.1, where he will tell of their battle against the gods. The Erinyes, whom he does record as born from the blood, were probably mentioned with the Giants in the Rhapsodies (as in Hesiod, Th. 185); it is a mere accident that this is not attested in the fragments. Other discrepancies may reflect real differences of detail between Apollodorus' immediate source and the Rhapsodies. When Apollodorus omits the birth of Aphrodite from the severed genitals of Uranos and later (1.3.1.1) makes her the daughter of Zeus and Dione, this may be all that his source gave, as against the two births which she had in the Rhapsodies. Zeus is brought up in the cave of Night according to the Rhapsodies, whereas in Apollodorus it is the Dictaean cave. The other details of the episode are all appropriate to the Cretan setting (Adrastea, Ida, Amalthea, Kouretes), and it is clearly Apollodorus who preserves the primary version. Finally there is the disagreement over the emetic administered to Kronos. When we recall that in the Rhapsodies Metis had been identified with Protogonos (p. 88), it is apparent that the compiler had to alter such a story as the one in Apollodorus if he found it in his source-poem. He seems to have eliminated both Metis and the drug, and simplified things by making the stone swallowed by Kronos itself have emetic effect upon him.

Now, where did Apollodorus get his account from? The sources of the Bibliotheca are various. It draws largely on the great logographers (Acusilaus, Pherecydes, Hellanicus) andpartly at second handon epic poems under authoritative names: Hesiod's Theogony and Catalogue of Women; the Cyclic epics about Troy; Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica. Variant

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versions are sometimes noted from other sources in passing. The scope of the work as a whole matches that of the Epic Cycle described in the Chrestomathy of Proclus, of which Photius tells us:

He (Proclus) also handles the so-called Epic Cycle, which begins from the fabled union of Uranos and Ge, from which they say he begot three hundred-handed sons and three Cyclopes; and it covers the other pagan myths about the gods, and everything historical too. The Epic Cycle is made up from various poets, and it comes to an end with Odysseus' landing at Ithaca, when he was killed unrecognised by his son Telegonus.¹⁸

We are not fully informed about which poems were included in the Cycle. We gather from Photius that a theogony stood in first place, and that it began (like Apollodorus' account) with the marriage of Uranos and Ge and the birth (before the Titans, not, as in Hesiod, after) of the Hundred-Handers and Cyclopes. The Cycle also included the Titanomachy ascribed to Eumelus or Arctinus,¹⁹ and the Thebaid ascribed to Homer;²⁰ and it ended with the Trojan epics, Proclus' summaries of which are preserved. These summaries, as Bethe discovered, show a similarity extending to verbal parallels with the epitome of the missing conclusion of Apollodorus. It appears, therefore, that from first to last one of Apollodorus' sources was a prose summary of the Epic Cycle, a summary reproduced by Proclus, who shows that it was divided up by headings which named the source-poems. Apollodorus did away with the headings and made a continuous narrative, removing some inconsistencies and introducing occasional material from other sources.

His account of the early history of the gods in 1.1, then, was based on a prose summary of the theogony which occupied the initial place in the Epic Cycle. This poem, as we have seen, closely resembled a section of the Orphic Rhapsodies, though in two or three points it was free from secondary modifications that were present in the Rhapsodies. The inference is plain: this Cyclic theogony itself went under the name of Orpheus, and it was one of the poems, or part of one of the poems, used by the compiler of the Rhapsodies. If it had not been ascribed to

¹⁸ Photius, Bibl. 318b; T.W. Allen, Homeri Opera v (1912), 96 f.; E. Bethe, Homer, Dichtung und Sage, ii (2nd ed., 1929), 149 (= Der troische Epenkreis (1966), 1).

¹⁹ Ath. 277c-e.

²⁰ Asclepiades (of Myrlea?) ap. sch. Pind. O. 6.26, sch. S. OC 1375, Ath. 465e; cf. Apollod. 3.6.

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Orpheus, the compiler would not have been interested in it. Besides, it is hard to see why the inventor of the Cycle should have chosen to begin with this theogony rather than Hesiod's but for the greater authority of Orpheus' name.

Apollodorus' peculiar account of the war of the gods and Titans corresponds to nothing in the Rhapsodies, where the Titans could not be expelled from the world till after the birth of Dionysus. He may have taken it not from the Cyclic Theogony but from the Titanomachy ascribed to Eumelus or Arctinus, which also had a place in the Epic Cycle (suggesting that the Theogony lacked a Titanomachy). We know that it recorded the birth of Chiron from Kronos and Philyra, which Apollodorus has a little later (1.2.4).

Relationship of the Cyclic to the Protogonos and Eudemian Theogonies

The Cyclic poem of which we have been able to reconstruct a good part has some important things in common with the Protogonos Theogony. It specified that Uranos was the first king; and, much more significantly, it had the distinctive anti-Hesiodic version of his story, with the Hundred-Handers and Cyclopes born first and bound in Tartarus, and then the birth of the Titans. There can be no question of two Orphic poets having arrived at this arrangement independently.

On the other hand there are points of contact between the Cyclic Theogony and the Eudemian. The most notable concerns the list of the Titans. In the Eudemian Theogony we have Oceanus and Tethys as the third generation, and then the Titans, who, I have suggested, were twelve in number, namely Koios, Kreios, Hyperion, Iapetos, Phorkys, Kronos, Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoibe, and Dione. In the Cyclic Theogony we have instead of this a single generation of fourteen Titans, namely Oceanus and Tethys plus the other twelve. This unnatural complement of fourteen is most convincingly explained as the result of compressing the two generations into one.²¹ A less important point of contact between the two poems

²¹ Schuster, 9. Dornseiff, L'Antiquité classique 6 (1937), 236 f. = Antike und alter Orient (2nd ed., 1959), 42, tries to argue that the 14 Orphic Titans are earlier than the 12 of Hesiod; but he overlooks many derivative elements in the Orphic version. Others derive the number from the division of Dionysus into 7 parts (fr. 210b), pointing out that Osiris was divided into 14 parts, one for each day of the

(footnote continued on next page)

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concerns Aphrodite. In the Eudemian Theogony, I suggested, Uranos was not castrated, and Aphrodite was the daughter of Zeus and Dione, not a product of Uranos' genitals. In the Cyclic Theogony there was certainly a castration, but it appears that Aphrodite was again the daughter of Zeus and Dione.

Other links between the Cyclic and Eudemian Theogonies are somewhat more speculative. Apollonius Rhodius (1.496 ff.) makes Orpheus sing a theogony for the Argonauts in which earth, heaven, and sea, originally united, are separated by strife. Ophion and Eurynome rule over the gods until they are overthrown by Kronos and Rhea and fall into Oceanus. Zeus is reared in the Dictaean cave, and comes to power after the Cyclopes arm him with the thunderbolt. We have no reason to expect a précis of an actual Orphic theogony known to Apollonius, and this does not look like one. The reign of Ophion and Eurynome and their defeat by Kronos and collapse into the waters of Oceanus are evidently adapted from Pherecydes of Syros.²² At the same time, though, they make an extra generation between Uranos and Kronossomething paralleled only in the Eudemian Theogonyand Ophion is in a sense a suitable substitute for Oceanus, who occupies that place in the Orphic poem, because he took up his abode in Oceanus and was identified with Oceanus by allegorizing interpreters.²³ Apollonius may therefore be combining a motif from Pherecydes (the defeat of Ophion by Chronos [sic]) with the general scheme of the Eudemian Theogony (succession of Oceanus by Kronos). As for the nurture of Zeus in the Dictaean cave, he certainly did not find that in Pherecydes, nor in Hesiod. Perhaps he found it in the Orphic theogony. In allusions to Zeus' infancy elsewhere in the Argonautica he refers to the Kouretes and to the nurse Adrastea (2.1234; 3.133). His elder contemporaries

(footnote continued from previous page)

waning moon (Plut. Is. Os. 358a, 368a), and one for each of the `Titans', i.e. Seth's followers (Lobeck, 557; Gruppe, Die griech. Culte und Mythen, i. 639; Ziegler, RE xviii. 1356). But there are various traditions about the number of Osiris' parts (14, 16, 26, 42: J. Gwyn Griffiths, Plutarch's De Iside et Osiride (1970), 338). There was no tradition that the number corresponded to that of Seth's followers (of whom there were 72 according to Plut. 356b): only Diodorus (1.21, 4.6.3) assumes it. In any case Dionysus in the Orphic story was not attacked by 14 or 7 Titans, since Oceanus can hardly have taken part, any more than he did in the castration of Uranos (p. 130).

²² G. Zoëga, Abhandlungen (1817), 244; EGPO 22 f.

²³ See EGPO 23.

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Callimachus and Aratus have a very similar tale to tell: if the Eudemian Theogony is Apollonius' primary source, it will also be theirs.²⁴ Callimachus has Adrastea; he and Aratus both have the Kouretes, and a goat who suckles Zeus; Callimachus calls her Amalthea. All three poets confuse Ida and Dicte (which are in different parts of Crete), and speak of a Dictaean cave, which so far as we can tell never existed.²⁵ All these details recur in the Cyclic Theogony.

We have noted several allusions in the Iliad to mythical motifs cognate with motifs in the Eudemian Theogony: Night as a venerable goddess; Oceanus and Tethys as the primeval parents; Dione as mother of Aphrodite. The drawing of lots by the sons of Kronos to determine the distribution of the universe among them (Il. 15.187-92) would be an important addition to the list if it occurred in the Eudemian Theogony. Callimachus refers to it as a story of `ancient poets' directly after his description of Zeus' Cretan nursery, which I have suggested above is based on the Orphic poem.²⁶ It does appear to have stood in the Cyclic Theogony.

The result of these various comparisons is that the Cyclic poem agreed in part with the Protogonos Theogony, in a way that cannot be fortuitous, while it also contained some material that agreed with the Eudemian Theogony, and some that seems to presuppose it. The Protogonos and Eudemian Theogonies, so far as we can tell, had little in common with each other beyond the name of Orpheus and the affiliation of Uranos to Night. The situation appears to be that these two poems had independent origins, and the author of the Cyclic version drew on both of them to produce a contaminated account.

His purpose was different from those of the older poets. What they were constructing was the sacred story of a religious sect, culminating in events and assurances of special interest and validity for the initiates of that sect. The Cyclic Theogony,

²⁴ Call. H. 1.46-54; Arat. 30-5, 162-4. They will also have been aware of Epimenides' account (see p. 48). Aratus' `prophets of Zeus' (164) may mean Epimenides.

²⁵ Cf. my note on Hes. Th. 477; G.L. Huxley, GRBS 8 (1967), 85-7.

²⁶H. 1.60 f. He may, of course, mean only Homer. The mythical motif is Babylonian: `The gods had clasped hands together, Had cast lots and had divided. Anu had gone up to heaven, [. .] . . . the earth to his subjects. [The bolt], the bar of the sea, [They had given] to Enki, the prince' (W.G. Lambert and A.R. Millard, Atra-Hasis * (1969), 43).

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on the other hand, stood in the Epic Cycle, as the first link in a chain. The arranger of the Cycle aimed to construct an omnibus mythology out of the mass of ancient poems available. He needed an account of the gods' genealogies, an account of the Titanomachy, and so on. Some editing was necessary for the sake of continuity and consistency, and it appears that some of the Troy epics, at least, were tailored to fit each other.²⁷ Now it is hardly likely that the editor would have wished to include a special Orphic gospel in his scheme. His poem stood under the name of Orpheus only because it was drawn from Orphic sources. Nor did he care, perhaps, for the monstrous Protogonos and all the complexities associated with him. He was content to begin with the marriage of Uranos and Ge, and to take the story only as far as the deliverance of Zeus' brothers and sisters from Kronos' stomach and the establishment of the Olympian regime under Zeus.

It is not known when the Cycle was constructed. A cycle of Trojan epics seems to be presupposed by an alternative opening of the Iliad known to Aristoxenus in the fourth century BC,²⁸ and indeed by the structure of some of the epics involved,²⁹ but it may only have been a Trojan Cycle to begin with. For the greater Cycle there is no certain evidence before the second century AD. However, that would be a date more appropriate to the prose epitome than to the original arrangement. The early Hellenistic period would not be unsuitable for such an enterprise of unification. The compiler of the Rhapsodies, whom I shall argue to have worked about 100 BC, apparently knew the Cyclic Theogony, as he had the same list of fourteen Titans, reflecting the Cyclist's compromise between the Eudemian and Protogonos traditions.

The Overthrow of Uranos

In the Eudemian Theogony, I have suggested, the castration of Uranos was absent. As the poet told of Uranos and Ge giving birth to Oceanus and Tethys, and Oceanus and Tethys giving birth to the Titans, it is not easy to see how he could

²⁷ See D.B. Monro, Homer's Odyssey, Books XIII-XXIV (1901), 342-5.

²⁸ Vita Romana Homeri, p. 32 Wilamowitz.

²⁹ Cf. Bethe, Homer, ii. 287 ff. = Der troische Epenkreis, 139 ff.

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have set up a situation in which the Titans had to castrate their grandfather.³⁰

In the Cyclic as in the Protogonos Theogony the castration had its place. The story was told in a way that drew heavily on Hesiod. The Hundred-Handers and Cyclopes were named and described just as in Hesiod, and the Tartarus to which they were sent was located, as in Hesiod, `as far below earth as earth is below heaven'. Again as in Hesiod, Ge incited her children to attack Uranos, and gave Kronos an adamantine sickle to do it with. He threw the genitals in the seathough without the birth of Aphrodite from them the gesture loses its point. The Erinyes and probably the Giants were born from the drops of blood that fell on the earth.³¹ One feature that was not in Hesiod was the explicit dissociation of Oceanus from the castration. This reflects his ancient non-Titanic nature (cf. p. 119), and accords with the fact that when Kronos is established on Olympus, Oceanus is set apart and stays at the outer limits of the cosmos. We cannot tell whether the Cyclist took it over from the Protogonos Theogony or introduced it himself because the separate place of Oceanus in the Eudemian Theogony impressed on him the inappropriateness of including him in the assault party. In either case he is likely to have used the verses which later appeared in the Rhapsodies, charmingly portraying Oceanus' moody reluctance (fr. 135):

Oceanus then tarried in his abode,
pondering which way to turn, whether to lame
his father's strength and do him grievous harm
with Kronos and his brethren, who obeyed
their mother, or stay quiet alone at home.
Much troubled he stayed sitting in his abode,
resentful toward her, and still more at them.

After dealing with Uranos, the Titans at once bring their brothers up from Tartarus. That is logical, since it was indignation at their imprisonment that led Ge to incite the Titans to overthrow Uranos. But then, Apollodorus tells us, Kronos

³⁰ Cf., however, Enûma Elis * (p. 102), where Apsû oppresses several generations of his descendants together and is overcome by his great-great-grandson Ea.

³¹ Cf. Apollod. 1.1.2-4 with Hes. Th. 139-53, 720, 161-6, 176-89. We may surely add from Rhapsodies fr. 154 the detail that Uranos was castrated when he came down in his desire for sex with his wife (= Hes. Th. 176-8).

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condemned them to Tartarus all over again. No motive for this volte-face is given, but the reason is obvious: they have to be in Tartarus so that Zeus can release them to help him against the Titans. In the Eudemian Theogony the war between the Titans and the younger gods was probably absent, as I shall argue later. It may have been present in the Protogonos Theogony, as there is evidence for it in the Hieronyman. The reimprisonment may therefore come from there. Alternatively it may have been an innovation in the Cyclic Theogony to accord with the following Titanomachy.

Apollodorus' account of the Titans' marriages and the descendants of Ge and Pontos in 1.2.2-1.3.1 cannot be based wholly on Orpheus, since Phorkys here appears among Pontos' sons, as in Hesiod, instead of as a Titan. Pontos himself has not been accounted for in the preceding `Orphic' section. There is such extensive agreement with Hesiod here that it looks as if Apollodorus has switched to him as his main source. There are some divergent details which may or may not come from Orpheus. Iapetos' wife is Asia³² instead of Clymene; the birth of Chiron from Kronos and Philyra is recorded (cf. p. 126); and the catalogue of Nereids differs from Hesiod's.

The Birth of Zeus

I have suggested that the Eudemian Theogony, like the Cyclic, contained the account of Zeus' birth and nurture according to which he was nursed by Ida and Adrastea and guarded by the Kouretes. We have seen that it is the standard account followed by the Alexandrian poets, and that it is unknown to Hesiod. In fact it is altogether unknown to early poetry, unless one infers it from allusions to Amalthea's Horn in Phocylides and Anacreon; but that seems to be an isolated theme. Otherwise it is first found in pseudo-Epimenides and Euripides (above, p. 50).

The Kouretes are a genuine Cretan element in the story. It makes sense in terms of the Cretan cult that they are represented as children of Rhea in the Orphic poem (as also in the scholium on Aristophanes' Lysistrata, 558), because the caveborn Kouros worshipped in Crete and identified with the Greek

³² As in Lyc. 1283, sch. A.R. 1.444, al.

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Zeus was really only the greatest of the Kouretes. In the famous hymn from Palaikastro in the east of the island³³ he is called the son of Kronos, and there is mention of the Kouretes' having once received him from Rhea, so he is evidently identified with Zeus; he is addressed, however, not as Zeus but as `greatest Kouros'. He is called all-powerful, and said to have `gone to earth' leading the gods. The singers call on him to come to Dicte for the annual festival, and to `spring' into their winejars (?), flocks, crops, towns, shipping, and young citizens. The festival presumably involved ritual springing and leaping for fertility and prosperity by an association of kouroi who saw the Kouretes as their mythical doubles. The `greatest Kouros' was prince of these Kouretes.³⁴

As for Zeus' nurses, Ida and Adrastea, the first is the eponymous nymph of the Cretan mountain. Adrastea, however, is a goddess associated in her earliest attestations with the other Mount Ida, the Phrygian one,³⁵ and the bronze cymbals that she clashes in the Orphic poem are probably a reflection of Asiatic cult practice. This syncretism of the two Idas and their cults, general as it became, is an indication that the poem did not actually come from Crete. So is the confusion of Ida and Dicte. Dicte in eastern Crete was one important centre of the worship of the Zeus-kouros; it is from here that the Palaikastro hymn comes. Ida in the middle of the island was another. The poet had heard of an Idaean cave where Zeus was born, and of Dicte. Ignorant of Cretan geography, he ran them together and invented a Dictaean cave which never existed. Many scholars have yet to free themselves from this confusion.

About Amalthea there are two main traditions, one of which makes her a nymph and the other a goat. The first appeared in Musaeus' theogony (p. 42), where she nourished Zeus on a goat's milk, and in earlier tales about her marvellous horn.³⁶ She is a goat in Callimachus, and apparently in the Cyclic

³³JHS 85 (1965), 149 ff. The inscription is dated to the 3rd century AD, but the poem seems to have been composed in the 4th or 3rd century BC.

³⁴ For the Kouretes' concern with flocks, fertility, etc., see GDI iv, p. 1036 and Orph. Hymn 38.13 f., 25 (JHS 85.155). For leaping rituals see J.G. Frazer, The Magic Art, i (1911: The Golden Bough³, i), 137-9; The Scapegoat (1913: G.B.³, vi), 238-44; Meuli, Gesammelte Schriften, 90, 106, 129, 183 f.; for armed dancing, Frazer, The Scapegoat, 234-6; Meuli, 143, 184.

³⁵Phoronis fr. 2 Kinkel; A. fr. 278C Mette.

³⁶ Pherecydes 3 F 42, Pind. fr. 70/249a.

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Theogony, as Apollodorus says that Ida and Adrastea fed Zeus on her milk.³⁷ The myth that Zeus was suckled by a goat or fed on goat's milk is connected in Musaeus with his invincible goatskin, the aegis, while in Orpheus he rode to heaven on a goat. Both stories are based on interpretations of his traditional epithet aigiochos, `aegis-bearer' or `riding on a goat'.³⁸ There seems also to be a connection with the folk-tale motif of a child rejected by its parents but growing up in the wild, suckled by an animal. A historian of the third century BC, Agathocles of Cyzicus, recorded a story that Zeus was born on Dicte and suckled by a sow.³⁹

Melisseus, according to Didymus, was a Cretan king who instituted a cult of the Great Mother and made his daughter Melissa the first of the priestesses known as Bees. She fed Zeus on goat's milk and honey.⁴⁰ Bees and honey play a part in other stories of Cretan caves and the nurture of Zeus.⁴¹ Callimachus says that Zeus was nourished on Amalthea's milk but also on honeycombs from Panacra in the Idaean mountains. This may be another Orphic element in his account. Nicander knew a myth that bees were first created in Crete in the time of Kronos.⁴²

The Overthrow of Kronos

Kronos had been given a swaddled stone to swallow in place of Zeus. In Hesiod's version (Th. 492-7), when Zeus was grown up, Kronos was tricked on the instructions of Ge and induced to regurgitate the stone and his children, `vanquished by his son's craft and force'. The Cyclic account, as Apollodorus

³⁷ Call. H. 1.49 (from the Eudemian Theogony ?), cf. Nic. fr. 114; Apollod. 1.1.7. Hermias in Rhapsodies fr. 105, however, makes Amalthea the nymphs' mother, the wife of Melisseus. Aratus 163 refers to the goat that suckled Zeus but does not identify her as Amalthea; he says that `prophets of Zeus' (cf. above, n. 26) call her the Olenian goat.

³⁸ The latter interpretation is the most plausible linguistically. See my Hesiod, Works and Days, 366-8. When I wrote `we know of no occasion on which he rode her' (the goat whose milk he had drunk), I had overlooked the Orphic testimonium (Rufinus, Recogn. 10.19, end of fr. 56 Kern).

³⁹ 472 F 1a.

⁴⁰ Didymus (p. 220 Schmidt) ap. Lact. Inst. 1.22. He makes Amalthea another daughter of Melisseus, and in Hyg. Fab. 182.1 Melisseus' daughters appear as Idothea Althaea Adrasta, who seem to correspond to Ida, Amalthea, and Adrastea.

⁴¹ Cf. W. Drexler in Roscher, ii. 2638.

⁴² Call. H. 1.49 f.; Nic. fr. 94.

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renders it (1.2.1.1), is on the same lines but clearer: `When Zeus was fully grown he took Metis the daughter of Oceanus as his helper. She gave Kronos a drug to swallow, which made him vomit up first the stone and then the children he had swallowed.' Metis played some role in connection with Zeus' kingship in the Protogonos Theogony (p. 87). But it may only have been as an identity of the god whom Zeus swallowed. If so, her pharmaceutical activity in the Cyclic poem may be derived from the Eudemian Theogony.

Apollodorus then goes on to his account of the Titanomachy. I have suggested that this came from another poem of the Cycle, and that the theogony did not contain the war with the Titans. I believe that it must also have been absent from the Eudemian Theogony, because such a war could only end with the dispatch of the Titans to Tartarus, whereas this theogony, in my opinion (see below), represented them as remaining in the world long enough to abduct and kill the young Dionysus, and were only then blasted by thunderbolts. Still, one would expect that in establishing himself as king Zeus did something more to Kronos than just make him sick. In the Rhapsodies (D) he was intoxicated with honeycombs and fell into a stupor, whereupon Zeus tied him up and castrated him. This is a useful episode for a theogony which lacked a Titanomachy. Can we attribute it to the Eudemian Theogony?

There is something to be said both for and against the hypothesis. Against it is the fact that the earliest attestations of a myth of the castration of Kronos are in Timaeus and Lycophron, who connect it with Drepane-Corcyra, identified with Scheria the home of Homer's Phaeacians.⁴³ The sickle (drepane) which Zeus used was supposed to be buried under the island, which was called Drepane for that reason. But we can trace an earlier version of this aetiological myth in which the castration was that of Uranos.⁴⁴ A similar aition was used for the name of Zancle in Sicily, also meaning `sickle'.⁴⁵ As one sickle

⁴³ Timaeus 566 F 79, Lyc. 762. Timaeus is Lycophron's main source of knowledge about West Greek matters.

⁴⁴ A.R. 4.982 ff. Early, because Alcaeus (fr. 441) and Acusilaus (2 F 4) already know the story that the Phaeacians came from the spattered blood of Uranos. Cf. their association with the Giants in Od. 7.56 ff. (Wilamowitz, Die Ilias und Homer (1920), 502).

⁴⁵ Call. fr. 43.69 ff., Lyc. 869, etc.

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could not be buried in two places, the rival claims were reconciled by making one of the castrations a castration of Kronos instead of Uranos. It is not surprising that this first appears in a Sicilian historian. But if this is the origin of Kronos' castration, how could it get into an Orphic theogony known to Plato?

It might be replied that it was not open to Timaeus or anyone else to associate Drepane with a castration of Kronos until there was theological authority for such an event. In favour of its occurrence in the Eudemian Theogony are the following three considerations.

(i) Overpowering a stronger opponent after putting him to sleep, especially with strong drink, is a traditional folk-tale motif.⁴⁶ But its use in the context of the gods' power struggles is characteristic of the ancient Near East. In a Sumerian version of the myth of Zû, a sinister bird-god who usurped the kingship from Enlil, Lugalbanda sets out to conquer him by plying him with intoxicants. In Enûma Elis * Ea overcomes Apsû by pouring a magic sleep upon him, removing his insignia, tying him up, and then killing him. The best parallel is probably the Hittite myth of the conflict between the Weather-god (the chief god, corresponding to Zeus) and the dragon Illuyanka. Illuyanka was clearly the stronger.

The Storm-god besought all the gods: `Come ye to my aid! Let Inaras prepare a celebration!' He made everything ready on a grand scale: amphorae of wine, amphorae of marnuwan, and amphorae of walhi*. The amphorae he had filled to the brim. . . . The Dragon Illuyankas came up with his children and they ate and drank. They drank every amphora dry and quenched their thirst. Thereupon they are no longer able to descend to their lair. Hupasiyas came and trussed the Dragon Illuyankas with a rope. The Storm-god came and killed the Dragon Illuyankas and the gods were with him.⁴⁷

Now of the various Orphic poems it is the Eudemian that shows possible signs of a special connection with Babylonian theogonic tradition, through some pre-Homeric Ionian fore-runner, by its special placing of Oceanus and Tethys (pp. 120-1), and perhaps its inclusion of the myth of the division of the universe by lot (p. 128 n. 26). It is interesting that the Homeric episode in which a god is incapacitated by being lulled to sleep,

⁴⁶ Polyphemus, Samson, Silenus, etc.; Meuli, Gesammelte Schriften, 641 f.

⁴⁷ Zû: ANET 113. Apsû: En. El. i. 60-9, ANET 61. Illuyanka: ANET 125 f.

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the Dios Apate, is the very one in which Oceanus and Tethys are mentioned as the primeval parents.

(ii) The use of honey recalls the importance of bees and honey in the Cretan setting of Zeus' birth, and therefore fits well into the Eudemian Theogony. The banquet was organized by Rhea, whose priestesses were the Melissai, descended from the Melissos or Melisseus mentioned in the poem as father of Zeus' nurses.

(iii) If the castration of Kronos did not come in the Eudemian Theogony, it is difficult to explain where the compiler of the Rhapsodies found it. There is no hint in Apollodorus that the Cyclic Theogony contained anything of the sort. In the Hieronyman Theogony, Athenagoras tells us (fr. 58), Zeus bound his father in Tartarus, as Uranos had done to the Hundred-Handers and Cyclopes. Athenagoras is listing the gods' unseemly deeds, he has just mentioned the castration of Uranos, and he would not have omitted that of Kronos if he had known anything of it. No other theogony can be discerned or needs to be assumed among the sources of the Rhapsodies, and it is wholly implausible that the compiler should have invented the episode himself.

I conclude that it probably did stand in the Eudemian Theogony. As the castration of Uranos was probably absent from the poem, the castration of Kronos may be seen as compensating for it.

The Sixth Generation

In the sixth generation end the array of song,

Orpheus instructed the Muses; that is, with the generation after that of Zeus. It is in this last generation that we should expect the poet's religious message to have lain. Unfortunately Plato gives no details of this generation in the Timaeus. Apollodorus' account of it, like his account of the Titans' and Pontos' families just before, is unusable, because we cannot tell how much of it, if any, is based on the Cyclic Theogony. Some of it agrees with Hesiod, and certain details are added from Homer. The Cyclic poem (indirectly the Eudemian Theogony) may well be the source for Aphrodite's birth from Zeus and Dione (1.3.1),

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and it is a possible source for the surprising statement (ibid.) that Zeus and Styx were the parents of Persephone. We cannot hope to find anything of the Eudemian Orpheus' religious message preserved in Apollodorus, for it was excluded from the scope of the Cyclic intermediary.

We can, however, fall back on the conclusions reached in the last chapter (pp. 94-6) by analysing the Rhapsodies. We were able to distinguish two strands in the narrative, one continuing a motif from the Protogonos Theogony and the other continuing a motif from the Eudemian Theogony. The second strand involves a Cretan location for the birth of Dionysus, his protection from the Titans by the dancing Kouretes, and by implication the whole story of their hostile designs on him, his dismemberment, and his restoration to life. It is natural to infer that all this came from the Eudemian Theogony, and I shall proceed on this assumption.

Besides Dionysus, who must have been central to the poet's religious interests, and to whom we shall return in the next chapter, we can speculate about other gods of the sixth generation. Zeus' children by Hera in Hesiod (Th. 922) are Hebe, Ares, and Eileithyia. It is unlikely that the Orphic poet ventured to add to their number, unless he counted Hephaestus as the son of Zeus as well as of Hera. Besides Hera, Zeus will have married or raped other goddesses. We have assumed that one of these was the Titan Dione, and that Aphrodite was born as a result. Apollo and Artemis cannot have been absent from the poem, nor can they have had any other parents than Zeus and Leto. We can also assume that it contained the birth of Athena from Zeus' head. She is too important a goddess to have been ignored. In the Rhapsodies she became the leader of the Kouretes. As the Kouretes were prominent in the Eudemian Theogony, it is likely that this detail came from that source. It reflects one of Athena's less familiar aspects, but one that is not unknown from other evidence. At Praisos in eastern Crete she was made the mother of the Korybantes (who cannot here be distinguished from the Kouretes), in surprising wedlock with Helios.⁴⁸ What lies behind these associations of Athena is her connection with armed dancing. Epicharmus in his Muses represented her as a piper playing

⁴⁸ Strabo 10.3.19, p. 472.

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the enoplios nomos, the music for the armed dance, for the Dioscuri.⁴⁹ Plato connects her with armed dancing like that of the Kouretes and Dioscuri; and Dionysius of Halicarnassus writes that such dancing is an ancient Greek custom, whether it was established by Athena after the annihilation of the Titans or by the Kouretes wanting to entertain the baby Zeus.⁵⁰

Recapitulation

We began from Eudemus' and other fourth-century Athenian writers' references to an Orphic theogony. Then we identified a theogony used by the Hellenistic editor of the Epic Cycle (and hence reflected in Apollodorus' Bibliotheca), and found that its author drew partly on the Eudemian, partly on the 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. In the beginning was Night. From her came Uranos and Ge; from them Oceanus and Tethys; from them the twelve Titans. Rhea bore children to Kronos, but he swallowed them as they were born. Zeus, however, was born secretly in a cave in Crete (Ida/Dicte), nursed by nymphs, and guarded by the Kouretes. Kronos was given a stone to swallow. When Zeus was grown up, Rhea make Kronos drunk with honeycombs, whereupon Zeus tied him up, castrated him, and with the help of Metis induced him to regurgitate his children. His three sons drew lots, and Hades took the lower world, Poseidon the sea, and Zeus heaven, whither he proceeded on a goat.

Zeus fathered children by several goddesses, and others of

⁴⁹ Fr. 75. For the Dioscuri as armed dancers cf. Pl. Lg. 796b, Lucian 45.10, sch. Pind. P. 2.127, etc. For their similarity to Kouretes or Korybantes cf. Paus. 3.24.5, 10.38.7, Orph. Hymn 38.20 ff. Both Kour-etes and Dios-kouroi are essentially kouroi; and Athena was Dios koure (, Pl., l.c.). For Athena in association with Dioscuri cf. E. Gerhard, Etruskische Spiegel, v (1884-97), Pls. 79-80, and Paus. 3.17.2, 24.5, 24.7.

⁵⁰ Pl., l.c.; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 7.72.7.

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the younger gods also had families. Persephone bore Dionysus to Zeus in Crete. There followed the story of the murder of Dionysus by the Titans and his restoration to life. The Titans were blasted to Tartarus, and mankind came into being from the sooty fall-out. So theirs is a bad inheritance; Dionysus, however, can help them by his purification rites, which were first established in Crete but soon spread everywhere.

The earlier part of the theogony was partly based on a line of tradition which has left echoes in the Iliad. The account of the birth of Zeus incorporates 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 discussed in the chapter that follows. At the end of that chapter I shall venture an opinion on the date of the theogony and its place of origin.

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V
The Eudemian Theogony (Continued):
The Death and Rebirth of Dionysus

Let us recall the details of the story of Dionysus as it was told in the Rhapsodies, or rather, of that part of the story which we attribute to the Eudemian Theogony because of its connections with a preceding episode in that poem. Dionysus is born in Crete to Zeus and Kore. He is guarded by the dancing Kouretes, as Zeus was. This probably lasts for five years. Zeus installs him on his own throne and tells the gods that this is their new king. But the Titans, whitening their faces with gypsum, lure him away with a mirror, apples, a bull-roarer, and other articles. They kill him and cut him into seven pieces, which they first boil, then roast and proceed to eat. But Athena preserves the still living heart and takes it to Zeus in a casket. The gods grieve. Zeus discharges his thunderbolt at the Titans and removes them from the face of the earth. The residual smoke contains a soot from which mankind is created. The remnants of the Titans' feast are given to Apollo, who takes them to Parnassus (that is, to Delphi)¹ and inters them. But from the heart a new Dionysus is made.²

In what follows I shall attempt to elucidate Dionysus' mythical sufferings in terms of two models: initiation ritual and animal sacrifice. But first, to clear the way, I should like to mention certain other possible models which might be thought relevant, and to explain briefly why I do not attach importance to them.

A.J. Festugière assumes that the story was simply taken over in Hellenistic times from the story of Osiris, whom his brother Seth dismembered and dispersed. Osiris was identified with Dionysus from the time of Hecataeus of Miletus.³ In the Hellenistic period there was, certainly, a version of the Dionysus

¹ Cf. Hymn. Ap. 520 f.

² For source-references see p. 74.

³ 1 F 300 = Hdt. 2.144 f. Festugière, Revue Biblique 44 (1935), 378 f. = Études de religion grecque et hellénistique (1972), 44 f.

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myth which reflected the identification. In this version his limbs are collected up by Rhea or Demeter, who corresponds to Isis in the Egyptian myth.⁴ But this is not the Orphic version, and the Orphic version is the earlier attested if we are right in attributing it to the Eudemian Theogony. The myth that Dionysus was dismembered may have been one reason for his being equated with Osiris in the first place; if so, it cannot be derived from the Osiris myth.⁵ There is little similarity of detail between the sufferings of the two gods. Osiris is in origin the divine form of the dead and mummified king, and he was already enclosed in a sarcophagus when he was found and cut up by Seth. The pieces were distributed among the various nomes of Egypt where Osiris had shrines and tombs. The most important part of him was his phallus, which retained sufficient vigour to engender Harpocrates. But Osiris was not restored to life. From that time his place has been in the realm of the dead, though he is capable of returning on occasion.⁶

Another explanation of the dismemberment of Dionysus, offered by certain ancient writers, makes him a personification of the vine. The earthborn Titans are supposed to stand for farmers who till the soil, the dismemberment of Dionysus is the grape-harvest, his boiling is the boiling of the grapes, and his restoration to life is the reunion of the parts in the new wine, or the flourishing of the ravaged vine in the following summer. This interpretation, which is given by Cornutus and by allegorizers known to Diodorus,⁷ appears to have been adopted in the Rhapsodic Theogony itself, for in the account of Dionysus'

⁴ Philod. De piet., p. 16 G. (Euphorion ? fr. 36 Powell) (Rhea); Cornutus, p. 62.10 L. (Rhea); Diod. 3.62.6 (Demeter); cf. A. Henrichs, Die Phoinikika des Lollianos (1972), 58 n. 7, 62. For the identification of Rhea with Demeter cf. p. 93. Diodorus himself, following Hecataeus of Abdera, equates the mysteries of Osiris and Isis with those of Dionysus and Demeter (1.96.4 f.), and identifies those who dismembered Osiris as the Titans (4.6.3; cf. 1.25.6, Plut. Is.Os. 364f, Serv. Georg. 1.166).

⁵ There are other points of contact between the two gods. Osiris was `lord of wine at the inundation' (Pyramid Text 1524a), and the phallus played a prominent part in his cult.

⁶ Diod. 1.21-2 (Hecat. Abd. 264 F 25), 88, 4.6.3, Plut. Is.Os. 354a, 357f-8d, and Egyptian sources; H. Bonnet, Reallexikon der ägyptischen Religionsgeschichte (1952), 568 ff.; H. Kees, Der Götterglaube im alten Ägypten (2nd ed. 1956), 111 f., 258; J. Gwyn Griffiths, Plutarch's De Iside et Osiride, 33 ff., 52 ff., 338 ff.

⁷ Diod. 3.62, Cornut., p. 62.10 L. Cf. Himer. Or. 45(9).4, Arnob. 5.43; Nilsson, Gr: Rel. ii. 362.

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death and resurrection (and nowhere else 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 Eudemian Theogony.

The interpretation was revived in the present century by Robert Eisler, who adduced much evidence for the popular personification of the corn or the flax, and for working songs that represent the processes to which these things are subjected as the experiences of a sentient being. He quoted Burns's ballad of John 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 related 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 In principle the type of personification in question is perfectly Hellenic, at least in sophisticated literature. Timotheus, for example, described how 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 which 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 of the mirror, 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?

⁸ Frr. 216a-c.

⁹Orphisch-dionysische Mysteriengedanken in der christlichen Antike (1925), 230 ff.; Man into Wolf (1952), 40.

¹⁰ A scholium of Arethas on Clem. Protr., i. 297.4 Stählin (overlooked by Eisler), `Lenaizing poets: a rustic song sung at the wine-press, which comprised the rending of Dionysus'.

¹¹PMG 780 (cj.). Cf. Ion eleg. 26.4 ff.; Euenus eleg. 2 (A.P. 11.49); Phanodemus, 325 F 12. Ampelos (`Vine') appears as a personseparate from Dionysus, who loved himin and after the Hellenistic age: Ov. F. 3.407-14, Nonn. D. 10.175-12.291; see G. D'Ippolito, Studi Nonniani (1964), 132 ff. (Later still a similar myth about Kalamos and Karpos was invented: Serv. Dan. Ecl. 5.48, Nonn. D. 11.351-485; D'Ippolito, 146 ff.) For an Arab story about lamenting the death of the grapecluster with protestations of innocence, see Frazer, The Dying God (1911: The Golden Bough³, iii), 8; A. Taylor, Washington University Studies (Humanistic Series) 10 (1922/3), 7.

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The same difficulties 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 ceremonially buried, burned, thrown into water, or scattered over the fields.¹² In these customs, or in some of them, we can indeed find dismemberment and burial of a 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 the shape of a young tree, suitably decorated, or branches. But this can hardly be construed as a resurrection of the figure that was killed. The new arrival bears a different name from the destroyed effigy and indeed represents its antithesis.

Death and Rebirth as an Initiatory Motif

Ritual initiation into the adult community or into a secret society¹³ is a world-wide institution. There are, naturally, countless individual variations, but also many typical elements attested in widely separated areas. The ceremonies often involve special dances of a warlike character, and animal sacrifice. The initiand is subjected to physical and nervous ordeals. He often suffers some actual mutilation, such as circumcision or the knocking out of a tooth, and he may be represented as suffering much greater calamities: as being captured, taken away, and killed by a divine ancestral spirit or spirits, whose part is played by men disguised in unearthly fashion. The voice

¹² W. Mannhardt, Wald- und Feldkulte (2nd ed., 1905), i. 155-9, 410-21; Frazer, The Dying God, 220-65 (tearing to pieces: 236-8, 240 twice, 246-7, 250); Balder the Beautiful (1913: G.B.³, vii), i. 119 f.; adduced in connection with the myth of Pentheus by A.G. Bather, JHS 14 (1894), 249 ff., cf. R. Seaford, CQ 31 (1981), 263 f.; in connection with the Delphic Stepterion, EGPO 71 f.

¹³ `Secret society' is an established term signifying not a society whose existence or membership is a secret but one whose activities and rituals are at least partly secret. The Bacchic societies of Greece and other religious associations which celebrated mysteries would properly be put in this category. According to a widely-held theory secret societies develop by limitation of the membership of the earlier tribal organization under particular political conditions, the group of the initiated becoming more exclusive. They sometimes appear as the custodians of the community's traditions of religious and magical ritual. See H. Webster, Primitive Secret Societies (1908), 74-105, 160-90.

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of this terrible supernatural being is commonly supplied by the bull-roarer, a shaped piece of wood or bone whirled round on the end of a string. Sometimes he takes the form of a monster who devours the initiand whole, later to disgorge or excrete him. The mothers bewail the loss of their sons. But after the requisite interval the initiate is restored to life and takes his place among those who have put him through these alarming experiences.¹⁴

From these tribal and fraternity initiations which result in the young person becoming an ordinary member of the society we must distinguish the so-called shamanistic initiation, the purpose of which is to make the initiate an extraordinary person with magical powers, a man capable of travelling and mediating between this and other worlds. I have said something in Chapter 1 (p. 5) of the nature and distribution of shamanism. In what follows I am speaking specifically of the shamanism of central Asia and Siberia, the regions where it finds its fullest expression and which are least remote from Greece. The future shaman here experiences death and rebirth in a particularly drastic form, involving the replacement of his vital parts by new ones. Frequently he is cut to pieces by evil spirits, his flesh being removed from the bones and eaten. Sometimes his limbs are boiled in a cauldron. Afterwards his bones are put together and clothed with new flesh. The demons who dismember him are sometimes identified as the souls of his shaman ancestors, sometimes as the spirits of the various diseases which he will be capable of curing when he is a qualified shaman. These dismemberments are not actually mimed in ritual: they are what is traditionally supposed to happen to a shaman, and what shamans themselves say they have undergone. They are in fact hallucinations experienced in a kind of nervous delirium which marks the man out as a future shaman. Later he receives

¹⁴ I may content myself with this very brief and selective account. For fuller information see Webster, op. cit., 20-48, 191-221, al.; A. van Gennep, Les Rites de passage (1909), 93-163 = The Rites of Passage (1960), 65-115; Frazer, Balder the Beautiful, ii. 225-78; H. Jeanmaire, Couroi et Courètes (1939), 147-223; M. Eliade, Birth and Rebirth (1958) = Rites and Symbols of Initiation (1965); C.J. Bleeker (ed.), Initiation (Numen Suppl. 10, 1965); A. Brelich, Paides e Parthenoi (1969), 14-112; V. Popp (ed.), Initiation (1969). The relevance of initiation rites to the Orphic myth has been seen by J.E. Harrison, BSA 15 (1908/9), 322-8, and Themis (2nd ed., 1927), 13-27; Jeanmaire, op. cit., 196 n. 1, 580; G. Thomson, Aeschylus and Athens (2nd ed., 1946), 97-113.

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systematic instruction from older shamans, and among some tribes he is consecrated in a public ceremony or a series of ceremonies at which he demonstrates his powers, for example by climbing to heaven up a tree-ladder and conversing with the gods there.¹⁵

How the shaman's mental dismemberment might itself be given a ritual setting in a more sophisticated religious framework is indicated by the Tibetan tantric rite called chöd, in which

To the sound of the drum made of human skulls and of the thighbone trumpet, the dance is begun and the spirits are invited to come and feast. The power of meditation evokes a goddess brandishing a naked sword; she springs at the head of the sacrificer, decapitates him, and hacks him to pieces; then the demons and wild beasts rush on the still-quivering fragments, eat the flesh, and drink the blood. The words spoken refer to certain Jatakas, which tell how the Buddha, in the course of his earlier lives, gave his own flesh to starving animals and man-eating demons.¹⁶

Here, as in some other tantric meditations which clearly go back to shamanistic origins, the complete dismantling of the physical 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 have 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 references to the coating of the Titans' faces with gypsum and to a collection of objects with which they deceived Dionysusobjects that actually, as we shall see, played a significant role in some mystery ritesstrongly suggest that the myth reflects a ritual in which the death-dealing ancestral spirits were impersonated by men, that is to say an initiation of the tribal or secret-society type.¹⁷ There is not necessarily a contradiction here, for in tribes that have both magico-religious

¹⁵ Again I have picked out the barest essentials. See T. Lehtisalo, Journal de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 48(3) (1937), 3-34; A. Friedrich and G. Buddruss, Schamanengeschichten aus Sibirien (1955); Eliade, Shamanism, 3-45, 110-22.

¹⁶ R. Bleichsteiner, L'Église jaune (1937), 194 f., as translated in Eliade, Shamanism, 436 (q.v.). The drum is the typical instrument of the shaman.

¹⁷ The motif of dismemberment is hardly known in tribal initiation, though cf. Frazer, Balder the Beautiful, ii. 227; G. Thomas, Oceania 2 (1931/2), 230 (Pororan, Solomon Islands).

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fraternities and prominent witch-doctors, the former are naturally dominated by the latter, and become the pool from which new witch-doctors emerge.¹⁸

Is Shamanism Relevant?

Have the 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 extended across the steppes into the northern territories of the Indo-European tribes, from north-west India and Bactria to Scythia and Thrace.¹⁹ In Greece, while we cannot speak of shamanism as a living institution in the historical period, there are clear traces of it in myth, and even in stories attaching to certain historical persons.²⁰

They seem to lie along certain geographical lines reaching down from the north. Orpheus, whose many shamanistic features (including dismemberment) were noted on p. 4, is firmly located in Thrace. From Thrace it is not far to Pieria, the region north and east of Mount Olympus. This is the home of the Muses, the divine beings with whom the inspired singer converses, who give him an almost mantic knowledge of `past, present, and future', and who convey him in a psychic `chariot' on `paths' of song, as far as he desires to go in this world or the other.²¹ The fact that they are nine daughters of Zeus is significant in view of the fact that the most important of the Asiatic peoples who practise shamanism

know and revere a celestial Great God . . . Sometimes the Great God's name even means `Sky' or `Heaven'; . . . This celestial god, who dwells in the highest sky, has several `sons' or `messengers' who are subordinate to him and who occupy lower heavens . . . seven or nine `sons' or `daughters' are commonly mentioned, and the shaman maintains special relations with some of them.²²

One of the very few places where we can trace an early cult of the Muses is Delphi, which had special religious links with

¹⁸ See Webster, Primitive Secret Societies, 173 ff.

¹⁹ Meuli, Hermes 70 (1935), 121 ff. = Gesammelte Schriften 817 ff.; Eliade, Shamanism, 390-1, 394-421.

²⁰ Cf. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational, 140-7; Eliade, 387-94; Burkert, Rh. Mus. 105 (1962), 36-55 and LS 141-65.

²¹ Cf. Hes. Th. 32 with my note; EGPO 225 n. 4.

²² Eliade, Shamanism, 9. Zeus = Sanskrit Dyaus * = `Sky'.

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the north in the octennial sacred procession of boys to the vale of Tempe (just south of Olympus) in connection with the Stepterion festival, and in the myth that Apollo left Delphi each winter to visit the Hyperboreans. Delphi was at the centre of the world, as Zeus established by setting two eagles to fly in from the ends of the earth until they met. Earth's Navel was there, presumably marking the place where there was once a physical link with heaven; and there was also direct access from the sanctuary to the great krater in the underworld, according to an Orphic poem (p. 12). This concept of a cosmic centrepoint where sky, earth, and underworld are all connected is important to the Asiatic shamans, who regularly journey there so that they can pass from one world to another and obtain knowledge, conduct souls, etc. The centre is marked by a mountain and a tree or pillar. At the top of the tree, in the highest heaven, sits the supreme deity, who may take the form of an eagle.²³ It is not surprising that Delphi, being the centre of the cosmos, is a capital place for divination. The Pythia resembles a shamaness at least to the extent that she communicates with her god while in a state of trance, and conveys as much to those present by uttering unintelligible words.²⁴ It is particularly striking that she sits on a cauldron supported by a tripod. This eccentric perch can hardly be explained except as a symbolic boiling, and as such it looks very much like a reminiscence of the initiatory boiling of the shaman, translated from hallucinatory experience into concrete visual terms. It was in this same cauldron, probably, that the Titans boiled Dionysus in the version of the story known to Callimachus and Euphorion, and his remains were interred close by; we shall return to this below.

Crossing the gulf from Delphi, we find at Patrai another local legend about the Titans' assault on Dionysus, though we do not know the details;²⁵ and proceeding down through Elis we reach Olympia, connected by its name to the northern Olympus, and Mount Lycaeus. In these regions we encounter

²³ Eliade, 69-71, 259 ff., et saepe. In Yakut belief the tree stands at the `golden navel of the Earth' (Eliade, 272; cf. 268 for the idea of the Earth's navel among the western Semites). Shamans have many connections with eagles: they are descended from them, wear costume with eagle form or attributes, and fly like eagles with its help; Eliade, 36-7, 69-70, 156-8.

²⁴ Spirit language: Eliade, 96-9.

²⁵ Paus. 7.18.4.

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Fig. 2.
Patterns of shamanistic influence in Bronze Age and Archaic Greece.

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

²⁶ These myths are studied in detail by Burkert, Homo Necans, 98-119. The motif of cooking children is repeated in the story of Pelops' sons Atreus and Thyestes, but Thyestes' children did not survive the experience. Medea made a number of people young again by cutting them up and boiling them: Aison, Jason, the nurses of Dionysus and their husbands. (There is also Pelias, whose daughters she maliciously persuaded to subject him to the same treatment.) Several other dismembered persons are connected with Dionysus; they are his enemies or rivals (Pentheus, Lycurgus, Actaeon), or else they are infants torn asunder by frenzied maenads. The three daughters of Minyas at Orchomenos tore up a child belonging to one of them; the women of Argos began to kill and eat their own children in consequence of a madness which began with the three daughters of Proitos. Both of these myths were linked with the Dorian festival Agrionia or Agriania, and show analogies with the myth of Pentheus and the

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side of Greece, from Ambracia and Acarnania through Elis to Messene, is the main homeland of seers in legendary and historical times.²⁷ Historical seers 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 animals (Melampous), and bringing the dead back to life (Polyidus).²⁸

Returning to Thrace and taking a more easterly path we arrive in Ionia 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 Ionia 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 came 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 Ionia 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 raise the dead.²⁹

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daughters of Cadmus. There is also the story that Procne and Philomela, celebrating the trieteric rites on Mount Rhodope, killed Itys and made him into a meal for Tereus. In the case of Pentheus an initiatory background might be suggested by the way in which he is shown moving towards his death in Euripides' Bacchae, fitted out in Dionysiac costume and expecting to learn the secrets of the cult. (This is worked out at length by R. Seaford, CQ 31 (1981), 252 ff.)

²⁷ I. Löffler, Die Melampodie (1963), 25-9.

²⁸ Cf. Burkert, LS 163 f.

²⁹ Parmenides, DK 28 B 1; Empedocles 31 B 111, 112.

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A full exploration of shamanistic elements in Greek culture would require a chapter to itself, if not a book. But these sketchy hints may suffice to indicate a pattern: relics of a prehistoric shamanism brought down from Thrace to northern, central, and western Greece, and a later current of influence from eastern Thrace and Scythia affecting Ionia and the northern colonies. Within this pattern we may seek to accommodate the Orphic myth about Dionysus.

What the myth itself suggests is a ritual of initiation into a societypresumably a Bacchic societywhich has taken on, at least at the mythical level, the special form of the shaman's initiation. Bacchic societies, and in particular those which embody their lore in Orphic poems, belong unequivocally to the right-hand side of our pattern, the Ionian. This need not mean that the Eudemian Theogony is an Ionian poem, but it means that the ritual presupposed may be conjectured to have Ionian antecedents.

Dionysus at Delphi

There is, however, one detail of the story that points in the other direction: the detail that Dionysus' mortal remains were buried by Apollo at Delphi. This is, I believe, the result of a secondary combination. It is not to be taken as a ground for locating at Delphi the society whose 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 came in early spring, on the seventh of the month Bysios, as if returning from a stay abroad (with the Hyperboreans, or wherever). Dionysus did not go abroad but was `roused 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 sleep.³⁰ In earlier times, however, he may have been said to die, like certain others among the many seasonal gods of the Aegean and Near East. Certainly there was a tomb at Delphi which was generally held to be the tomb of Dionysus. It was

³⁰ Cf. Orph. Hymn 53.3 ff.

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situated right inside Apollo's sanctuary, by the tripod and the golden statue, and it looked like a step.³¹

We may take it as certain that it was on account of this monument that the Orphic poet made Apollo take Dionysus' remains from Crete to Delphi and bury them there. He is explaining in passing why there was a tomb of Dionysus there. But this is only one of several explanations that have come down to us.

(a) Dinarchus of Delos, a poet of the fourth century BC, said that Dionysus came to Delphi after fleeing from Lycurgus, hung up his weapons in the temple, and died there. Philochorus seems to have reported and endorsed this account, adding that the grave bore an inscription `Here lies, dead, Dionysus son of Semele'.³²

(b) Callimachus and Euphorion are cited as witnesses to an account closely related to the Orphic: the Titans tore Dionysus apart, boiled the pieces in a pan, and presented them to Apollo, who hid them away beside the tripod.³³ Philodemus, also citing Euphorion, says that the pieces were put together by Rhea and that Dionysus came back to life.³⁴

(c) Porphyry (VP 16) preserves a startling variant tradition according to which the tomb was that of Apollo himself, killed by the Python and lamented by the daughters of Triopas.

It appears from the variety of these accounts that there was no established ancient tradition attached to the tomb. It was simply there. It is reasonable to guess that it was there for the same reason as the notorious tomb of Zeus in Crete: it was the resting-place of a seasonal god who died regularly.³⁵ Plutarch

³¹ Philochorus 328 F 7 (see Jacoby's commentary); Call. fr. 517/643; Plut. Is.Os. 365a; Cephalion 93 F 4. Tatian, Adv. Graecos 8 (p. 9.15 ff. Schwartz) says the tomb was the omphalos, but see E. Rohde, Psyche, Ch. 3, n. 32. Clement, Recogn. 10, speaks of a tomb of Dionysus at Thebes, ubi discerptus tráditur: possible in principle, but probably the result of a confusion.

³² Dinarchus FGrHist 399 F 1 = SH 379B; Philochorus, l.c.

³³ Call. fr. 517/643, Euph. fr. 13 P.

³⁴De piet., p. 16 G. (cf. p. 47 G.; Henrichs, Cronache Ercolanesi 5 (1975), 35); Euph. fr. 36.

³⁵ For the tomb of Zeus see A.B. Cook, Zeus, ii (1925), 940-3 with iii (1940), 1173; Nilsson, The Minoon-Myoenaean Religion, 553; Gr. Rel. i. 321-2. An annual celebration of the Cretan Zeus' rebirth, signalled by a fire lit in the mouth of the holy cave, is implied by Ant. Lib. 19 (from the Ornithogony of Boios); cf. Lobeck, 123 not. ii. Dionysus shows a seasonal character in many Greek cults, being

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tells of a secret sacrificial rite which took place in the Delphic shrine at the time when the Thyiades roused Dionysus Liknites, and he associates this sacrifice with the tomb. It may be surmised that the tomb was opened and the sacrificial remains deposited in it.³⁶

The differences between the Orphic myth and the version for which Callimachus and Euphorion are cited are not fundamental, but they are not trivial. According to Orpheus, Apollo did not receive the remains from the Titans but from Zeus, who had interrupted the Titans in their cookery (Athena having brought the news, with Dionysus' heart) and blasted them to Tartarus. It was Apollo, not Rhea, who put Dionysus together again.³⁷ Now we have seen that Callimachus and other Alexandrian poets seem to be acquainted with the Eudemian Theogony, and one might jump to the conclusion that this was their only source for the dismemberment of Dionysus, the special features of their accounts being due to their own initiative. But as the Orphic poet makes a point of linking the story with Delphi, although he has put Dionysus' birth and early life in Crete, we must assume that there actually was such a story told at Delphi about the tomb of Dionysus. Callimachus, at least, had a particular knowledge of and interest in Delphic lore,³⁸ and his version of the Dionysus myth need not be dependent on Orpheus.

Zagreus

There is another sign of his independence in his use of the name Zagreus for the `chthonic' Dionysus who was son of Zeus and

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usually treated as having gone overseas, descended into the earth, or concealed himself in the locality.

³⁶Is.Os. 365a. There are parallels for the interment of animal victims; it is connected with the idea of regeneration. At Potniae in Boeotia young pigs were thrown into underground chambers at a festival of Demeter and Kore, and it was said that in the following year they reappeared alive at Dodona (Paus. 9.8.1). At the Attic Thesmophoria the same thing was done, but what happened the next year was that the decayed remnants were dredged up again, mixed with the seed corn, and spread over the fields. The original idea was probably to assist the multiplication of animals by sowing them, as one does with plants. Cf. Meuli, Gesammelte Schriften, 956 ff., on the careful treatment of animal remains in early hunting societies with a view to their regeneration.

³⁷ Frr. 209-11; a slightly abridged version is given by Clement and Arnobius in frr. 35, 34, without the mediation of Athena.

³⁸ Cf. Pfeiffer on fr. 517.

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Persephone (fr. 43.117). The name was probably not used in the Orphic narrative, for there is no trace of it in the fragments, the Orphic Hymns, or the many references to the myth in the Neoplatonists.

The most plausible etymology for Zagreus makes him literallyand not inappropriately, one may think as one reviews the history of Orphic studiesthe god of pitfalls. It derives him from zagre *, properly a pit for catching animals, but perhaps also one used for depositing animal remains or offerings to a chthonic deity. If this etymology is correct, the vocalism, Za-* for Zo-*, points to a Doric or North-west Greek home for the god.³⁹ In the epic Alcmaeonis someone invoked him as `very highest of all the gods' together with Ge. It has been conjectured that this was Alcmaeon addressing the gods of Delphi when he visited the oracle.⁴⁰ In Aeschylus too Zagreus has chthonic connections, for he is associated with Hades, perhaps as his son. In Euripides' Cretans the chorus-leader tells of the pure life he has led

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 the armed dances> of the Kouretes, I received the title of bacchos.⁴¹

Here Zagreus is a god of nocturnal mystery-rites, associated with a sacramental feast of raw flesh (and thus with the dismemberment of an animal victim) and at the same time with the Cretan Kouros and Kouretes and the Mountain Mother. It would be unsafe to infer from this passage that Zagreus played a part in Cretan cult; the inference should be rather

³⁹ Cf. H. Frisk, Griech. Etymologisches Wörterbuch s.v. survives only in Hesychius, with an Ionic ending; some poet writing in Ionic must have taken over the dialect word, probably as a technical religious term. Another theory is that Zagreus is a pre-Greek name, to be compared with that of the Zagros mountains between Mesopotamia and Media; but one wants some less remote parallel. M.C. Astour, Hellenosemitica (1967), 202 f., derives Zagreus from Ugaritic Sgr (sagru?), `the Young One', a title applied to the son of Baal and Anath. On alleged sightings of Zagreus in Linear B see W. Fauth, RE ixA.2230.

⁴⁰Alcmaeonis fr. 3, p. 77 Kinkel, cf. Thuc. 2.102.5; Moulinier, 65 n. 3; G.L. Huxley, Greek Epic Poetry (1969), 52.

⁴¹ A. fr. 377 M. = 228 N., cf. 121 M. = 5 N.; E. fr. 79.9-15 Austin = 472.9-15 N. In 14 I supplement .

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that he played a part in mysteries which claimed a Cretan origin. If his real home was Delphi, we have a complex

which is to some extent analogous to the Orphic mythical complex. In any case Euripides' Zagreus invites equation with Dionysus, and in Callimachus it is `Dionysus Zagreus' that Persephone bears to Zeus. (There is some reason to suspect that Callimachus located 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 dismemberment. This is an important reference, 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.⁴²

Nonnus applies the name Zagreus freely to the Dionysus of the Orphic myth, the Dionysus who is dismembered by Titans.⁴³ For the details of the story itself he clearly used the Orphic Rhapsodies. But he probably took Zagreus' name from Callimachus, whose phrase 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 birthand did so knowing both the name and the story from Delphi.⁴⁴

The Titans and the Tokens

The Titans' faces were whitened with gypsum in the Orphic account and probably also that of Euphorion.⁴⁵ Their motive

⁴² Plut. De E 389a. There was a Dionysos Nyktelios at Megara, Paus. 1.40.6; this title also Ov. M. 4.15, A.P. 9.524.14, Nonn. D. 7.349, al., Et. Magn. 609.20; Nyktelia, Plut. Aet. Rom. 291a, Is.Os. 364f (below, p. 174).

⁴³D. 6.165 ff., 31.48, 38.209f., al. So also Nonnus Abbas in Greg. Naz. orat. alt. c. Iulian. 35 (Patr. Gr. xxxvi. 1053; Kern, p. 230) and sch. Lyc. 355 (p. 137.18 ff. Scheer).

⁴⁴ No undue importance should be attached to the fact that the Dionysus buried in Apollo's sanctuary was identified in the inscription mentioned by Philochorus as the son of Semele. Philochorus' myth is quite different from the Orphic/Callimachean one.

⁴⁵ If, as seems likely, the Titans were the subject of Euph. fr. 88, `and all their faces appeared ghostly white' (; for cf. Nonn. D. 27.228).

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is said to have been to avoid being recognized,⁴⁶ but the disguise is surely a reflection of ritual, where its effect was to make those wearing it into spectral, other-worldly figures. We may recall the famous stratagem used by the Phocians in their night assault on the Thessalians, when they whitened themselves and their weapons with gypsum. The enemy lookouts were terrified, thinking it was a supernatural visitation.⁴⁷ The white Titans correspond to the awful ancestral spirits who come to take the initiand away and kill him in the primitive rituals. It is attested that in certain Bacchic mysteries of the Roman period `apparitions and terrifying sights' were presented to the novices,⁴⁸ and also that initiates on occasion whitened their faces with gypsum. Nonnusone of the authors who tell us that the Titans adopted this disguise when they abducted Dionysusseveral times refers to the mystic gypsum as if it were a standard and familiar facial adornment of the god's votaries.⁴⁹

Clement tells us that having got past the Kouretes by some trick, the Titans enticed Dionysus with playthings; he quotes two Orphic verses,

cone, bull-roarer, puppets with jointed limbs,
and fair gold apples from the sweet-voiced Hesperids,

and then gives a list of objects which he calls `the tokens of this sacrament' (): knucklebone, ball, pine-cone (or spinning-top), apples, bull-roarer, mirror, and

⁴⁶ Harpocr., p. 48.5 Dindorf; cf. Nonn. D. 6.169 f. (`cunningly, deceitfully').

⁴⁷, Hdt. 8.27.3-4; cf. Paus. 10.1.11, Polyaen. 6.18.1. Some gangsters adopt a similar disguise in Lollianus, p. 96.26 ff. Henrichs. For ghosts' lack of colour see J. Winkler, JHS 100 (1980), 160-5. `War parties of Australian blacks bedaub themselves with white clay to alarm their enemies in night attacks' (A. Lang, Custom and Myth (1885), 41).

⁴⁸ Celsus ap. Orig. c. Cels. 4.10. (Similarly at Eleusis, cf. Burkert, Homo Necans, 317 n. 64; Graf, 134 n. 34.) In the mysteries of Sabazios the initiands may have had to face the monstrous Empusa, if Idomeneus, FGrHist 338 F 2, is rightly so interpreted.

⁴⁹D. 27.204, 228; 29.274; 30.122; 34.144; 47.733. Cf. Lobeck, 655. For gypsum worn by the earliest Attic comic players see Plut. Prov. Alex. 30 (Corp. Paroem. Suppl. iiia. 16). Coating with clay (esp. white clay) is common in initiation rituals, cf. Lang, Custom and Myth, 40; Webster, Primitive Secret Societies, 44 n. 2; van Gennep, The Rites of Passage, 74, 81, 85 f.; Frazer, Balder the Beautiful, i. 31, ii. 255 n. 1, 259; Eliade, Rites and Symbols of Initiation, 37. Although one Greek word for white earth or gypsum is titanos, it is not the word used in the sources for the Orphic myth, and there is no reason to think that the similarity between titanos * and Titan* played any part in the formation of the story.

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unworked wool (or fleece).⁵⁰ The mirror seems to have played a particularly important part in the Orphic narrative. It was specially made by Hephaestus, and when Dionysus saw his reflection in it he followed it until he came to the place of slaughter.⁵¹ There is also one text, generally overlooked, which says that the narthex (giant fennel) was brought to Dionysus by the Titans.⁵²

A number of observations and speculations may be made on individual objects in the list.

Mirror.

Mirrors are useful in divination and magic; when you have a person's image in a mirror, he is, from the magical point of view, in your power,⁵³ and this seems to be the situation in the Orphic myth. But it may correspond to a detail of the Titanic initiation ceremony; perhaps the initiand had to follow the mirror away from his throne. The use of phalli, the mirror, and the ball in Dionysiac ritual is mentioned by John Lydus, who supposes the mirror to symbolize the transparent heaven and the ball the earth.⁵⁴ A much earlier Dionysiac mirror is the one found at Olbia, dated to the late sixth century BC, and inscribed

Demonassa, daughter of Lenaios, euai! and Lenaios son of Demoklos, eiau [sic]!

Unless Demonassa and her father were so fanatical in their Bacchism that they could not refrain from embellishing their household utensils with religious exclamations, it seems likely

⁵⁰ Clem. Protr. 2.18 = Orph. fr. 34; similarly Arnobius 5.19, `knucklebones, mirror, tops, rolling wheels and smooth balls and golden apples taken from the Hesperid maidens'.

⁵¹ Fr. 209; Nonn. D. 6.173, cf. 207. A small papyrus fragment of the 2nd or 3rd century AD, P.S.I. 850, contains mention of a mirror in association with Orpheus and Dionysus. On an ivory pyxis in the Museo Civico Archeologico in Bologna, dating from no earlier than the 5th century AD and decorated with a sequence of four Dionysiac scenes, the child god is shown on his throne with the armed Kouretes dancing round him; a robed figure has crept between them and is holding up a mirror towards the child (H. Graeven, Antike Schnitzerein (1903), 5; C. Kerényi, Dionysos, 265 f. and Pl. 66B; my Pl. 5).

⁵² Proclus on Hes. Op. 52; `frg. orphicum videtur' rightly A. Pertusi, Scholia Vetera in Hesiodi Opera et Dies (1955), ii. 31; cf. Lobeck, 703.

⁵³ J. von Negelein, Archiv f. Religionswiss. 5 (1902), 21 ff.; Frazer, Taboo and the Perils of the Soul (1911: G.B.3, ii), 92 ff.; W.R. Halliday, Greek Divination (1913), 150 ff.; G. Róheim, Spiegelzauber (1919); V. Macchioro, Zagreus (1920), 98 ff. For the role of the mirror in Asiatic shamanism see Eliade, Shamanism, 153. f.

⁵⁴De mensibus 4.51.

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that their mirror had a ritual use.⁵⁵ According to a Hellenistic text the cry euoi goes back to an exclamation made by the Titans in praise of the invention of the mirror.⁵⁶ This evidently presupposes a Bacchic rite involving a mirror, the cry euoi, and persons masquerading as Titans or performing acts explained by a myth about Titans. Two Augustan reliefs show ecstatic Bacchic dancing with mirrors.⁵⁷

Cone.

The word used in the Orphic verse, , may mean either a spinning-top or a pine-cone, and there is the same ambiguity in Clement's word . Arnobius understood tops to be in question (turbines). Tops are toys, and as such might appear suitable enticements for the child Dionysus. Nothing is known of their ritual significance. Pine-cones, however, were often used to make the head of the thyrsus, the special wand carried by Bacchants; they are a common symbolic motif in funerary art, as well as a regular attribute of Sabazios, and have other ritual associations.⁵⁸ There is much to be said for taking in this sense.

Bull-roarer.

The special role of this primitive instrument in initiation ceremonies has already been mentioned. It is employed in Africa, Australia, New Guinea, and America to frighten the novices with its demonic voice.⁵⁹ Its use in Dionysiac rites is well attested.⁶⁰ It is also known as a toy: in an epigram of Leonidas (45) a boy is represented as dedicating his playthings to Hermes, and they are a ball, a clapper, knucklebones, and a bull-roarer.

⁵⁵ N.P. Rozanova, (1968), 248-51. On the Orphic cult at Olbia see above, p. 17.

⁵⁶ Ps.-Arignote ap. Harpocr. s.v. (Thesleff, Texts, p. 51.7) as convincingly emended by W. Burkert, Gnomon 39 (1967), 551. The work was probably the Teletai of Dionysus, which Harpocration also cites in another place.

⁵⁷ E. Simon in Hommages à A. Grenier (1962), iii. 1421-3.

⁵⁸A.P. 6.165.4 ; Diogenianus ap. sch. Clem. Protr., i. 302.27 St.; Suda s.v. (iii. 175.19 Adler); F. Cumont, Recherches sur le symbolisme funéraire des Romains (1942), 219, 505f.; Nilsson, Gr. Rel. i. 119, 126, ii. 659 f.

⁵⁹ Lang, Custom and Myth, 29-44; Frazer, Balder the Beautiful, ii. 228-33, 240-3, 264; O. Zerries, Das Schwirrholz (1942); Eliade, Rites and Symbols of Initiation, 8-14, 21-3, 142; Brelich, Paides e Parthenoi, 60, 68 f., 89.

⁶⁰ A. fr. 71.8 f. M. = 57.8 f. N., E. Hel. 1362, A.P. 6.165.5; also in rites of Cybele, Diogenes, TrGF 45 F 1.3, A.R. 1.1139; of Demeter, Epiphanius ap. Kern, p. 110; in unspecified teletai, Archytas, DK 47 B 1, Diogenianus, l.c. (= Hesych. s.v. ; in magic, Eupolis fr. 72, Theoc. 2.30, Prop. 2.28.35, etc. See A.S.F. Gow, JHS 54 (1934), 1 ff. and on Theoc., l.c., adding sch. A.R. 1.1134-39b.

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Knucklebones.

This is the commonest and most likely sense of in this context, knucklebones for playing with.⁶¹ Note, however, that Clement gives the word in the singular, and it is conceivable that a vertebra, or one of the other kinds of knobby bone that may signify, might have a ritual significance. Compare the Olbian bone tokens mentioned on p. 17.

Ball.

An obvious toy, often associated as such with knucklebones.⁶² Lydus in the passage cited above (under mirror) attests its status as a Dionysiac ritual object. Apollonius Rhodius refers to a wonderful ball which Adrastea gave to Zeus in the Idaean cave (3.132-141); this may be his own invention, but as the Orphic theogony seems to be his main source for the infancy of Zeus, and the infancies of Zeus and Dionysus are in a sense doublets, both connected with Kouretic initiation, it is just possible that a ritual ball had a double reflection in the mythical narrative, as a ball given to Zeus by Adrastea and as a ball offered to Dionysus by the Titans.

Puppets.

Most surviving Greek dolls are of terracotta, and many of them have `jointed limbs', like those of the Orphic verse, and could be operated by strings marionette-fashion.⁶³ They are normally just toys, but magical use is readily imaginable. One could also envisage the use of frightening, animated puppets in an initiation ritual.⁶⁴

Apples.

The golden apples of the Hesperides were the supreme mythical fruit, guaranteed to lead anyone into temptation. The apples with which Hippomenes prevented Atalanta from concentrating on the race were said by some to have come from the Hesperides. The eating of apples was forbidden at the Eleusinian festival of the Haloa, and in the cult of Attis,⁶⁵ and just as the similar Eleusinian taboo on the pomegranate was

⁶¹ LSJ s.v., IV; British Museum Guide to the Exhibition illustrating Greek and Roman Life (1920), 203 f.; cf. the Leonidas epigram just mentioned. Votive tops and knucklebones have been found in the Kabeireion at Thebes, knucklebones also in the Artemision at Ephesus. See D.G. Hogarth, Excavations at Ephesus. The Archaic Artemisia (1908), 190-1; British Museum Guide, 196; Guthrie, 125.

⁶² Leonidas, l.c., Glaucus epigr. 1.2, A.R. 3.117-141, Cic. De or. 3.58, Dio Prus. 8.16 (i. 98.27 Arnim).

⁶³ See the British Museum Guide, 194 f.

⁶⁴ For a Melanesian parallel (figures larger than life-size) see G. Thomas, Oceania 2 (1931/2), 227 f.

⁶⁵ Sch. Lucian, p. 280.22 f. R., Porph. De abst. 4.16; Jul. Or. 8(5).174b, 176a.

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justified by the myth that Persephone had eaten pomegranate seeds to her misfortune, so it is possible that apples were taboo in certain Bacchic mysteries on the ground that Dionysus had been led to destruction by them.⁶⁶

Wool.

The word may mean anything from a handful of raw wool to a complete fleece. Again it may be a matter of taboo. We recall Herodotus' testimony that those who participated in the rites called Orphic and Bacchic were not allowed woollen burial-garments, and that there was a sacred story told on the subject (above, p. 16). The initiand in the Eleusinian mysteries had to sit on a special seat covered by a ram's fleece, the `Fleece of Zeus'.⁶⁷

Narthex.

A well-known Dionysiac attribute, forming the rod of the usual thyrsus. Presumably the novice was given his own in the course of the initiation ceremony as the symbol of his membership, and this corresponds to the statement that `it is brought by the Titans to Dionysus'. In the passage where he gives us that piece of information Proclus notes that `those being initiated to Dionysus carry the narthex'. Plato refers to the famous verse

Many are narthex-bearers, but the bacchoi are few.⁶⁸

The `tokens of the sacrament', then, are a miscellany with no one common role in the ritual. We should not imagine, for example, that they were all carried round in a holy casket. Once the myth had taken the form that Dionysus was enticed with interesting objects, an assortment of things that played a part in the mystery or were taboo in it were gathered together under this heading.

⁶⁶ Julian (176a) says that apples are not to be consumed because they are `holy and golden and symbols of secret mystic ordeals' ). (Bidez understands these golden apples to be quinces.) On the chest of Cypselus as described by Paus. 5.19.6 Dionysus was shown reclining in a cave surrounded by vines and pomegranate- and apple-trees. For his connection with apples see also Philetas fr. 18 Powell, Theoc. 2.120; Roscher, i. 1059.

⁶⁷ Burkert, Homo Necans, 294-7; N.J. Richardson on Hymn. Dem. 192 ff.; cf. above, p. 17. Epiphanius (Kern, p. 110) mentions spun wool among the sacred articles of the Eleusinian cult. Cf. Clem. Strom. 7.26.2, Phot. s.v. (= Bekker, Anecd. 273.25), Et. Magn. s.v. (Lobeck, 702).

⁶⁸Phaed. 69c = Orph. fr. 5 = 235. Bacchoi here presumably means those who attain true ecstasy, or a higher initiatory grade.

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Butchery and Cookery

Dionysus is cut up, cooked, and eaten. We have identified one mythical model for this in the shaman's initiation, where, as in the Orphic myth, the victim is afterwards restored to life in a new body. But there is another model of greater immediacy to the historical Greek cult-society: that of animal sacrifice. The story of the gypsum-painted Titans with their mirror, bull-roarer, and so forth is, likely enough, the mythical reflection of a frightening charade enacted round a candidate for initiation and signifying his mock death. But this may have coincided with the actual slaughter of an animal victim which then provided a sacramental meal for the company and confirmed their unity. The animal may have been substituted for the human being at the moment when it appeared that he was about to be killed. This sort of arrangement perhaps lies behind certain Greek myths which account for animal victims, particularly in cults of Dionysus, as surrogates for original human victims.⁶⁹ More than one author says that the Bacchic practice of tearing a live animal limb from limb commemorates what was done to Dionysus himself.⁷⁰

This typically Dionysiac rite of omophagy, however, in which the elated participants are supposed to pull the victim to pieces with their bare hands and bite at once into the uncooked flesh, does not correspond to what the Titans do. It is true that many sources speak of Dionysus' being `rent apart' by them.⁷¹ But those who use more precise language say that he was cut up with a knife.⁷² And there is no doubt that they cooked him.

They cooked him in an irregular way. First they boiled the pieces in a cauldron, and then they roasted them on spits.⁷³

⁶⁹ See L.R. Farnell, Cults of the Greek States (1896-1909), v. 164 f.; E.R. Dodds, Euripides' Bacchae (2nd ed. 1960), xviii f.; Burkert, GRBS 7 (1966), 112 f.; R. Seaford, CQ 31 (1981), 268; A. Henrichs, Fondation Hardt Entretiens 27 (1981), 195 ff. There is no reliable evidence for actual human sacrifice in any Dionysiac cult; we keep hearing that it `was formerly' the custom (Paus. 7.19.1-9, 9.8.2, Porph. De abst. 2.8, 53-6).

⁷⁰ Firmicus Maternus, De errore prof. relig. 6.25, sch. Clem. i. 318 St., Phot. s.v. .

⁷¹ or : frr. 34-6, 210-11, 214-15, 220; Diod. 3.62.6, Cornut., p. 62.10 L., Lydus De mensibus 4.51, etc.

⁷² Alexander of Lycopolis, c. Manichaeos, p. 8.7 Brinkmann; Nonn. D. 6.172, 174, 205, 31.47; Arnob. 5.19; Firm. Mat. De errore 6.3. Cf. Procl. Hymn 7.11.

⁷³ Fr. 35; cf. Euphorion fr. 13 P. (text uncertain).

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At a normal Greek sacrifice the meat was roasted, though we know of a few cases where it was boiled. The decree of the Milesian Molpoi prescribes roasting of the splanchna, the soft inner parts that could be cooked more quickly and were regularly eaten first, and boiling of the flesh. In legend those who kill and cook human beings for consumption are said to roast some parts and boil others.⁷⁴ In one of the Problems falsely attributed to Aristotle (and probably dating from the Roman period) we read that there is nothing abnormal in boiling meat that has previously been roasted, but that it is not done to roast meat that has previously been boiled. There was a Pythagorean taboo to the same effect.⁷⁵ The Titans' culinary methods are thus an affront to convention, and we may take it that they do not correspond to those employed in some Dionysiac sacrifice. Pseudo-Aristotle suggests that the taboo may exist `because of what is told in the telete'. It seems highly probable that he means the Orphic story about the Titans and Dionysus. Evidently what was done in the telete did not match what was told.

The explanation may be that the narrative represents a combination of the two models that I have suggsteed. The boiling belongs to the mythical scheme deriving from the shaman's initiation, and points forward to regeneration.⁷⁶ The roasting corresponds to sacrificial practice. Dionysus is boiled in his role as prototype of the initiand who has to be reborn (it is not inconceivable that the initiand was himself subjected to a simulated boiling), and the roasting is added because the meat of the animal victim was roasted. If so, the association between the initiand and the victim is strongly underlined.

Dionysus Renovated

There 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

⁷⁴ Henrichs, Die Phoinikika des Lollianos, 67 f.; Burkert, Homo Necans, 104 with n. 29; cf. M. Detienne, Dionysos Slain (1979), 74 ff.

⁷⁵ Ps.-Arist. Probl. *3.43 Bussemaker (Didot Aristotle, iv. 331); Iambl. VP 154; cf. Ath. 656b.

⁷⁶ On the general mythical motif of regeneration by boiling see A.B. Cook, Zeus, ii. 210 ff. with literature; J.G. Frazer, Apollodorus (1921), i. 121-3 (on. 1.9.27), ii. 359-62; Stith Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk Literarure, D 1885.1, E 15.1.

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in which Dionysus was restored to life. In the latter his limbs were fitted together by Rhea-Demeter and he was reborn (as it seems) in the same body or at least on the same 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 in the tomb at Delphi.

His heart was still beating when Athena carried it away. It was from its palpitating () that she got her name of Pallas.⁷⁷ It will be recalled that she was represented a little earlier in the poem as leader of the Kouretes, 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 ritual.⁷⁸ It was pulled out at the earliest possible moment, often before the animal was dead, and laid on the altar. In 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, and there was a Pythagorean prohibition against eating it.⁷⁹ It was evidently not eaten in the ritual upon which the Orphic narrative was based. What was eaten was those parts of the animal corresponding to the parts of Dionysus which the Titans ate. The heart was removed from the scene 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 Hyginus it was minced and made into soup, which Zeus gave to Semele. She drank it and became pregnant, and in due course Dionysus was born again from her as she died by the lightning stroke.⁸⁰ This version is clearly not Orphic. It is designed to reconcile the

⁷⁷ Fr. 35, cf. sch. Lyc. 355 (p. 137.18-22 Sch.), sch. D Il. 1.200 (Eust. 84.43).

⁷⁸ See Henrichs, Die Phoinikika des Lollianos, 71 f.

⁷⁹ Sokolowski, Lois sacrées de l'Asie mineure, No. 84.13; Arist. fr. 194, D.L. 8.19, Iambl. VP 109; see also Detienne, Dionysos Slain, 85.

⁸⁰ Hyg. Fab. 167; cf. Lucian 45.39, Procl. Hymn 7. 11-15. For the motif cf. A. Erman, The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians, 158. I can find no authority for H.J. Rose's note at Hyginus, l.c. (cf. his Handbook of Greek Mythology (1928), 51), `cor Bacchi plerumque non ab Semele uerum ab ipso Ioue uoratum dicitur'.

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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 Semele, born amid lightning. The other account is that of Firmicus Maternus, and there is some probability that it 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 themselves and the evidence for the use of such disguise in Dionysiac mysteries. Here, surely, is another genuine reflection of ritual. But what would be the point, in the context of initiation ritual, of putting an animal's heart in a human effigy? It can only have to do with the reanimation of the candidate who was supposedly dead.

Imagine, for instance, a nocturnal 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 endlessly on the raw-toned pipes. After a time the circle is penetrated by the ghastly white-faced figures of the Titans, man's ancestors. 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, hacking 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 produced, made of or coated with gypsum. The heart is inserted into its chest. Stark, white and lifeless the thing stands there in the flickering light. Then the miracle. In a moment of blackoutor dazzling lightthe 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, ready to enter on his new life.⁸¹

⁸¹ Among the Niska Indians of British Columbia, when someone was initiated into a certain secret society, `his friends drew their knives and pretended to kill him. In reality they let him slip away, while they cut off the head of a dummy which had been adroitly substituted for him. Then they laid the decapitated

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The Origin of Man

The Titans are by definition the banished gods, the gods who have gone out of this 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. In 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 elimination by thunderbolt. Proclus in fr. 215 says they were assigned various stations, presumably in Tartarus, and that at the same 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 taken the opportunity to supply grounds for the heavy task imposed on him, which Hesiod failed to explain.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, who records this as Orpheus' story, goes on to find a deep theological significance in it. It means, according to him, that we are part of Dionysus, because the Titans had eaten of his flesh; and his division into many parts symbolizes the plurality of the ethical and physical virtues which his reign stands for, and the plurality of the phenomenal world.⁸³ This is merely Neoplatonist interpretation and is not to be attributed to the Orphic poet.⁸⁴ Far too many scholars, however, have been misled by it, and not content with reproducing what Olympiodorus says, they have developed interpretations supported by no ancient source. A typical modern statement of Orphic doctrine reads: `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

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dummy down and covered it over, and the women began to mourn and wail. His relations gave a funeral banquet and solemnly burnt the effigy. In short, they held a regular funeral. For a whole year the novice remained absent and was seen by none but members of the secret society. But at the end of that time he came back alive, carried by an artificial animal which represented his totem'. (Frazer, Balder the Beautiful, ii. 272.)

⁸² His association with the Titans also appears in Diod. 3.60, Hyg. Fab. 150, Myth. Vat. 2.53.

⁸³In Phaedonem 1.3, 5, pp. 41-5 Westerink; pp. 238 and 172 f. Kern.

⁸⁴ See Linforth, 317-31.

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spark.'⁸⁵ But the Dionysus who now exists grew from what the Titans 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 Tartarus. 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. In 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.⁸⁸ In 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. It is 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

⁸⁵ H. and H.A. Frankfort, Before Philosophy (1946), 248 f. This kind of misrepresentation had already been exposed by Linforth, 359 f.

⁸⁶ W.G. Lambert and A.R. Millard, Atra-Hasis *, 9, 21-2, 59; A. Heidel, The Babylonian Genesis (2nd ed. 1951), 46 f. (= Enûma Elis*, 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 with schol. There were also similar myths concerning the origin of particular nations (Alc. fr. 441, Acusilaus 2 F 4, Lyc. 1356 f.) and of venomous creatures (Acusil. 2 F 14, A. Suppl. 265 f., A.R. 2. 1209-13, 4.1513-17, fr. 4, Nic. Th. 8-12 (= Hes. fr. 367), Ov. M. 4.617-20, Lucan 9.619-99, cf. Ael. fr. 89) from the blood of Uranos, the Titans, the Giants, Typhoeus, or Medusa.

⁸⁸ In the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (336) both men and gods are said to be descended from the Titans, but the expression is no more informative than `Zeus, father of men and gods'. It does not in itself suggest such strikingly different forms of descent for gods and men as the blood-drops myth entails. The obscure allusion in Plato, Lg. 701c, to an `ancient Titanic character', which is exhibited and imitated, by men in the last stage of social permissiveness when they disregard oaths and trusts and even the gods, by no means suggests that mankind was created from the Titans. See Linforth, 339-45; Moulinier, 50 f. Plato may be assimilating the Titans to the Giants, with whom they tended to be confused from at least the 5th century BC. On Xenocrates frr. 19-20 see p. 21.

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depended on the fertilization of the earth by a divine life-substance. With the substitution of smoke and soot this rationale is lost.

Although Olympiodorus' interpretation of the Orphic myth is to be rejected, there is no denying that the 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 the Giants, and as Dio of Prusa says (or rather 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 these parallels suggest, any such conclusion is likely to have concerned the burdens of our inheritance. The fact that the Titans 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 turn for salvation.

Kouretic and Bacchic

We may confidently attribute to the Eudemian Theogony the statement in the Rhapsodies that Zeus commanded purification rites to go forth from Crete (fr. 156). They originated in Crete because that was where the drama of Dionysus and the Titans was played out; or rather, the drama was located in Crete because the poet regarded Crete as the source of the most ancient and holy religious rites.

At this point we must consider more closely the part which the Kouretes play in his narrative. First they danced round the child Zeus to protect him from Kronos, who would have swallowed him as he had swallowed his other children. Later, and still in Crete, they danced round the child Dionysus to protect him from Kronos and the other Titans, who desired to kill and eat him. To this extent Dionysus seems very much a doublet of Zeus. He even becomes king of the gods, child though he is, seated on a throne and holding a sceptre. But whereas Zeus was successfully protected from the enemy that threatened him, Dionysus was abducted and slain.

It is generally accepted that the dancing of the Kouretes has a basis in Cretan ritual. This is apparent especially from the Palaikastro hymn (p. 132). Besides the connection with public fertility which the hymn demonstrates, there was probably an

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initiatory element in it; the Kouretes' name suggests `Youths' as an age-class, and Crete is the one part of Greece apart from Sparta where forms of `tribal' initiation continued in use into the classical period.⁸⁹ When the Kouretes dance round a younger kouros who is sitting on a throne, as Dionysus is and Zeus probably was before him, we recognize the same ritual scene as in the Corybantic initiation ceremony described on p. 27 in connection with the Orphic Enthronements. Porphyry mentions a throne which was annually re-covered for Zeus in the Idaean cave, near his tomb.⁹⁰

The ogre Kronos who swallows his children and later disgorges them alive musteven though Zeus himself escapes this fatebe considered to have been at one time an initiatory motif, since the temporary ingestion of the initiand into a monster is a familiar detail in the ethnographical material.⁹¹ Even the stone that Kronos swallowed has a parallel in an African initiation rite.⁹² We may also find an echo of initiation ritual in the statement of Istros the Callimachean in his work On Cretan Sacrifices (FGrHist 334 F 48) that the Kouretes formerly sacrified children to Kronos. This looks like an independent relic of the same ritual pattern, and suggests that it really did have roots in Crete. Kronos is the ogre who takes boys out of the Kouretes' custody to `die'. Istros may have known of some rare Cretan rite of which the story he records served as the mythical explanation.

⁸⁹ See Jeanmaire, Couroi et Courètes, 421-60; Burkert, Griech. Religion (1977), 202, 391-3.

⁹⁰VP 17, perhaps from Antonius Diogenes. The context is Pythagoras' initiation among the votaries of Morgos, one of the Idaean Dactyls, who are sometimes equated with the Kouretes. The initiates purified him with a keraunia lithos (blood-stone, heliotrope), a semi-precious stone associated with the thunderbolt. Stones with celestial affinities are used in medicine men's initiations in the Far East, Australia, and America; see Eliade, Shamanism, 45, 47-50, 91, 132, 135-9, and cf. 124-5, 339, 350.

⁹¹ Cf. p. 144; Frazer, Balder the Beautiful, ii. 240-2, 246, 250; Eliade, Rites and Symbols of Initiation, 35-6, 75; Brelich, Paides e Parthenoi, 89 n. 113.

⁹² Among the Mandja and Banda tribes of central Africa a sacred stone, said to come out of the body of the monster that swallows the novices, plays a part in the ceremonies (Eliade, op. cit., 75). More often we hear of a celestial stone being inserted into the initiand's own body (Frazer, 271; Eliade, Shamanism, 45, 47-50, 132). According to Hesychius the stone swallowed by Kronos was a baitylos, which means a stone of heavenly origin and supernatural properties (Damasc. Vita Isidori 203). The relationship between the story of Kronos and the Hurrian myth of Kumarbi (see my Hesiod, Theogony, pp. 20-1) needs reassessment.

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There are other elements in the stories of Zeus' childhood which may once have had to do with initiation: his sustenance on milk and honey (seclusion of novices in the wild with dietary restrictions?),⁹³ and the presence of a goat, whose hide becomes his shield (goat sacrifice?). But like Kronos' swallowing of children, these appear in our authors as purely mythical features, without the pointed detail that betrays the intention of accounting for a ritual. In the Corybantic initiation rite known to Plato, dancing and enthronement seem to have been the main elements, not a mere prelude to a mock swallowing or killing. The Kouretes dance round Zeus who was not swallowed.

In the Orphic poem they also dance round Dionysus; he was not swallowed either, in the way that the children of Kronos were, but he suffered a different kind of death, not related to the Cretan tribal-initiation tradition but to the northern shaman-initiation tradition. The narrative thus reflects a syncretism of two things: (a a Kouretic cult in which the initiand was treated something like the Corybantic initiand in Plato, and which, while not necessarily confined to Crete, considered itself Cretan and took the story of Zeus on Mount Ida as its holy myth; (b) a Bacchic cult of Ionian origin, in which more primitive elements were preservedghoulish masks, the simulated death and rebirth of the novice, and a sacrificial meal. The syncretism must, I think, have taken place in cult practice, not just at the literary level. In other words the Bacchic society adopted the enthronement and the ring-dance of the Kouretes as part of its own initiation procedure; that is why, in the poem, these motifs had to be duplicated, applied to Dionysus as well as to Zeus. The combination had important and novel implications. It meant that Dionysus was born and killed in Crete, and that the Bacchic purifications which the society had to offer were of Cretan origin. Such was the prestige of Crete in matters of religion that these conclusions were embraced.

Child Initiation

If both the Kouretic and the Bacchic myths reflect initiatory ritual, the implication would seem to be that the societies in

⁹³ Cf. Frazer, 262; H. Webster, Taboo (1942), 93-4, 322-3; Eliade, Rites and Symbols of Initiation, 12, 14-15, 33, al.; Brelich, op. cit., 69 n. 58.

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question made a practice of initiating young children. The legend in Istros, if I have interpreted it correctly, points the same way. Child initiation is something that Nilsson regarded as a Hellenistic development peculiar to the Bacchic mysteries.⁹⁴ Certainly there is abundant evidence for the initiation of young 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 Pentheus' suffered by an enemy of Dionysus aged nine or ten, which has reasonably been thought to have some ritual significance. We recall that Theophrastus' superstitious man took his children to the Orpheotelestes each month. The girls who became `bears' in the service of Artemis at Brauron in Atticaanother ritual with typical initiatory featuresdid so between the ages of five and ten.⁹⁵ 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 10, and even of unweaned infants.⁹⁶ Infant and child initiation in Bronze Age Greece is suggested by many myths, especially those in which a child is cut up, cooked, and subsequently 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: the age of the animal sacrificed as a counterfeit of the initand's death; the idea (acted out in some modern tribal initiations) that the initiate is reborn in a state of infancy;⁹⁷ the potency as a purely mythical motif of the idea of child slaughter.

The Theogony and Related Ritual:
External Evidence

We have made various inferences from the theogony itself about its ritual basis. Now it is time to seek external evidence for the historical existence of such syncretistic Bacchic rites as we have postulated, and in general for ritual activity showing

⁹⁴The Dionysiac Mysteries of the Hellenistic and Roman Age, 106-15.

⁹⁵ Ar. Lys. 645 with schol.; Deubner, Attische Feste, 207 f.; Brelich, op. cit., 240-90; C. Sourvinou, CQ 21 (1971), 339-42; Burkert, Griech. Religion, 237, 395.

⁹⁶ Frazer, Balder the Beautiful, ii. 260 (Sierra Leone); Brelich, op. cit., 57 n. 20 (New Caledonia, New Hebrides, New Guinea).

⁹⁷ Van Gennep, The Rites of Passage, 81; Frazer, 251, 254, 256, 262-3, 266-7; Eliade, Rites and Symbols of Initiation, 15; Brelich, op. cit., 39, 95 n. 131.

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significant connections with the matter of the Orphic poem. There is evidence, though it does not by any means point to a single, fixed or lasting form of Orphic cult.

First there is the famous choral entry from Euripides' Cretans, already quoted on p. 153. It describes nocturnal mysteries in Crete in which initiands of Idaean Zeus attain the status of bacchos by a process which includes dancing by the Kouretes, a thunderous noise (of drums or bull-roarers), and a feast of raw meat. Zagreus is involved, the god who later, at least, is identified with Dionysus as the Titans' victim. Euripides cannot, of course, be taken as a reliable reporter of what went on in Cretan or any other cult. All we can say is that the picture he has constructed must have seemed plausible to his Athenian audience. It is far from being an exact match for our Orphic theogony, where Dionysus was apparently not called Zagreus, and where the feast of flesh was cooked, not raw. At the same time there is an affinity not to be denied.

At the beginning of the Hellenistic age Hecataeus of Abdera knew of Orphic-Dionysiac mysteries which he claimed to be identical with those of Osiris (p. 26). One might assume, with Linforth (206), that the principal common feature between the two cults was the dismemberment of the god. In that case it would be as good as attested that an Orphic account of the dismemberment of Dionysus was actually recited in association with a ritual re-enactment of it in about 300 BC. However, Diodorus understood the mysteries in question to be celebrated in honour of the The ban Dionysus who was born from Semele, not the Cretan one born from Persephone.⁹⁸

From about the end of the third century BC we have a fragmentary papyrus giving instructions, partly in note form, for a religious rite. It was discovered at Gurôb, a village in the Fayyûm.⁹⁹ Its evidence is of such interest and importance, despite many obscurities, that it deserves to be set out.

⁹⁸ 1.23 (Linforth, 210-13); cf. Cic. ND 3.58 and Lydus De mensibus 4.51 (Linforth, 220-5). The story that Isis encased each of Osiris' severed limbs in a statue of perfumed wax and entrusted them to different priests for burial (Diod. 1.21, 4.6) is curiously reminiscent of the story that Dionysus' heart was placed in a statue. Did the Orphic mystery suggest the motif to Hecataeus as a way of accounting for the many shrine-tombs of Osiris?

⁹⁹ P. Gurôb 1 = Orph. fr. 31; R.A. Pack, The Greek and Latin Literary Texts from Greco-Roman Egypt (2nd ed. 1965), No. 2464; Festugière, Études de religion grecque et hellénistique, 40-2; Fauth, RE ixA.2257 f.

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. . . having what he finds | . . . [Let him] collect the raw pieces | . . . on account of the sacrament:

`Accep]t ye my [offering] as the payment [for my lawless] fath[ers].
Save me, gr[eat] Brimo [
And Demeter (and ?) Rhea [
And the armed Kouretes; let us [
                    ] and we will make fine sacrifice.
                        ] a ram and a he-goat
                             ] boundless gifts.'

. . . and pasture by the river | . . . [ta]king of the goat | . . . Let him eat the rest of the meat | . . . Let x not watch | . . . consecrating it upon the burnt-up | . . . Prayer of the [ ]:

`Let [us] invoke [      ] and Eubouleus,
And let [us] call upon [the Queen] of the broad [Earth],
And the dear [      ]s. Thou, having withered the [
[Grant the blessings] of Demeter and Pallas unto us.
                          O Eubou]leus, Erikepaios,
Save me [                         Hurler of Light]ning!'

THERE IS ONE DIONYSUS.

Tokens | ..... GOD THROUGH BOSOM | ..... I have drunk. Donkey. Oxherd | . . . password: UP AND DOWN to the |. . . . and what has been given to you, consume it |. . . . put into the basket | . . . [c]one, bull-roarer, knucklebones |. . . . mirror.

That was a somewhat speculative attempt to interpret the line-ends making up column i. Only a few isolated words are identifiable in the line-beginnings of column ii; they include `pray', and perhaps `to the lustral basin', `from the basket', `journey'. The scope of the planned ceremony is difficult to grasp. There is to be a sacrifice and a division of meat; Rhea, the Kouretes, and Dionysus are involved, and, most significantly, there is mention of at least some of the `tokens' with which Dionysus was enticed. There are prayers for salvation, and reference to paying the price for the sins of fathers.¹⁰⁰ There is also a good deal which takes us beyond the Dionysus of the Eudemian Theogony and suggests syncretism of several mystery cults. The `God through bosom' formula comes from the worship of Sabazios (p. 97); the name Erikepaios too seems to derive from an Asiatic form of Dionysus-cult (p. 205). There are also Eleusinian elements, and perhaps points of contact with the gold leaves (p. 22).

¹⁰⁰ Cf. Orph. fr. 232, quoted on p. 99; Pl. Rep. 364c, 366a.

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The existence in Hellenistic times of a Bacchic ritual involving the Titans and a newly-made mirror has been inferred above (p. 157) from a fragment of the Teletai of Dionysus ascribed to Arignote, a legendary daughter of Pythagoras. It would be hypercritical to doubt that the slaughter of Dionysus was represented. We cannot locate `Arignote' geographically; the fragment is in Ionic dialect, but this may be on account of Pythagoras' Samian origin.

The next text we have to consider brings our attention back to Crete. It is the account of Dionysus' death given by Firmicus Maternus in his work on the falsehood of pagan cults, published between 340 and 350 AD, following some Euhemeristic source of the later Hellenistic period.¹⁰¹ The Euhemeristic approach entails Zeus' becoming an ancient Cretan king, and Dionysus' death being irreparable, but otherwise Firmicus' narrative seems to correspond closely with that of Orpheus (whom he does not mention), and I have occasionally referred to it above. He goes on to describe a ritual in which the tragic story is commemorated.

The Cretans, to alleviate the wild rage of their tyrant (at his son's murder), appoint ceremonial funeral days, and compound an annual sacrum with a biennial cónsecrátio (= ), doing in sequence everything that the dying boy did or suffered. They tear a live bull with their teeth, making savage feasts in annual commemoration; and hidden in the forests, with dissonant yells, they feign raving frenzy, to give the impression that the crime was committed not in malice but in madness. The casket is carried round in which his sister secretly concealed his heart, while with the melody of pipes and the clashing of cymbals they simulate the tokens with which the boy was tricked. So it was for the sake of a tyrant and by his subservient people that a god was made out of one for whom burial was impossible.

There can be little doubt that Firmicus' source was writing from knowledge of a real Bacchic ritual. Such details as the carrying of the heart in the casket and the representation of

¹⁰¹De errore 6 (Kern, pp. 234 f.). The source is not Euhemerus himself, as used to be thought. See F. Zucker, Philol. 64 (1905), 470-2; F. Jacoby, RE vi. 955.5-19. W. Burkert has pointed out to me that the same source seems to lie behind Wisdom of Solomon 14.15, where the institution of pagan `mysteries and teletai' is accounted for as the ordinance of a king who, grief-stricken at the untimely death of his son, made an image of him and honoured the dead mortal as a god. Wisdom is an Alexandrian-Jewish work of the 1st century BC. It uses mystery-terminology in 2.22, 8.4, and in 14.23 speaks of `child-slaying teletai or secret mysteries or mad revels of curious customs'.

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certain parts of the myth by imitative pipe music have a wholly authentic ring. What is more doubtful is whether it was really a peculiarly Cretan ritual or just a ritual which was claimed to have started in Crete.

Several authors of the Roman period allude to ritual enactment of the dismemberment of Dionysus, or refer to the Orphic narrative as being associated with mysteries, without linking them with Crete. Diodorus, after relating and interpreting allegorically the story of the dismemberment (in the non-Orphic version in which his limbs are gathered together by Demeter), adds that `the Orphic poems and what is represented in the sacraments, the details of which the uninitiated may not enquire, are in accord with this'. Elsewhere he refers to Dionysus, the Cretan-born son of Zeus and Persephone, `whom Orpheus at the sacraments has handed down as being pulled apart by the Titans'. Clement writes that the mysteries of Dionysus are quite inhuman: when he was still a child the Kouretes danced round him, the Titans got in, deceived him with childish playthings, and tore him apart, `as the poet of the sacrament says, Orpheus the Thracian'; here he gives the two verses quoted on p. 155, and enumerates `the tokens of this sacrament'. Macrobius says it is `handed down in the rites of the Orphics' that Dionysus was torn limb from limb by the frenzied Titans and that after the remains were buried he re-emerged whole. We have referred to the pseudo-Aristotelian Problem which apparently alludes to the Orphic story of the cooking of Dionysus as `what is told in the sacrament'. Occasional references in Proclus show that he understood the Rhapsodies as a whole to be a sacred text of mystery rites.¹⁰²

We should not imagine that there was a single, uniform Bacchic mystery rite widely celebrated in the Imperial age and corresponding to the Orphic narrative. Dionysiac ceremonial took many forms and gave expression to many different elements of Dionysiac mythology. Much of it was cheerful play-acting, offering temporary escape from ordinary life into

¹⁰² Diod. 3.62.8 (Orph. fr. 301), 5.75.4 (fr. 303); Clem. Protr. 2.18 (fr. 34); Macr. in Somn. Scip. 1.12.11 (fr. 240; Myth. Vat. 3.12.5 (fr. 213) seems to derive from Macrobius); Arist. Probl., see p. 161; Procl. Plat. Theol. 5.35, p. 322 Portus (Kern, p. 191), in Tim. 35a (ii. 146.21 D., p. 229 Kern), 42cd (iii. 297.8 D., fr. 229 Kern). For the Titans' frenzy (furor) in Macrobius cf. Firmicus' account quoted above.

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a piquant, romantic, voluptuous fantasy-world.¹⁰³ There was no clear division between mystery and masquerade. Lucian mentions Bacchic pantomimes, popular in Ionia and Pontus, in which the dancers portrayed, among other subjects, Titans and Korybantes; only the Titans' assault on Dionysus can be meant.¹⁰⁴ The story must have been enacted in a tenser, holier atmosphere in the Titanika and Nyktelia which Plutarch finds to be parallel to the myths of Osiris' dismemberment and rebirth.¹⁰⁵

Date and Place of Origin of the Eudemian Theogony

The Eudemian Theogony was current at Athens in the fourth century BC; the earliest reference to it, in Plato's Cratylus, takes us back to the 380s. Athens is the only place where we find knowledge of it before the Hellenistic period, and that may be where it first appeared. It was just in the last third of the fifth century that Orphic poems became fashionable at Athens under the circumstances described on pp. 20-1. It is at the same period that we first find awareness at Athens of the religion of Idaean Zeus and the Kouretes. The theogony of pseudo-Epimenides (pp. 47-52) may have been one source of that awareness. We have seen that Euripides when he composed the Cretans (very probably before 425) had a concept of syncretistic mystery rites not altogether unlike those presupposed in the Orphic theogony, combining Kouretic and Bacchic elements and supposed to be indigenous to Crete. Athens at this epoch thus seems to provide a suitable milieu for the composition of the theogony. There were private cult societies of various kinds with their own initiation rituals. Aristophanes parodies one in the Clouds (250 ff.). In order to gain admission to Socrates' school to `learn the true nature of divine things' and to meet and converse with the school's deities, Strepsiades has to be initiated. He is made to sit on the holy bed and wear a crownwhich makes him apprehensive lest he is to be sacrificedand he is

¹⁰³ See Nilsson, op. cit. (n. 94), with whose general assessment (143-7) I am in agreement.

¹⁰⁴ 45.79, cf. 39.

¹⁰⁵Is. Os. 364f, cf. De E 389a. Nilsson, op. cit. 138, is wrong to find a reference in the Smyrnaean inscription cited above, n. 79, to expounding the Orphic myth about the Titans to initiates. The passage is correctly explained by A.D. Nock, Harv. Stud. 63 (1958), 415 f. = Essays on Religion and the Ancient World, 848.

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sprinkled with some dry substance (which also has sacrificial overtones). The Corybantic initiations with their enthronements and dancing are mentioned by Plato in his Euthydemus.

The society for which the Eudemian Theogony was composed was, I suggest, Athenian. Its rites had very ancient origins, and were probably not native to Attica: they 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 these rites went a myth about Bacchus and the Titans, which at some point was brought into connection with the entombed Dionysus of Delphi. The achievement 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.

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VI
The Hieronyman Theogony

The second of the Orphic theogonies mentioned by Damascius was `the one current according to Hieronymusand Hellanicus, if he is not the same person'. We do not know the identity of the Hieronymus in question, or of the Hellanicus. It does not seem likely that Damascius is drawing on two separate works, for even if they gave identical accounts of the Orphic poem, it is hard to imagine why it should have occurred to him that the two authors might be the same, rather than that one had transcribed the other. It is more probable that he had a single source in which the two names were linked, for example as joint or alternative authors.

The only known writers called Hellanicus are the famous fifth-century historian from Lesbos and an Alexandrian scholar of about 200 BC who held separatist views on Homer. Neither of these has any claim to be considered as the Hellanicus named by Damascius. There is, however, another man of this name who has a connection with Orphic poems, and indeed with summaries of their contents. The Suda records that one Sandon, a philosopher, son of Hellanicus, wrote a book of Hypotheses to Orpheus. As he is called a `philosopher', I presume that his Hypotheses were more than simple synopses of Orphic poems: they contained philosophical, that is, allegorical interpretation.¹ They must surely have included one of the theogonies. Here then is a work that will have contained an account of an Orphic theogony and that might well be quoted in such a way that Hellanicus, the compiler's father, was named. It is tempting to suppose that Damascius' information is somehow related to this.² But if so, how is it that he mentions two names, neither of which is Sandon's? One possibility is that his knowledge of Sandon's book was indirect, and that in his immediate source Sandon's name had fallen out, so that the reference appeared as `the Orphic Hypotheses of Hellanicus' instead of `the Orphic

¹ For `philosopher' meaning allegorist cf. Rufinus, Recogn. 10.30 (fr. 55 K.); Damasc. Princ. 123 (fr. 60 K.); Myth. Vat. 1.204, 3.1.5.

² Schuster, 86 ff.; Eisler, Weltenmantel und Himmelszelt. 393 n. 1.

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Hypotheses of Sandon the son of Hellanicus'. However, this leaves Hieronymus unaccounted for. Another possibility is that Hieronymus was the same person as Sandon. Sandon is a Cilician name, derived from the local god Sandan or Sandes.³ A man with a foreign name sometimes adopted a Greek one too, calling himself, for example, `Phatres, also known as Didymus', (or . As Sandes was equated with Zeus or Heracles, the best Greek rendering of Sandon's name might have been Dion or Heraclides, but Hieronymus is passable. If our author did christen himself so, he becomes `Sandon (son) of Hellanicus, also known as Hieronymus', or `Sandon alias Hieronymus, (son) of Hellanicus'. Put it all in the genitive, and it is not difficult to see how a certain confusion might have arisen.

But we must also consider whether any known Hieronymus comes into question as the one referred to by Damascius. Lobeck (340) thought of Hieronymus of Rhodcs, the Peripatetic writer of the third century BC, who wrote among other things a work On Poets. What we know of it, however, indicates that it was concerned with literary history and anecdotal biography, and it would be extremely surprising if it contained such details of the contents of an Orphic poem as Damascius has. A more promising candidate is Hieronymus the Egyptian (so Josephus calls him, though Tertullian styles him king of Tyre), a writer on Phoenician antiquities of late Hellenistic or early Imperial date.⁴ We know next to nothing of his work. But other writers in this field discussed Phoenician cosmology and theology, and claimed that the Greeks got their doctrines from the Phoenicians. There was Laitos, who claimed to be translating the work of Moch of Sidon, supposed to have lived before the Trojan War, and Herennius Philo of Byblos, who claimed to have a similarly ancient native source, Sanchuniathon of Beirut. There is actually one text which states that Orpheus derived his theology from Sanchuniathon.⁵ So Hieronymus the

³ L. Zgusta, Kleinasiatische Personennamen (1964), 454 f.; on the god, E. Laroche, Dictionnaire de la langue louvite (1959), 127; Cook, Zeus, i. 593 ff.; W. Fauth in Der Kleine Pauly (1964-75), iv. 1541.

⁴ Schuster, 100; Eisler, Weltenmantel und Himmelszelt, 393 n. 1; Staudacher, 94; FGrHist 787.

⁵ Laitos 784 F 2, 4-6; Philo 790 F 1-2, 4; 794 F 6c (cod. Matrit. Gr. 4616 f. 180).

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Egyptian might have discussed an Orphic theogony in a similar context. For information about Phoenician cosmogonic theory Damascius turns first to Eudemus, then to `Moch'.⁶ Eudemus and Hieronymus, his two sources for Orphic cosmogony (apart from the Rhapsodies which he knew directly), make a similar pairing if Hieronymus was the Egyptian.

This time it is Hellanicus who is left unaccounted for. Yet we shall find shortly that this hypothesis about Hieronymus' identity has an advantage over the hypothesis that he was an alias of Sandon.

The Cosmogony According to Damascius

Damascius' account runs:⁷

Originally there was water, he (Orpheus) says, and mud, from which the earth solidified: he posits these two as first principles, water and earth . . . The one before the two, however, he leaves unexpressed, his very silence being an intimation of its ineffable nature. The third principle after the two was engendered by theseearth and water, that isand was a serpent () with extra heads growing upon it of a bull and a lion, and a god's countenance in the middle; it had wings upon its shoulders, and its name was Unaging Time (Chronos) and also Heracles. United with it was Ananke, being of the same nature, or Adrastea, incorporeal, her arms extended throughout the universe and touching its extremities. I think this stands for the third principle, occupying the place of essence, only he made it bisexual to symbolize the universal generative cause. And I assume that the theology in the Rhapsodies discarded the two first principles (together with the one before the two, that was left unspoken), and began from this third principle after the two, because this was the first that was expressible and acceptable to human ears. For this is the great Unaging Time that we found in it [sc. in the Rhapsodic Theogony], the father of Aither and Chaos. Indeed, in this theology too [sc. the Hieronyman], this Time, the serpent, has offspring, three in number: moist Aither (I quote), unbounded Chaos, and as a third, misty Darkness (Erebos) . . . Among these, he says, Time generated an eggthis tradition too making it generated by Time, and born `among' these because it is from these that the third Intelligible triad is produced. What is this triad, then? The egg; the dyad of the two natures inside it (male and female), and the plurality of the various seeds between; and thirdly an incorporeal god with golden wings on his shoulders, bulls' heads growing upon his flanks, and on his head a monstrous serpent, presenting the appearance of all kinds of animal forms . . . And the third god of this third triad this theology too celebrates as Firstborn, and it calls him Zeus the orderer of all and < > of the whole

⁶Princ. 125c (i. 323 R.); 784 F 4.

⁷Princ. 123 bis (i. 317-19 R.) = Orph. fr. 54.

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world, wherefore he is also called Pan. So much this second genealogy supplies concerning the Intelligible principles.

In evaluating this account we must be careful to disentangle what was actually recorded by Hieronymus from the Neoplatonic interpretation put upon it by Damascius, who is concerned to arrange everything in triads. Each triad is made up of a Father, a Potentiality (these two at the same time correspond to the Finite Monad and the Infinite Dyad of earlier Pythagorean metaphysics), and a Mind. In the initial pair, water and earth, Damascius recognizes a dyad: this must come in second place in his system, so to occupy the first place he postulates a prior principle so ineffable that the author left it unspoken. This is a sufficient example of the arbitrariness of his exegesis, and we may with Holwerda (299 f.) take comfort from the thought that an interpreter equipped with so elastic a method had no need to falsify the facts he reported.⁸

Athenagoras' Evidence

Kern places several other texts under the heading `Hieronymi 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, however, 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 distinguishes the Hieronyman Theogony from the Rhapsodies is that it began with water and mud, from which the Time-serpent appeared. In the Rhapsodic Theogony (Damascius tells us) the water and the mud were absent. Now there are only two other texts which reflect the Hieronyman version: a passage in the Christian apologist

⁸ On Damascius' interpretation of the Orphic cosmogonies see R. Strömberg, Eranos 44 (1946), 180-4.

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Athenagoras, and a scholium on Gregory of Nazianzus which is evidently dependent on Athenagoras.⁹ There are quite close 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' account is the more detailed of the two, and names a source which Athenagoras does not name. Both writers must be drawing on the same source.¹¹

The Athenagoras passage reads:

The gods, as they (the Greeks) say, did not exist from the beginning, but each of them was born just as we are born. And this is agreed by them all, Homer saying

Oceanus the genesis of the gods, and mother Tethys

(Il. 14. 201), and Orpheuswho was the original inventor of the gods' names and recounted their births and said what they have all done, and who enjoys some credit among them as a true theologian, and is generally followed by Homer, above all about the godsalso making their first genesis from water:

Oceanus, who is the genesis of them all.

For water was according to him the origin of everything, and from the water mud formed, and from the pair of them a living creature was generated, a serpent with an extra head growing upon it of a lion, <and another of a bull,> and in the middle of them a god's countenance; its name was Heracles and Time. This Heracles generated a huge egg, which, being filled full, by the force of its engenderer was broken in two from friction. Its crown became the heaven, and what had sunk downwards, earth. There also came forth an incorporeal god.¹²

Athenagoras does not stop there. He goes on to relate that from Uranos and Ge the Moirai, Hundred-Handers, and Cyclopes were born. Uranos sent his sons to Tartarus, having learnt that his children would depose him; whereupon Ge in anger bore the Titans. Here three lines of verse are quoted. After this point Athenagoras does not continue to tell the

⁹ Both in fr. 57 Kern.

¹⁰ Schuster, 81.

¹¹ Cf. Lobeck, 487.

¹² Athenagoras later identifies this god as Phanes, calls him `firstborn', and says that he had serpent form and was swallowed by Zeus (in fr. 58, p. 139 K.). The addition of the bull's head (from Damascius) is necessary to give sense to `in the middle of them'. It must have fallen out at an early stage, because it is also absent from the Gregory scholium.

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story in order, though he refers to many more of the events in it, with particular emphasis on its monstrous and unseemly elements (fr. 58 K.). We learn that Kronos castrated and overthrew Uranos. When his own children were born, he swallowed the males. But Zeus sent him to Tartarus, and made war on the Titans in order to achieve supremacy. He pursued his mother Rhea-Demeter and mated with her in serpent form, and she gave birth to the two-faced, horned Persephone-Athela. Zeus mated with Persephone too in snake form, and she bore Dionysus. There is also reference to Phanes' giving birth to Echidna, who was a fearsome serpent from the neck downhere again verses are quotedand to his being swallowed by Zeus.

Can we assume that all this comes from the Hieronyman Theogony? The only real alternative is that Athenagoras has combined Hieronymus' digest, which Damascius later drew upon, with material from the Rhapsodies. Certainly his account fits the Rhapsodies pretty well apart from the initial water and mud. But we know from Damascius that the Hieronyman Theogony did have much in common with the Rhapsodies. The whole idea of the Rhapsodies, after all, was to incorporate and reconcile other Orphic theogonies. And as at the beginning of the cosmogony there was one definite divergence between the Hieronyman and Rhapsodic Theogonies, so in the latter part of what Athenagoras offers there is another. It is that Zeus fights a war against the Titans (and presumably consigns them to Tartarus) before becoming king; consistently with this, there is no mention of their killing and eating the child Dionysus, which one would certainly have expected Athenagoras to comment on if he had had the Rhapsodies in view.

If we accept that he is following the Hieronyman Theogony throughout, it becomes difficult to sustain the idea that Hieronymus was Sandon, the writer of Hypotheses. Athenagoras' source was the same as Damascius', as the verbal parallels show, and Damascius identifies this source as Hieronymus (-Hellanicus). Hieronymus therefore went into as much detail as Athenagoras does about the monstrous physiques of Chronos and Ananke, Phanes, Echidna, and Persephone, and about the snake-coupling of Zeus and Rhea, and he provided verse quotations as well as prose paraphrase. These are not the ways

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of ordinary Hypothesis-writers. A philosophical interpreter, such as I have suggested Sandon may have been, could well quote verse passages. But the particular quotations which we find in Athenagoras, one of them on the birth of the Titans and the connection of their name with `take vengeance', the other on the birth and shape of Echidna, do not seem especially likely passages for an allegorist to have fastened on; and it is curious that there is so much emphasis on snakishness. This is less difficult to understand if Hieronymus is the Phoenician antiquary of that name. Philo of Byblos (790 F 4) discusses the divinity which the Phoenicians and Egyptians ascribe to serpents, and writes that `it was from the Phoenicians that Pherecydes took his point of departure when he theologized about the god that he calls Ophioneus, and the Ophionidai, of whom we shall speak in another place'. Hieronymus might have made a similar point about Orpheus and the striking array of serpentine gods to be found in his theogony.

Relationship of the Hieronyman and Protogonos Theogonies

The Hieronyman Theogony is obviously related to the old Protogonos Theogony, which, as we were able to deduce from the Derveni papyrus, told of the egg-hatched Protogonos, Uranos' oppression of the Hundred-Handers and Cyclopes, his castration by the Titans, his succession by Kronos and Zeus, Zeus' swallowing of Protogonos, his pursuit of Rhea-Demeter and their mating, and the birth of Dionysus from Kore, while it did not contain his rending by the Titans. All of this is in agreement with Athenagoras. The two poems cannot, however, simply be identified, because the Protogonos Theogony was composed no later than the fifth century BC, whereas the Hieronyman, as we shall see presently, cannot be earlier than the third. The Hieronyman Theogony, it will appear, is to be seen as a Hellenistic, Stoicizing adaptation of the Protogonos Theogony. Some of the details attested for it by Athenagoras and Damascius no doubt go back to the earlier poem; we shall have to consider which as we go along. We shall therefore be supplementing the results of Chapter 3, and at the same time dealing with post-classical developments which it would have been out of place to notice there.

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The Water and the Mud

For water was according to him the origin of everything, and from the water mud formed, and from the pair of them a living creature was generated . . . its name was Heracles and Time. (Athenagoras)

There was water, he says, and mud,¹³ from which the earth solidified . . . the third principle after the two was engendered by these . . . its name was Unaging Time and also Heracles. (Damascius)

It is odd that physical elements should exist before Unaging Time, and odder still that they should appear at all in a poetic theogony which goes on to talk about winged serpents and a cosmic egg. In the Rhapsodies Time is the beginning of everything; water and earth appeared only when Oceanus, Pontos, and Ge appeared in their due place. In the one non-Orphic Greek cosmogony in which Time played a role, that of Pherecydes, he existed from the beginning beside Zas and Chthonie (DK 7 B 1). In the Hieronyman Theogony itself the water and mud, or water and earth, seem strangely unrelated to anything that happens later. Time operates amid Aither, Chaos, and Darkness, created by himself. It is from the egg which he forms there that heaven and earth are made.

The initial stage, especially as Damascius describes it, corresponds closely with that which the Stoic Zeno interpreted into Hesiod: `Zeno also says that Hesiod's ''Chaos" is water, from the settlement of which mud comes into being, and when that solidifies the earth is established.'¹⁴ Hesiod had said `First Chaos was born, and then broad-breasted Earth, secure seat of all for ever' (Th. 116 f.). So it looks rather as though Hieronymus' statement of how the Orphic theogony began was a Stoic formulation, an interpretation of divine names. This may seem to bring us back to the possibility that Hieronymus was a philosophical allegorist. But there is no trace of philosophical interpretation, apart from Damascius' own, in the rest of what Damascius reports from Hieronymus, or the rest of Athenagoras' account. The whole matter is very puzzling. Even if Hieronymus did interpret divine names as standing for material elements, why did he not record the names, when he was so explicit about the different names borne by Chronos, Ananke,

¹³ `Mud' () is Zoëga's emendation of `matter' (). It is confirmed by the Athenagoras passage and by the fragment of Zeno about to be quoted.

¹⁴ Sch. A.R. 1.496-8b = SVF i. 29.17.

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and Protogonos in the poem? Or if he did record them, why did Damascius, who had less interest in Hieronymus' interpretations, omit them?

W. Jaeger suggested that the names were Oceanus and Ge,¹⁵ and there is apparent support for Oceanus in the text of Athenagoras, where the Homeric verse

Oceanus, who is the genesis of them all

(Il. 14.246) is attributed to Orpheus and closely linked with the primeval water. I say apparent support, because it would be easy enough to account for the verse as a gloss on Athenagoras' remarks about Homer. It could be removed from the text without leaving any discontinuity. If the Orphic cosmogony did begin with Oceanus, I should prefer to suppose that he was coupled with his traditional partner Tethys rather than with Ge. Tethys was variously interpreted by exponents of physical exegesis, but she was at least sometimes explained as representing earth.¹⁶ This would avoid the problem of Ge existing before the egg, and of the fact that she appears subsequently as the consort of Uranos.

There are two further texts which might be adduced in support of the Oceanus hypothesis. The first is in what passes for Alexander of Aphrodisias' commentary on a passage near the end of Aristotle's Metaphysics.¹⁷ It must be explained that whereas we have Alexander's genuine commentary on Metaphysics A- D, dating from the late second or early third century AD, it is generally agreed that the continuation covering books E-N is not by him, though it may contain some authentic material. Certain passages are copied out of the fifth-century commentary of Syrianus.¹⁸ The section that concerns us relates to a remark by Aristotle that the ancient poets attribute sovereignty not to the oldest powers `such as Night and Uranos or Chaos or Oceanus', but to Zeus, though they arrive at this by

¹⁵The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers (1947), 220 n. 57.

¹⁶ Sch. AD Il. 14.201 (Hesych., Suda, Et. Magn. s.v. ); Io. Diaconus in Hes. Th., p. 308.17 Flach; cf. Procl. in Tim., iii. 186.25 D. (p. 179 Kern).

¹⁷In Metaph. 1091b4-8, CAG i. 821.5 ff. = fr. 107 K.

¹⁸ Unless, as some think, Syrianus copied them from `Alexander'. For brief statements of different viewpoints on the question see M. Hayduck, CAG i. (1891), v-vi, and G. (= W.) Kroll, ibid., vi. 1 (1902), vi.

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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', however, states unhesitatingly that Aristotle is alluding to Orpheus alone, in whom first Chaos came 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 it with a group of quotations from the Rhapsodies (frr. 108, 102, 111), in which the successive tenure of royal power by Erikepaios, Night, and Uranos is made explicit. The same group of quotations, one of them in a fuller form, appears in Syrianus' commentary, and this appears to be one of the places where `Alexander' has drawn on Syrianus. Syrianus was a keen student of the Rhapsodies (see p. 228), and he cites them elsewhere in his commentary on the Metaphysics. `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 of which 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 others before Zeus, because those are the powers mentioned by Aristotle; but that does not mean that his reference to Orpheus 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 Chaos and Night. It is hard to conceive of a theogony with such an extraordinary sequence. One is thus led to suspect that `Alexander' 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.²⁰ If, as has been suggested, the Hieronyman Theogony began with Oceanus, and if this was the poem on which the commentator's statement was based, we need only assume an inversion in the first two items of his

¹⁹ Zeller-Nestle, Die Philosophie der Griechen, i. 136 n. 1; Staudacher, 92 n. 8; Schwabl, 1469.

²⁰ Cf. Guthrie, 103 f. It would follow, I think, that this portion of `Alexander' is of early origin, from the true Alexander, possibly reflecting a still earlier exegetical tradition if there was one.

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seriesan understandable inversion, because of the instinctive tendency to put Chaos at the beginning.²¹

The other text is an oration of Gregory of Nazianzus in which, like Athenagoras and others before him, he attacks pagan religion by pointing to the undignified and troubled nature of the gods revered by the Greeks as their own theologians portray them:

antagonistic not only towards one another but even towards the first causes, the Oceanuses and Tethyses and Phaneses and whatever else they call them all; and an ultimate god who hates his children from love of power, and who swallows all the others in his insatiable greed so that he may become `the father of all men and gods' as they are miserably devoured and vomited forth.²²

Gregory is evidently taking Orpheus as the chief or sole representative of Hellenic theology. One would expect a writer of the fourth century who cites an Orphic theogony to be referring to the Rhapsodies. It is quite likely that Oceanus and Tethys suffered from antagonism in that narrative: the antagonism of Kronos because Oceanus refused to support the Titans' assault on Uranos. It was this antagonism, probably, that led to Oceanus and his consort being banished to the ends of the earth.²³ On the other hand they were not `first causes' fit to be named in the same breath as Phanes and indeed before him, they were brother and sister to Kronos (fr. 114). It may be that Gregory calls them first causes simply because they belong to an older generation than Zeus, or because he remembers the famous lines about them in the Iliad. But I would not like to exclude the possibility that he is echoing an older Christian source in which the reference was to an earlier Orphic theogony (to wit, the Hieronyman) where Oceanus and Tethys did actually appear before Phanes. In what circumstances they later suffered at the hands of the gods is uncertain. But since Gregory is speaking about `the gods and daimones revered by the Greeks', Zeus would be more relevant than

²¹ This can be illustrated from the passages of Apion and Rufinus printed by Kern under frr. 55 and 56, and from the brief résumé of the Rhapsodies in the Orphic Argonautica, 12 ff. (quoted below, p. 231); cf. Orpheus' song in the same poem, 421 ff. (p. 100 Kern).

²²Or. 31.16, Patr. Gr. xxxvi. 149 = fr. 171 K.

²³ See frr. 135, 117; p. 130.

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Kronos, and Oceanus might have been mentioned in the context of Zeus' swallowing of Phanes, the world, and the gods (cf. p. 89).

Let us very tentatively explore the hypothesis that the poem did begin with Oceanus and Tethys, existing from the outset with no forbears, and that Hieronymus translated them into Water and Mud, regarded as successive phases in the sequence watermudearth. To put Oceanus and Tethys right at the beginning of things, before Time itself, and several generations before the Titans, would certainly be a bold stroke on the poet's partmuch bolder than their placing in the Eudemian Theogony in a generation between that of Uranos and Ge and that of the Titans. There was something of a precedent in Homer, of course, and if the Orphic poet borrowed a Homeric verse for this context the implication is that he was fully conscious of that precedent. But what might have been his motive for this startling arrangement? He cannot have conceived it merely for the sake of accommodation with Homer.

Oceanus is a great river encircling the earth. But if we are to think of him existing before the earth came into being, it can only be as a rather formless cosmic water. To put it the other way round, if a Greek poet is to deal with an imagined primeval water, the name of Oceanus has some appropriateness because of his status as something ancient, grand, watery, and outside the known world. To this extent Hieronymus' putative interpretation is in order. What is much more doubtful is whether Tethys should be considered as anything more than a female counterpart of Oceanus. Before the appearance of Time, surely, there can be no hint of development from water towards earth, only a static uniformity.

A primeval mass of waters makes us think of the Near East. The Sumerian goddess Nammu, who represents fresh water, preceded heaven and earth and is called their mother.²⁴ We have already compared Homer's Oceanus and Tethys with the Babylonian Apsû and Tiâmat, the two great aquatic deities whose waters were originally mingled in one body (p. 120, cf. 102). The Hebrew cosmogony begins similarly with a mass of dark waters (tehom *, related to Tiâmat).

The oriental provenance of the deified Time, the cosmic egg,

²⁴ T. Jacobsen, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 5 (1946), 138 f.

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and the Firstborn creator god who comes from it, is established (pp. 103-6). Can we find an oriental model for the coexistence or primeval ocean and Time-god, or for their appearance in sequence? Phoenician cosmogonies show something of the required pattern, though they represent the initial state of the material world as misty rather than watery. Eudemus recorded that the Sidonians put Time, Desire, and Fog at the beginning of things, while according to `Moch *' the first principles were Aither and Aer, and Time was born from them.²⁵ Philo of Byblos gave a human genealogy that is evidently a cosmogony in disguise, in which a woman called Baau (interpreted by Philo as Night, but probably related to the tohu* wa-bohu* (waste and void) of Genesis 1:2) is made pregnant by a wind and gives birth to Aion and Protogonos.²⁶ In Genesis itself the wind of God²⁷ `flapped' over the waters like a bird over its young;²⁸ then God separated light from darkness and named them day and night. Time could be said to have begun that Sunday. On the Wednesday he set the luminaries in heaven to mark the days and the years.²⁹

I traced the origin of the Time-god to the Egyptian cult of the Lord of Eternity. first appeared from the primordial mass of waters, Nun*. Nun, rather like Oceanus in Homer, is called `Father of the gods' or `Producer of the great company of gods'. In Nun dwelt Atum, the `non-existent', called the `self-created', and it was he who created out of Nun. The origins of this idea can be followed back into very early times. In the Pyramid Texts Atum appears as a form of the rising or setting sun-god. When the sun is born from the waters in the

²⁵ Eudemus fr. 150; Laitos 784 F 4.

²⁶ 790 F 2 (Eus. PE 1.10.7).

²⁷ Cf. O. Eissfeldt, Forschungen und Fortschritte 16 (1940), 1 = Kl. Schr. (1962-79), ii. 258.

²⁸ This is the meaning of the verb in Deut. 32:11, the only other Hebrew passage where it occurs. Many commentators translate `brooded' as on an egg. See J. Skinner, Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis (2nd ed., 1930), 18. But this is less appropriate to the wind. The New English Bible gives `hovered'.

²⁹ 1:1-18. A rather similar sequence occurs in a late hymn of the Rgveda*, 10.190: `From Fervour kindled to its height Eternal Law and Truth were born: Thence was the Night produced, and thence the billowy flood of sea arose. From that same billowy flood of sea the Year was afterwards produced, Ordainer of the days and nights, Lord over all who close the eye. Dhatar, the great Creator, then formed in due order Sun and Moon. He formed in order Heaven and Earth, the regions of the air, and light.' (Trans. R.T.H. Griffith.)

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morning, Atum, the spirit of the waters, becomes , and in the evening again becomes Atum. The idea was then magnified to cover the whole of time. Atum created the sun in the beginning from the waters, and manifested himself as . In the seventeenth chapter of the Book of the Dead, a passage used all over Egypt for many centuries, he says `I am Atum when I was alone in Nun; I am in his (first) appearances, when he began to rule that which he had made'.³⁰ And from the 175th chapter it appears that the world is destined to be dissolved again in Nun:

`O Atum, what is (my) duration of life?'thus he (the deceased as Osiris) spoke. `Thou art (destined) for millions of millions (of years), a lifetime of millions. I have caused that he send out the great ones. Further, I shall destroy all that I have made, and this land will return into Nun, into the floodwaters, as (in) its first state. I (alone) am a survivor, together with Osiris, when I have made my form in another state, serpents which men do not know and gods do not see.'³¹

In Nun, in other words, dwell serpents, which are the bodily form of Atum.³² According to the Hermopolite tradition, there were eight gods in the primeval water: four males, depicted with frogs' heads and representing the water itself, its infinite extent, its darkness, and its breath (?), and four female counterparts with serpents' heads.³³

The Orphic scheme of an aboriginal watery abyss (Oceanus and Tethys ?), from and within which is born an eternal creator in the form of a winged serpent (Chronos) paired with a female counterpart (Ananke), can thus be related to ancient Egyptian mythical antecedents. Hieronymus' `water and mud' appear in this light as an archaic feature of the Time-cosmogony and not, as some scholars have supposed, a late excrescence.³⁴ It is

³⁰ Trans. J.A. Wilson in ANET 3; cf. Budge, The Book of the Dead, 376.

³¹ Trans. Wilson, ANET 9.

³² Compare the serpents which crowd around the sun's nightly path and try to obstruct his re-emergence. Some of them are winged and have two or three heads.

³³ Budge, 163; K. Sethe, Abh. Berl. Ak. 1929(4); S. Morenz in Aus Antike und Orient (Festschrift W. Schubart, 1950), 80; J.A. Wilson in H. and H.A. Frankfort, Before Philosophy, 61.

³⁴ Staudacher, 94 f., suggests that Hieronymus added them, precisely in order to bring Orpheus into line with Phoenician and Egyptian cosmogonies. Schuster, 97, makes Hellanicus responsible: he (a) identifies Damascius' Hellanicus with Hellanicus the father of Sandon the writer on Orpheus, (b) identifies this Sandon

(footnote continued on next page)

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reasonable to assume that the cosmic deities which Hieronymus so interpretedOceanus and Tethys, or whoever they may have beenalready occupied this place in the original Protogonos Theogony. It is understandable that the original scheme should later have been modified so that Time existed from the beginning, either beside the first material principles, as in the Sidonian cosmogony cited by Eudemus and one form of the Zoroastrian cosmogony,³⁵ or before them, as in other Iranian accounts³⁶ and in the Rhapsodies.

Chronos-Heracles

The serpent form of Chronos may have its origins in Egyptian fantasy, but in Orphic poetry it 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 between 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 his consort, who was `of the same nature', had arms. If the couple are mainly anthropomorphic above the waist and snakelike below, they are reminiscent of Echidna (Hes. Th. 298-9, Hdt. 4.9.1), and even more of her consort Typhoeus as he is represented on a well-known Chalcidian hydria in Munich:³⁷ he has a human head and trunk, but bulls' or horses' ears, and wings on his shoulders, while below the waist he divides into two long serpent tails which twine gracefully in a loose knot. In other archaic representations there is no division but a single long serpent tail.³⁸

(footnote continued from previous page)

with Sandon the father of the Stoic Athenodorus Cananites (Strabo 14.5.14, p. 674), (c) suggests that Hellanicus, sharing his grandson's philosophical orientation, adapted the theogony to Stoic theory; a house of cards if ever there was one.

³⁵EGPO 30. Cf. Pherecydes B 1, `Zas and Chronos always existed, and Chthonie'.

³⁶EGPO 30, 32.

³⁷ Museum Antiker Kleinkunst, 596; E. Gerhard, Auserlesene griechische Vasenbilder (1840-58), iii, Pl. 237; P.E. Arias-M. Hirmer-B. B. Shefton, History of Greek Vase Painting (1962), Pl. xxv; c. 550-530 BC.

³⁸ From the 4th century the Giants are sometimes shown as becoming single or double serpents below the waist. On the artistic type see Roscher, v. 1449 f.; E. Kunze, Archaische Schildbänder (Olympische Forschungen, ii, 1950), 82 ff.; F. Vian, Répertoire des Gigantomachies figurées dans l'art grec et romain (1951) (catalogue, plates); La Guerre des Géants (1952), 12-16.

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To this extent we may say that Chronos is conceived in the spirit of archaic Greek art. A painter of the time of the Protogonos 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 symbol of eternity because of its habit of sloughing its skin off and so renewing its youth.³⁹ It may also be relevant that the serpent with human head and arms is the regular shape of river-gods.⁴⁰ The idea of Time as a river is present in at least one passage of tragedy;⁴¹ and it would be assisted by the fact that Oceanus is usually the father of rivers, if in the Orphic poem Chronos was represented 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 earth to glide upon. We may compare the wings of Pherecydes' world tree, and in art the wings of the sun's horses. In a wider context, wings are freely bestowed by archaic artists upon all manner of divine beings, and fabulous monsters such as sphinxes and griffins are also winged; the type of the winged Typhoeus has its place with them.⁴² That Time should be winged is something in which it is easy to find symbolic meaning.

The additional bull and lion heads fit less well into an archaic Greek style. There are three-headed figures such as Cerberus and Geryoneus, but for a monster with heads of different species we can only refer to the Chimaera, an animal of oriental provenance who falls out of favour with artists before the 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 Greece. The best parallel

³⁹ J.G. Frazer, Folklore in the Old Testament (1919), i. 50. In late antiquity the serpent biting its own tail is a well-attested symbol of time in its cyclical aspect. Cf. F. Cumont, Festschrift Benndorf (1898), 291 ff.; W. Deonna, Artibus Asiae 15 (1952), 163-70; Nilsson, Gr. Rel. ii. 502.

⁴⁰ Serpents and rivers are often compared with one another in poetic simile, e.g. `Hes.' frr. 70.23, 293, Virg. G. 1.245.

⁴¹ Critias 43 F 3.1-3 `Tireless Time with his ever-flowing stream runs full, reborn from himself'; cf. S. OC 930 `Time in its fullness' () and 609 `Time all-powerful confounds () everything else'. Heraclitus' image of the river into which one cannot step twice is a related idea.

⁴² Cf. Wilamowitz, Glaube, ii. 7; Nilsson, Minoan-Mycenaean Religion, 507 f.; in most detail S. Eitrem, RE viA.886 f.

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for Chronos' heads is perhaps to be found in the Cherubim which Ezekiel saw at Babylon in 593 BC: `Each had four faces and each four wings . . . all 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 heads are most naturally understood as pictorial expressions of the concepts of `all-mastering' and `tireless' Time that we find in fifth-century poetry.⁴⁴

In the Orphic poem his epithet was `unaging'. The same predicate is applied to his Iranian and Indian counterparts, Zurvan * and Kala*.⁴⁵ It enjoys a certain vogue in sixth- and fifth-century Greek cosmology: Anaximander described 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 same sort of relation to everyday time as `Time Unlimited' does to `Time for Long Autonomous' in Iranian theology.⁴⁸

Athenagoras and Damascius both record that the winged serpent Chronos was also called Heracles. Why? What was there about Heracles 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 suggested.⁴⁹ In the legendary cycle of twelve labours, in the course of which Heracles overcame a lion, a bull, and various other dangerous fauna, some allegorical interpreters saw the vic-

⁴³ Ezek. 1:6-10, cf. 10:14.

⁴⁴ All-mastering: Simon. 531.5, Bacch. 13.205, Pind. fr. 33, S. OC 609, cf. Aj. 714. Tireless: Critias 43 F 3.1, cf. S. Ant. 607. Attempts to find an astronomical (zodiacal) significance to the bull and the lion (Eisler, Weltenmantel und Himmelszelt, 395 f.; applied to the Cherubim, F. Dornseiff, Antike und alter Orient, 372) cannot be sustained when these animals appear in isolation or coupled with an eagle.

⁴⁵Menok-i-Xrat* 8.6 (cf. R.C. Zaehner, Zurvan (1955), 368; The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism (1961), 209); Atharvaveda 19.53.1; cf. EGPO 31, 33. is called `the aged one who reneweth his youth' (Budge, The Book of the Dead, 112).

⁴⁶ Anaximander 12 A 11.1 (EGPO 79 n. 1); E. fr. 910.5, cf. epigr. 1.1 Page. Zeus is a ruler unaged by time in S. Ant. 608.

⁴⁷ A. Eum. [286], cf. Ag. 984; [A.] PV 981; S. fr. 62; Trag. adesp. 508; 4 Ezra 14:10; [Lucian] 49.12.

⁴⁸EGPO 30 f.

⁴⁹ Cf. Lobeck, 485; Schuster, 97; Schwabl, 1482.

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torious march of the sun through the twelve signs of the zodiac.⁵⁰ Time is measured by the sun and the solar year. It is thus that Heracles-Helios can be addressed by the author of the Orphic Hymns as `father of Time' (12.3), and by Nonnus as `thou who revolvest the son of Time, the twelve-month year' (D. 40.372). By the same token, it may be argued, the Orphic Chronos, Time himself, might be identified with Heracles, the indomitable animal-tamer of the zodiac.

This is not completely satisfactory. No one identifies time with the sun. Certainly in the Orphic poem both the sun and the heavens were created 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 essential link was missing.

However, there is another possibility. For Plato, time is defined by the complex movements of the sun, moon, and planets; and when they have played through all their permutations and returned to the same relative positions, the `perfect year' and the `perfect number of time' are complete.⁵¹ The early Stoics derived from this their doctrine of the Great Year, at the end of which the cosmos is totally dissolved into fire.⁵² They defined time as the dimension of cosmic movement.⁵³ 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 exposition of the identity of God, the author of the world, with Nature and Fate, the argument that he may be equated with (among other divinities) Hercules, `because his force is invincible, and when it is wearied by the 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 Heracles was cremated and achieved apotheosis after completing his labours. In this Stoic allegorization of the Heracles myth, then, the cycle of

⁵⁰ Porph. fr. 8, p. 13* Bidez (ap. Eus. PE 3.11.25), Orph. Hymn 12.11 f., Nonn. D. 40.369 ff., Lydus De Mensibus 4.67, 10. Diaconus in Hes. Th. 950 p. 360 Flach; O. Gruppe, RE Supp. iii. 1104. For the animals of the zodiac as threatening beasts which the sun must get past see Ov. M. 2.78-83.

⁵¹Tim. 38c, 39d, cf. 22cd.

⁵²SVF i. 32, 114.26 ff.; ii. 181-191; iii. 215.19-25.

⁵³SVF i. 26.11, ii. 164-6.

⁵⁴De Beneficiis 4.8.1; SVF ii. 306.3.

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labours corresponds to the totality of divine activity in the course of the Great Year. Since divine activity is coextensive with the cosmos, that means that Heracles' labours represent everything that happens in cosmic time. The originator of the allegory was probably Cleanthes, since Cornutus cites him as having given an interpretation of the twelve labours on the basis that Heracles is the tension in the universe which makes nature strong and invincible.⁵⁵ It would be interesting to know whether Cleanthes divided the Great Year into twelve Great Months corresponding to the labours.⁵⁶ In any case this peculiar Stoic exegesis of the Heracles myth, while not actually identifying Heracles and Time, provides a sufficient basis for doing so. It is hard to see how the Orphic poet could have arrived at the identification except under the influence of that exegesis. We shall find that this is not the only intrusion of Stoic notions in the Hieronyman Theogony.

Ananke-Adrastea

United with Chronos-Heracles, says Damascius, was another winged serpent: `Ananke, being of the same nature, or Adrastea, incorporeal, her arms extended throughout the universe and touching its extremities'. The word `united' () is imprecise, but one thinks most readily of the ancient motif of two entwined serpents, which can be traced back to the earliest

⁵⁵ Cornutus, p. 31 L. = SVF i. 115.16 ff.

⁵⁶ In Virgil, E. 4.12, incipient magní prócédere ménsés may perhaps mean the months of a new Magnus Annus. In Zoroastrian theology historical time had a duration of 12,000 years, and this period was divided into 12 millennia at least by the late 1st century BC. 4 Ezra 14:10-12 `For the world has lost its youth, the times begin to wax old. For the world-age is divided into twelve parts; nine (parts) of it are passed already, and the half of the tenth part; and there remain of it two (parts), besides the half of the tenth part' (although the duration of the parts is not specified, we may with some confidence identify the chronological scheme with the Zoroastrian, since Zoroaster's floruit (age 30) was identified with the 1st year of the 10th millennium, and the author of this part of 4 Ezra did in fact live in about the 7th century of that millennium, while the pretended author, the real Ezra, lived in the 3rd; other features of this writer's theology also show Zoroastrian influence); cf. 2 Baruch: 53 ff.; also in Middle Persian sources (Zaehner, Zurvan, 96-8). Zatspram (late 9th century) likens the whole period to a year with its seasons changing as the sun moves along his annual path (Selections 34.21-8, trans. Zaehner, Zurvan, 350). A division into four trimillennia can be traced as early as the 4th, perhaps 5th century BC: EGPO 32. An Orphic Great Year of 120,000 years is attested by Censorinus (perhaps after Diogenes of Babylon, cf. p. 58) (Orph. fr. 250).

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Sumerian times.⁵⁷ It was widespread in the Near East, and when it is not merely decorative it probably represents a sexual union: snakes do entwine their bodies when mating.⁵⁸ This is just how Athenagoras describes the union of Zeus with Rhea-Demeter: `She became a serpent, whereupon he turned into a serpent himself, and binding her in the so-called Heracleot knot, copulated with her. The form of the coupling is represented in the wand of Hermes.' Staffs and wands are generally held upright, and entwined serpents in art are very frequently depicted rising straight upwards. That snakes in fact copulate in this position is, if not known to be true, at any rate firmly believed in some parts of the world.⁵⁹ For serpents who support themselves on wings, one supposes, it would be the only stable arrangement. It is therefore likely that the Orphic poet, if he thought visually at alland he seems to have doneconceived his Chronos and Ananke in this way.

Ananke (Inevitability, Compulsion) appears as a cosmic deity at the beginning of the fifth century. In Parmenides (8.30, 10.6) she holds Being in chains so that it remains the same for all time. She appears also in Simonides (542.29), in Empedocles (B 115, where her decree is fixed for all time), and in tragedy, where the decision whether the word should be written with a large or small initial is often a matter for individual taste. She is a suitable consort for Time conceived as an omnipotent despot.⁶⁰

The identification of Ananke with Adrastea, like that of Chronos with Heracles, is a Hellenistic embellishment. In the fifth century Adrastea is equivalent to Nemesis,⁶¹ the goddess of whom one must beware if one speaks too confidently or proudly. Later the punisher of human pride, the confounder of human designs, merged into the larger figure of overpowering Fate. In Plato's Phaedrus Adrastea appears as the mistress of

⁵⁷ E.D. Van Buren, Archiv f. Orientforschung 10 (1935/6), 53-65; P. Amiet, La Glyptique mésopotamienne archaïque (2nd ed., 1980), 134.

⁵⁸ Van Buren, 54 f., with backing from a zoologist.

⁵⁹ Lt.-Col. R.H. Elliot, quoted by Van Buren, l.c.

⁶⁰ Cf. Pind. O. 10.52-5, `the Fates stood in attendance, and the sole tester of truth, Time'; Bacch. fr. 20A.18 f., `but Time mastered him, and powerful Ananke'; E. Hcld. 898, `for much is born from Fate whose gifts are fulfilled and Age (Aion) the son of Time'. On Ananke in general see H. Schreckenberg, Ananke (1964), esp. 72 ff. (and on the Orphic Ananke, 131-4).

⁶¹ [A.] PV 936, Antim. 53; cf. [E.] Rhes. 342, 468, Pl. Rep. 451a.

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the soul's destiny, much like Lachesis the daughter of Ananke in the Republic.⁶² Her identification with Ananke is complete for Chrysippus, who called fate `Atropos and Adrastea and Ananke and Pepromene'.⁶³

The qualification `incorporeal' () that Damascius adds need not detain us long. It may seem odd that a goddess described as being of a very definite and peculiar physique should at the same time be labelled incorporeal. But the god who is presently born from the egg is labelled in the same way,⁶⁴ and similarly Eros in the great Paris magical papyrus is addressed as `incorporeal' and in the same breath as `archer, torch-bearer'.⁶⁵ It is on the whole unlikely that the Orphic poet attempted to express the idea, though Empedocles shows how it could be tackled, B 17.20 f.,

And among them Love, equal in length and breadth;
see her with your mind, do not sit gaping with your eyes.

It was probably Hieronymus who introduced it, and it means that the physical description of Ananke is to be understood as symbolic.

The extension of Ananke's arms from one end of the universe to the other has a plain enough significance. Physical extension symbolizes extent of power. Even in Homer we have the description of the personified Strife who grows until she reaches from earth to heaven (Il. 4.443). Empedocles (B 135) writes

the universal law extends () throughout
the air's broad realm and the enormous light.

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 race unchallenged, bringing

⁶²Phaedr. 248c, Rep. 617d.

⁶³SVF ii. 292.15. Cf. the interpretation of Adrastea's name as `the inescapable' () (Arius Didymus, SVF ii. 169.34; [Arist.] De Mundo 401b13; Plut. fr. 21).

⁶⁴ So at least the Damascius MS; in the Athenagoras MS there is a corruption, .

⁶⁵ P. Mag. 4.1777 f., compared by Preisendanz, RE xix. 1772. Cf. also Corp. Herm. 5.10, `this is the incorporeal (god), the multicorporeal, or rather the omnicorporeal' ().

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and binding all the parts together'.⁶⁶ Pythagoras is said to have described Ananke as surrounding the world.⁶⁷ The image of a cosmic goddess with arms extended may be found in the Pythagorean symbolon which identifies the two constellations of the Bears, between which the celestial Pole lay in antiquity, with the arms of Rhea.⁶⁸

Like this Rhea, the Orphic Ananke evidently occupies a central position. The central axis of the world, round which all heaven revolves, was a natural thing to identify with a cosmic deity or some appurtenance of a cosmic deity. In Parmenides' `apparent' cosmology, at the centre of concentric rings of fire and darkness, is the `goddess who steers all things'.⁶⁹ In Plato the axis is the spindle turning in the lap of Ananke, extending from the ends of a pillar of light that holds the whole universe together, extending through the whole of the sky and the earth (Rep. 616c). Philo of Byblos tells us that the Egyptians, to depict the cosmos,

trace out a circle of misty, fiery aspect, and stretched across its diameter a serpent with the form (i.e. head?) of a hawk, the whole design being like our theta (q). By the circle they indicate the cosmos, and by the central serpent they represent the Agathos Daimon which holds it together.⁷⁰

The scholarly bishop Hippolytus interprets the winged figure of Perseus as the winged axis which passes through the centre of the earth and the two celestial Poles and which makes the cosmos revolve.⁷¹

The idea that the world is driven round by wings has a long history. We have already mentioned the world-tree of Pherecydes in connection with Chronos' wings. Critias (TrGF 43 F 3) has the two Bears circling round the axis of heaven on swift-beating wings. The winged Cherubim came to be interpreted

⁶⁶De Plantatione 9 (ii. 135.4 Cohn-Wendland).

⁶⁷ Aët. 1.25.2 (); the same source attributes to him the identification of Time with the `sphere of the surrounding' (1.21.1). Cf. Theolog. Arithm. 61 (theologians who place Ananke on the outermost rim of heaven); Poimandres (Corp. Herm. 1) 9; Burkert, LS 75 f.; Schreckenberg, Ananke, 103-5.

⁶⁸ Arist. fr. 196. Is Rhea here the consort of Kronos interpreted as Chronos? Cf. ibid., `the sea is the tear of Kronos'. Chronos is associated with the Bears in Critias 43 F 3 (cf. also S. Tr. 126 ff.). Besides meaning Ursa Major and Minor, Arktoi could from the 4th century BC mean the north and south celestial Poles (Arist. Meteor. 362a32 ff., Aët. 2.8.2), but it is improbable that they are meant in the passages cited.

⁶⁹ Cf. p. 109, and Corp. Herm. fr. 7.1.

⁷⁰ 790 F 4 § 51.

⁷¹Ref. 4.49.

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as the two hemispheres of heaven, `for the whole heaven is a winged creature', or as `the two Arktoi' (Bears or Poles ?).⁷²

In view of this evidence it is possible that the twining figures of Chronos and Ananke were conceived, in the Hieronyman Theogony if not in the older Protogonos Theogony, as symbolizing the vertical axis about which the world, when it came into being, revolved. So in Critias (F 4) the light of day, the sparkling black night, and the countless host of stars conduct their eternal ring-dance about a deity who is addressed as `the self-grown one', and this can hardly be anyone but the Chronos of F 3 who `runs full, reborn from himself', as the two Bears go winging round. It is logical enough that Time should be at the centre of the heavens whose revolutions measure it out in days, months, and years. It is equally logical that Ananke should be there (as in Plato and perhaps Parmenides) to maintain the strict regularity that those heavens display.

Time's Progeny:
The Egg

Although Chronos and Ananke make a well-matched male and female pair, the sources agree in speaking of Chronos alone as a parent. Damascius says `this Time, the serpent, has offspring, three in number: moist Aither (I quote), unbounded Chaos, and as a third, misty Erebos . . . Among these, he says, Time generated an egg'. Athenagoras omits all mention of Ananke, and just says `this Heracles generated a huge egg, which, being filled full, by the force of its engenderer' etc. The emphasis on Chronos to the exclusion of Ananke is confirmed by corresponding verse fragments from the Rhapsodies:

66                  This Time unaging, of immortal resource, begot
                    Aither and a great Chasm, vast this way and that,
                    no limit below it, no base, no place to settle.

70                  Then great Time fashioned from (or in) divine Aither
                    a bright white egg.

In Pherecydes Chronos made fire, wind, and water out of his own seed; and all the parallel oriental Time-godsthe Egyptian , the Phoenician `Ulom *, the Iranian Zurvan*, and the

⁷² Philo, De vita Moysis 2(3).98 (iv. 223.17 C.-W.), cf. De Cherubim 25 (i. 176.7); Clem. Strom. 5.35.6. The Bear is sometimes held responsible for the revolution of the sky; see Corp. Herm. fr. 6.13 with Festugière's note 27 (Hermès Trismégiste (Budé), iii. 42).

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Indian Kalagenerate progeny by themselves, without a consort.⁷³ The Hieronyman Theogony has preserved this feature despite the addition of Ananke as a companion for Chronos.⁷⁴

Time's first offspring are moist Aither (Damascius lays some stress on the qualification `moist'), unbounded Chaos (= Chasm in fr. 66.2, a wide opening), and misty Erebos (Darkness). Fragments of the Rhapsodies (65-7) yield for this context the phrases `gloomy Night', `continuous darkness', and `in the dark fog'. These very probably stood in the Hieronyman Theogony. Even if they did not, it is evident that the poet conceived his Aither, Chaos, and Erebos in very physical terms. His meaning is that the first state of the world, the unbroken mass of waters, gave way to a second state in which a capacious space was opened up within the waters, containing foggy, indistinct elements of light and darkness. In this space the cosmic egg was produced.

According to the verses quoted above, Chronos begot Aither and the Chasm (and presumably Erebos), but fashioned () the egg from or in Aither. This suggests that the unformed material elements came from his seed, just as in Pherecydes he made fire, wind, and water from his seed.⁷⁵ , in one version of the Heliopolite cosmogony, created Shu (wind) and Tefnut (moisture) by masturbating; from them came earth and sky.⁷⁶ A relic of a similar story may be discerned in the Middle Persian Bundahisn, which is based at least in part on a lost book of the Avesta. Here Time, Ohrmazd, and Ahriman exist from the beginning. Ohrmazd inhabits the Beginningless Light, Ahriman the endless darkness, and there is a vacant region between them. Out of that part of the light which is his own body Ohrmazd fashions a white, fiery sphere, and for three thousand years it remains `in a moist state like semen', but eventually Ohrmazd makes it into a hard, shining egg, which is the heaven, and creates the rest of our world

⁷³ Pherec. DK 7 A 8; EGPO 29, 30, 33, 36.

⁷⁴ Damascius treats Chronos + Ananke as a single bisexual principle (); but it is difficult to tell how far he is influenced by what Hieronymus described and how far by the requirements of his own philosophical system.

⁷⁵ These were then distributed in five `nooks' or `holes', and a number of gods arose from them (EGPO 13-15). The nooks are functionally analogous to the Orphic egg.

⁷⁶ Pyramid Text 1248, al.; ANET 6; Schwabl, 1500 f.; Wilson (n. 33), 63.

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inside it.⁷⁷ In some ways this parallels the Orphic narrative remarkably. The Beginningless Light, the endless darkness, and the space between, correspond to Aither, Erebos, and the Chasm. The egg is made out of light (= Aither) which is moist and semen-like and is drawn from the creator-god's own bodily essence. Other sources refer to Time existing alone in the beginning and generating Ohrmazd and Ahriman by sexual union with himself. If we removed Ohrmazd and Ahriman from the story, and made Time the agent throughout, we should have something very close to the Orphic cosmogony. Ohrmazd and Ahriman were, of course, the good and evil spirits who had to play the leading roles in any Zoroastrian account of creation (cf. p. 105).

The statement that Chronos fashioned the egg is paralleled by the Persian myth (apart from the change of agent); on the other hand Athenagoras and Damascius say that he generated the egg (and Damascius implies that the Hieronyman Theogony agreed with the Rhapsodies). Damascius uses similar language in reporting the Phoenician cosmology of `Moch', saying that after (Time) had intercourse with himself Chusoros the Opener was born, and then an egg (FGrHist 784 F 4). The distinction between generating and fashioning is not very important. Chronos generated the materials, and made them into an egg, which is tantamount to saying that `in the course of time' they assumed the form of an egg. The poet used the word `fashioned', but he did not picture Chronos either as shaping the egg with his hands or as extruding it from his serpent body. He was thinking more abstractly. We must be similarly prepared not to attach too literal a sense to Proclus' description of the egg as `born from Aither and Chaos' (fr. 79), or to the verses in which Protogonos, who came from the egg, is styled `son of Aither' (frr. 73, 74). It seems clear that Aither was not represented as a person, only as a material element.

A commentator on Apollonius Rhodius, reviewing different poets' accounts of the parentage of Eros, quotes from the poetry ascribed to Orpheus the verse

Chronos gave birth to Eros and all the winds.⁷⁸

⁷⁷ For a slightly fuller account with references see EGPO 30.

⁷⁸ Sch. A.R. 3.26 = fr. 37 K. There is no reason to assume that the source is Apollodorus On the Gods, as Kern does. `Chronos' is Zoëga's emendation of `Kronos'.

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It is hard to reconcile this with any of the theogonies. Protogonos was identified with Eros, but his birth was described quite differently from this. The fragment does, however, seem to contain a genuine echo of the oriental Time-cosmogony. The conjunction of Eros and winds has a strongly Semitic appearance,⁷⁹ since both ideas are united in the word rûah, which is the divine wind that beats over the waters in Genesis 1:2. In all the available reports of Phoenician cosmogonies, Desire or wind, or a wind that became Desire, appears in the initial stages. None of them makes Time the father of Desire or of winds; in the system recorded by Eudemus Time, Desire, and Fog stand together at the beginning, while in two others wind precedes Time.⁸⁰ But the exact relationship was subject to variation. We have seen that is the father of the wind-goddess Shu. The combination of Chronos, Eros, and winds is sufficient in itself to establish a connection with these traditions.

Before moving on, we may glance back at the eggs which appeared in the cosmogonies of pseudo-Epimenides (p. 48) and the Birds (p. 111). In both cases the initial state of the universe is conceived in terms of darkness and emptiness: Aer, Night, Tartarus; Chaos, Night, Erebos, Tartarus. In Aristophanes it is the black-winged goddess Night who produces the egg in Erebos' boundless bosom. It is a `wind-egg': this is the term applied to an unfertilized egg, and so is appropriate to an egg produced by parthenogenesis, though in fact it has Eros inside it. There is probably also an allusion to a cosmogonic role of winds, and Eros himself is described as `resembling wind-swift eddies'. This association of wind and Eros is suggestive in the light of what has been noted above.⁸¹ In pseudo-Epimenides the egg is produced by `two Titans' born from Tartarus. I do not know what the term `Titans' signifies here unless it means figures of the form in which Typhoeus and later the Giants were

⁷⁹ Despite Alc. fr. 327 (Eros the son of Zephyros and Iris). Cf. Schwabl, 1478.

⁸⁰EGPO 28f.

⁸¹ Cf. Schwabl, 1473. S. Morenz has shown in great detail how the Egyptians, who were greatly given to etymological associations of words, connected swh * `wind' and swh.t* `egg': the latter could be regarded as the feminine of the former, and thus as being fertilized by it. Wind was thought of as a source of life, and a region of Thebes was called `the egg produced by the wind'. (Morenz (as n. 33), 64-103.)

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depicted, half-human and half-snake. If so, they make a pair very like the Orphic Chronos and Ananke. It is a pity that their names are not recorded.

Protogonos

The egg 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 egg and rubbing or squeezing it until it cracked. A similar picture appears in a curious report concerning the cosmology of Epicurus:

And he says that the world began in the likeness of an egg, and the wind encircling the egg serpent-fashion like a wreath or a belt then began to constrict nature. As it tried to squeeze all the matter with greater force, it divided the world into the two hemispheres, and after that the atoms sorted themselves out, the lighter and finer ones in the universe floating above and becoming the bright air and the most rarefied wind, while the heaviest and dirtiest have veered down, becoming the earth, both the dry land and the fluid waters. And the atoms move by themselves and through themselves within the revolution of the sky and the stars, everything still being driven round by the serpentiform wind.⁸²

This parallel from an atomist cosmogony gains in significance when we add that Leucippus and Democritus postulated that each nascent world was held together by a sort of membrane, which they called a chiton:⁸³ when Protogonos hatched from the egg he is said to have broken out of a `bright chiton'.⁸⁴ It looks as if the Protogonos Theogony may have provided the atomists with some of their imagery.

Protogonos had `golden wings on his shoulders, bulls' heads growing upon his flanks, and on his head a monstrous serpent'; he presented the appearance of all kinds of animal forms. So Damascius, whose earlier mention of the male and female natures in the egg implies further that the creature was bisexual, a detail confirmed by the Rhapsodies.⁸⁵ Further

⁸² Epiphanius, Adv. haer. 1.8 (Diels, Doxographi, 589.11-21). Epicurus did not consider that all worlds were the same shape: some were spherical, some eggshaped, others of other shapes (D.L. 10.74). An egg-shaped cosmos is also attributed to Empedocles (A 50).

⁸³ Aët. 2. 7. 2, DK 67 A 23; Lobeck, 484.

⁸⁴ Fr. 60, cf. Achilles in 70; an echo in Hymn 19.16 f.

⁸⁵ Frr. 56 § 12; 80, 81. `Nonnus the Abbot' in 80 says that he had a penis back near his anus; this is where it would need to be if his vagina was normally situated,

(footnote continued on next page)

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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 .

Protogonos combined several identities. For the Hieronyman Theogony the names Protogonos, Phanes, Zeus, and Pan are attested, and for the Rhapsodies further Metis, Eros, Erikepaios, 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 same 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'.⁸⁷ When he came 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. In the Hymns he is addressed as the one `who cleared the dark fog from before (our) ey.es' as he flew about the cosmos, and `brought the bright holy light, wherefore I call

(footnote continued from previous page)

since he was to copulate with himself. The same meticulous authority informs us that Priapus (who had no vagina) had his penis above his anus (Patr. Gr. xxxvi. 1053; H. Herter, De Priapo (1932), 70). In Hymn 6.9 Priapus is identified with Phanes.

⁸⁶ Cf. also the Hypsipyle fragment mentioned on p. 112. Pherecydes is said to have described Zas as taking on the identity of Eros for the purpose of demiurgy (7 B 3; another interpretation in EGPO 17). The role of Desire in the Phoenician cosmogonies will be recalled. It was as Eros, I suppose, that the Orphic deity was called `the key of the mind', i.e. he who unlocks the secrets of men's disposition. Cf. S. fr. 393 with Pearson's note.

⁸⁷ On names of this formation see Volkmar Schmidt, Sprachliche Untersuchungen zu Herondas (1968), 62 ff. Phanes differently declined (genitive -Îw instead of ) is attested as a personal name in Ionia. In fr. 75 and Orph. Arg. 16 Phanes' name is explained from his being the first to appear ( A more correct explanation is given by Apion in fr. 56 § 5:

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thee Phanes'.⁸⁸ The emphasis on the light and gladness brought by Phanes, and the admiration aroused in other gods (of whom there were very few at the time), is very reminiscent of certain hymns to ,

The lord of rays, who makes brilliance,
To whom the gods give thanksgiving . . .
Whose loveliness has created the light,
In whose beauty the gods rejoice;
Their hearts live when they see him.⁸⁹

There is perhaps a slight hint of these qualities in the epithets `glorious, reverend' () which are applied to Protogonos in the Derveni Theogony, and a similar aura surrounds Eros in the Birds cosmogony:

                                                     Eros the lovely, with gold-gleaming wings on his back, the image of wind-spin swiftness.

This aspect of Phanes, then, will have been present in the Protogonos Theogony, and perhaps the name Phanes itself.

His equation with Zeus cannot, I think, be early. Zeus had a separate and quite dissimilar birth, generations later, and his greatest achievement was to swallow Protogonos and his universe. To swallow a universe was a heroic feat, but to swallow himself would surely have taxed even Zeus' resource beyond the limit. Protogonos was not Zeus, therefore, in the mind of the poet who constructed that narrative. But then how could he be called Zeus in the Hieronyman and Rhapsodic Theogonies, seeing that these poems too told of his swallowing by Zeus? It presupposes that Protogonos still exists and is important in the world as we know it; that he is, indeed, of supreme significance to it. This must mean that his original creation and organization of the cosmos did not merely resemble the later creation by Zeus, but was fundamentally identical with it. As the poet of the Hieronyman Theogony conceived the matter, Zeus did not abolish Protogonos' creation and substitute a different one, nor did he abolish Protogonos:

⁸⁸ Frr. 72, 86, cf. 109 (with contexts); Hymn 6.6-8 (below, p. 252). Fr. 345, `it is by brightness that we see: with our eyes (in themselves) we see nothing', may belong in this context.

⁸⁹ANET 365 f., cf. 368, 370, 372.

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he `blended the god's power and virtue into his own body' (fr. 167a.3) and duplicated his creation, reissued it in his own name. We have noted that in Stoic theory Zeus' absorption and regeneration of the world and the other gods was cyclical (p. 113). From this point of view it was natural to consider Zeus as the author not just of the present creation but of the one that preceded it, and thus to see him in Protogonos.

`This theology', Damascius says, calls Protogonos `Zeus the orderer of all and < > of the whole world, wherefore he is also called Pan.' This identification too is surely Hellenistic. It presupposes the allegorical interpretation of Pan's name in a cosmic sense as the All. This first appears in Plato's Cratylus, where is interpreted as , and appropriate explanations are suggested for his part-human, part-goat form. In the influential work On the Gods by Apollodorus of Athens (c. 140 BC) the details were worked out more fully: the god's horns represented the sun and moon, his dappled skin coat the stars, his panpipes the winds, and so on.⁹⁰

Erikepaios is beyond doubt a non-Greek name; John Malalas says it means `life-giver', but we do not know the basis for that assertion.⁹¹ Erikepaios is first attested in the Gurôb papyrus (p. 171), where he appears as a god of salvation. An altar found at Hierocaesarea in Lydia bears a dedicatory inscription of the second century AD `to Dionysus Erikepaios', which suggests that Erikepaios may have been, like Sabazios, a local deity of Asia Minor who came to be identified with Dionysus.⁹² In the Orphic narrative Erikepaios is clearly quite separate from Dionysus, and without knowing more about his original nature

⁹⁰ Pl. Crat. 408bc; Apollod. 244 F 134c, 136ab.

⁹¹Chron. 4.89 = fr. 65 K. The parallel texts (Suda s.v. and Cedrenus i. 102 Bekker) say simply `life'. A derivation from Aramaic *'erekh 'appayin/Hebrew 'erekh 'appayim, literally `long of nostrils', hence `long of anger, long-suffering' (of Yahweh in Exod. 34:6, al.; hence 'Arikh 'Anpin as a separate emanation of God in the medieval Kabbala (F.W.J. von Schelling, Ueber die Gottheiten von Samothrace (1815), 88 ff. = Sämmtliche Werke, 1. Abt., viii. 403; Eisler, Weltenmantel und Himmelszelt, 470-5; F. Delitzsch ap. Schuster, 98)) is far-fetched. Apart from the lack of semantic agreement, Semitic kap would normally be represented in Greek by c, not k. (I am indebted to Dr S.P. Brock for this point.)

⁹²Denkschr. Wien. Ak. 53(2) (1908), 54, no. 112; Kern, Genethliacon für Carl Robert (1910), 93. In the Orphic hymn to Trieteric Bacchus (52.6) the god is addressed as `Protogonos, Erikepaios, father and son of the gods', and in his own hymn Protogonos is called `Erikepaios of many rites' (6.4), which points to cult use of the name. Hesychius gives `Erikepaios: Dionysus'.

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we can hardly say why his name was bestowed on Protogonos. We cannot exclude the possibility that this was already done in the Protogonos Theogony, seeing that we found it to contain elements derived from the Sabazios cult.

When Protogonos is called Bromios, on the other hand, as fr. 170 indicates that he was in the Rhapsodies, we are certainly at a more advanced state of syncretism, for Bromios was always synonymous with Dionysus. Perhaps it was the identification of Erikepaios with Dionysus in cult that led to the identification of Protogonos-Erikepaios with Dionysus in the poem. Like his identification with Zeus, it presupposes that he is important in the present world, and it is superficial, inorganic, inconsistent with the story-line of the theogony. In late Hellenistic times, under the influence of the intellectual solar religion which was then becoming important,⁹³ the Orphic deity came to be interpreted as the sun (with which he was not equated in the theogony, for all his similarities to and his light-bringing properties).⁹⁴ An Orphic hymn to Helios was composed, from which Diodorus quotes the verse

therefore they call him Phanes and Dionysus.⁹⁵

Macrobius quotes several more fragments from it after a Neoplatonic source; from them we learn that the sun was identified with Zeus, Dionysus, Phanes, Hades, Eubouleus, and Antauges.⁹⁶

To sum up what has been argued about the various identities with which Protogonos was provided in the theogonies, here is a table indicating where each of them is attested () and where else they may perhaps be presumed to have been present ().

⁹³ Nilsson, Gr. Rel. ii. 507 ff. Traces of an Orphic solar cult as early as the 5th century: above, pp. 12 f.

⁹⁴ He created the sun, frr. 88, 96; he travels beside the sun, Procl. in Tim. 40b (iii. 131.30 D., p. 216 Kern); cf. frr. 71b, 83.

⁹⁵ p. 250 K. `Him' = Osiris, according to the MSS (1.11.3), but ''Osirin is a mistaken gloss on (), as is shown by the excerpt from Diodorus in the Tübingen Theosophy 8 (p. 168.21 Erbse), by the argument, and by the parallel of fr. 237.3 K.

⁹⁶ Frr. 236, 237, 239, 242. Fr. 354 (Proclus) is probably from the same poem. Kern should not have put the Macrobian fragments under the title Bacchica; at fr. 238 (from a different poem; cf. p. 28 n. 77) the words in sacris Liberalibus are not a book-title (cf. in fr. 240).

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Protogonos' Creation

Damascius' evidence only takes us as far as the appearance of Protogonos, with the bare mention that he is `the orderer of all and < > of the whole world'.⁹⁷ We can assume, since he is furnished with the organs of both sexes, that he will produce further beings by copulation with himself. He certainly did so in the Rhapsodies, and it is the proper business of bisexual creatures in the early stages of cosmogonies.⁹⁸ Athenagoras gives no details. But we may probably accept the details given in the Rhapsodies as valid for the Hieronyman Theogony, which was, so far as can be seen, the sole source from which the author of the Rhapsodies drew the story of Phanes.

The fine, Hellenistic-looking verse

pasturing in his heart swift eyeless love

(fr. 82), refers to the strange love of himself that seized him. It is a commonplace of Greek literature that love enters through the eyes,⁹⁹ and Phanes' love was peculiar in being `eyeless', not derived from the sight of another.¹⁰⁰

He copulated with himself, and gave birth to a number of gods `from his holy belly' (58.2), but the only one we can name is Echidna, a creature of frightening appearance, with the head

⁹⁷ must come from the poetic original. The lacuna was marked by Maas, who ingeniously supplied (Epidaurische Hymnen (1933), 133 n. 5). Cf. fr. 297b. 1, Hymn 11.12.

⁹⁸ Cf. K. Ziegler, Neue Jahrbücher 31 (1913), 529ff.; H. Baumann, Das doppelte Geschlecht (1955), 250ff.

⁹⁹ Cf. my note on Hes. Th. 910 with authorities there cited.

¹⁰⁰ Eros' blindness (Theoc. 10.19 f.; the meaning is that love is liable to strike anyone at random) is not relevant. The metaphor of `pasturing' love, i.e. nursing it, allowing it to feed itself quietly, is paralleled in Theoc. 11.80 and Anon. A.P. 12.99.2 (= Anon. epigr. 9.2 Page).

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and hair of a lovely woman surmounting a serpent body. Her form recalls that of Chronos and Ananke; what her role in the world was, it is difficult to conjecture.

Phanes also mates with Night, producing the visible world, and this brings us to the problem of the three Nights. A Night existed before him: `Night' stood in the text as another name of the Erebos which Chronos produced together with Aither and Chaos (65), and Night alone of all the gods was able to see Phanes at his emergence (86). When he mates with Night, however, she is called his daughter.¹⁰¹ Proclus says this was the `middle' Night, and Hermias in fr. 99 says there were three, the first the one who issued oracles, the middle one `reverend' () the third the mother of Dikaiosyne; but elsewhere he says that Dikaiosyne or Dike was the daughter of Nomos and Eusebia (159). This all looks like a muddle, and one can understand the feelings of those scholars who declare that the three Nights are an invention of the Neoplatonists.¹⁰² But how does Night come to be Phanes' daughter? And why need he mate with her, when he is himself completly equipped to produce whatever is to be produced?

These illogicalities may have their roots in the oriental mythological background, for there seem to be fragmented parallels of a kind in Iranian tradition. The Zoroastrians, as we have seen, adapted the Time-cosmogony to their own dualistic theology, and divided the work of creation between Ohrmazd, who created heaven and earth and all things bright and beautiful, and Ahriman, who created the demons and all that is evil, the snake, the lizard, the frog, the ant, the fly, the locust, the scorpion. Ahriman created the demons, according to one source, by sodomy with himself.¹⁰³ But Ohrmazd created the luminaries of heaven by mating in turn with his mother, his sister, and his daughter¹⁰⁴the three hallowed forms of

¹⁰¹ Fr. 98; cf. Arg. 15.

¹⁰² Lobeck, 503; Kern, De Orphei Epimenidis Pherecydis theogoniis quaestiones criticae, 6; Holwerda, 311 f.; Gruppe in Roscher, iii. 2250.

¹⁰³Menok-i-Xrat 8.8; Zaehner, Zurvan, 368 f. Cf. Phanes' generation of Echidna.

¹⁰⁴Acts of Anahid in J. Bidez and F. Cumont, Les Mages hellénisés (1938), ii. 111, Zaehner, Zurvan, 436; Mâr Abhâ, Bidez-Cumont 97, Zaehner 437; or with his mother and sister, Eznik Against the Sects 2.8, Zaehner, 438; Theodore Abu Qurra, Zaehner, 429. In a Pahlavi Rivayat (8.2-4, Zaehner, 152) Ohrmazd's daughter, with whom he is represented as being in close wedlock, is identified as Spandarmat, Earth, here called `Queen of Heaven and Mother of Creation'.

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consanguineous marriage practised in Zoroastrian society. A similar motif appears in a Mandaean cosmogonic myth. Ur was seduced by his mother Ruha, the mother of all evil, who as a result gave birth to the seven planets. Then he was seduced by her again, but this time she called herself his sister, and produced the twelve signs of the zodiac. Then a third time, when she addressed him as her father and after dire portents gave birth to five monsters.¹⁰⁵

The problem of Phanes and the three Nights may be somehow connected with these oriental stories, though he appears to have mated only with the middle one of the three, who was his daughter, and we have no evidence that the older one might have been considered as his mother.¹⁰⁶ It does make some sort of sense, seeing that the Greeks had riddles about night and day that involved the paradox of the mother becoming the daughter,¹⁰⁷ and Phanes is the source of daylight. From the way the Neoplatonist interpreters flounder, it looks as if they read of three Nights, but did not find the separate identities of the three clearly explained or consistently maintained.

Night's first progeny were heaven and earth:

And she in her turn bore Earth and broad Heaven,
and showed them manifest that were not manifest before, and of
  whose lineage they are

(fr. 109); that is, by becoming phaneroi they were shown to be true children of Phanes. This appears to contradict Athenagoras, who says that the two halves of the shell of the egg from which Phanes came were made () into heaven and earth.¹⁰⁸ Possibly there was a real divergence between the Hieronyman Theogony and the Rhapsodies here. But it is noteworthy that Athenagoras goes on to speak of Uranos and Ge as persons, parents of the Moirai, Hundred-Handers, and the rest, so his theogony cannot have treated them exclusively

¹⁰⁵Right Ginza 94, trans. M. Lidzbarski, Ginza (1925), 99ff.; Zaehner, 153.

¹⁰⁶ He is called the son of Aither (73, 74); the egg is called the offspring of Aither and Chaos (79). In the Birds, however, it is Night who lays the egg from which Eros springs (and Eros then mates with `nocturnal Chaos'); and in the cosmology of Acusilaus, according to one source, she was coupled with Aither as parent of Eros (DK 9 B 3, contradicting B 1).

¹⁰⁷A.P. 14.40 (= Theodectes 72 F 4), 41.

¹⁰⁸ Fr. 57. The derivative commentator on Gregory of Nazianzus explicitly makes Phanes responsible: `leaving the one part of the shell as earth, and suspending the other overhead, he made the sky'.

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in physical terms. And conversely the union of Phanes and Night is not to be thought of in purely personal terms. The `birth' of heaven and earth was a making manifest of what was not manifest before: the fragment says that much. Something more may have been said which made the connection between these new manifestations and the eggshell, or Hieronymus may have interpreted the matter so without further warrant.

By bringing heaven into existence, Phanes `established for the immortals their imperishable home'.¹⁰⁹ He also produced the sun and other luminaries (88)again, presumably, out of Night. The sun is made a `guardian' and `king over all'.¹¹⁰ The moon is created as `another earth', with mountains, cities, and houses,¹¹¹ and regulated to move as far in a month as the sun in a year.¹¹² Special care was taken to provide a favourable habitat for mankind.

                 And he marked out for men
a place apart from the gods, where the sun's central
axis revolves inclined, neither too cold
o'erhead, nor flaming, but between the two.¹¹³

We live, in other words, neither in arctic latitudes, where the Pole of the Ecliptic is near the zenith and the sun's path consequently near the horizon, nor in tropical ones where the reverse obtains, but in intermediate ones where the Pole slants. These lines are certainly of Hellenistic date. Their style shows it, and so does their content. Here we have a poet whose earth is not the lower half of an egg of which the upper half makes the sky, but a spherical body in space divided into

¹⁰⁹ 89. Cf. Hes. Th. 126-8.

¹¹⁰ 96. For `guardian' cf. Pl. Tim. 38c, Corp. Herm. fr. 6.5. For the sun as king cf. Emp. 31 B 47, S. OT 660 (p. 13 n. 34).

¹¹¹ 91. Proclus does not make it clear whether this belongs in the demiurgy of Phanes or that of Zeus; but fr. 96 (about the sun) belongs to that of Phanes, and 91 surely goes with it. On p. 92 I have suggested that in the Derveni Theogony it had a place in the demiurgy of Zeus. But in that poem the emphasis was on Zeus, and Phanes' creation was apparently only briefly alluded to. Its author may well have used for Zeus' creation verses which in the original Protogonos Theogony referred to Phanes'.

¹¹² 92; cf. Pl. Tim. 39c.

¹¹³ 94. Holwerda, 309, considers that this belongs in the demiurgy of Zeus, because it corresponds in close detail with the present world; Phanes' creation, he thinks, will have been broadly similar but less precisely described. But we cannot be sure that Zeus' re-creation of the world was described in detail at all. If it was, the poet must have largely repeated what he had said about Phanes' creation.

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temperate and intemperate zones. Such a concept can be traced back as far as about 430 BC,¹¹⁴ but it took time before it became part of general education and was taken up by poets. The poets to whom we must turn for the obvious parallels are in fact Eratosthenes and Virgil.¹¹⁵

But if this detail is modern, the pattern of Phanes' creative programme as a whole is somewhat reminiscent of Marduk's in Enûma Elis;. Marduk was the son of Ea, who had killed the primeval Apsû-Oceanus and established his dwelling upon him. Marduk's appearance was both fearsome and difficult to apprehend.

Perfect were his manners beyond comprehension,
Unsuited for understanding, difficult to perceive.
Four were his eyes, four were his ears;
When he moved his lips, fire blazed forth.
Large were all four hearing organs,
And the eyes, like in number, scanned all things.
He was the loftiest of the gods, surpassing was his stature;
His members were enormous, he was exceeding tall.
`My son, my little son!
My son, the Sun! Sun of the heavens!'
Clothed with the halo of ten gods, he was strong to the utmost,
As their awesome flashes were heaped upon him.¹¹⁶

Tiâmat and the older gods were alarmed, and she created `monster serpents', `roaring dragons', the Hydra, the Dragon, the Lahamu-monster *, the Great Lion, the Savage Dog, and the Scorpion-man, fierce Demons, the Fish-man, and the Bison(?).¹¹⁷ Marduk eventually went out against her, after unsuccessful sorties by Ea and Anu. She opened her mouth to swallow him, but he sent a strong wind into her which forced it still wider open and inflated her body. He killed her with an arrow, smashed her head with his club, and split her body into two

¹¹⁴ Hippocrates of Chios, DK 42.5; cf. Bion of Abdera, DK 77.1, Xen. Anab. 1.7.6, Pl. Phaed. 108e-110b, Eudoxus frr. 288-9 Lasserre, De Victu 2.38, Arist. Meteor. 362b; Burkert, LS 305-7.

¹¹⁵ Erat. fr. 16 Powell (who uses , `in between', of the temperate zones, like the Orphic poet); Virg. G. 1.231-9, where we have the idea that the temperate zones were appointed to mortals by the gods. Cf. also GDK 24v. 10 ff. and Claudian, De Raptu Proserpinae 1.259 ff.

¹¹⁶ i. 93-104, trans. E.A. Speiser in ANET 62. Marduk's name comes from Sumerian Amar-utuk, `Bull-calf of the Sun-god'.

¹¹⁷ `See also Berossus 680 F 1 § 6, who describes them as monstrous creatures, men with two wings, or two faces and four wings, bisexual creatures, men with the feet and horns of goats, and many other strange mixtures.

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parts, from which he made heaven and earth. Then he established the great gods in their stations, and set up the stars to define the divisions of the year, and the moon to make known the days of the month. After that he created mankind.

Although there is no Time-god and no egg in this account, it is noteworthy that the creator-god is born in the Apsû, and that he is a four-eyed figure (like Phanes) with solar associations, difficult to perceive. Tiâmat's creation of monsters is also intriguing in the light of what has been said above about Echidna and the creatures of Ahriman. A tangle of ancient oriental motifs seems to be involved in these various stories.

The Rain

From the top of his head Phanes shed an abundant rain (84). Damascius, who records this (from the Rhapsodies), uses an aorist infinitive, which implies a particular occasion, not a habit. He takes it as an allusion to the ocean of the Infinite outside the cosmos, but gives no clue to the context. Preisendanz thought that the reference was to an ordinary fructifying rain falling on the earth.¹¹⁸ Rain may certainly be identified with the natural humours of a god. It was called `tears of Zeus' in one of the Orphic poems cited by Epigenes, at least if his interpretation of the phrase was correct, and the sweat of God in one of the magical papyri.¹¹⁹ But if the Orphic poet was going to speak of ordinary rain in such terms, one would have expected him to connect it with Uranos or Zeus; and as I say, he seems to have in mind a particular fall of rain during Phanes' period of creativity.

Now we know that Phanes, besides arranging suitable climes for human occupation, actually created a race of men, the golden race (140). I suggest that these human beings came from the special rain that fell from Phanes' head. According to Egyptian myth men (romet) came from the tears (remit) of .¹²⁰ In the hymn to cited on p. 106 n. 67 this is put together with his expectoration of gods:

From whose eyes mankind came forth,
And upon whose mouth the gods came into being.

¹¹⁸RE xix. 1766.

¹¹⁹ Orph. fr. 33, cf. p. 11 n. 24; P. Mag. 5. 152, adduced by Preisendanz.

¹²⁰ANET 6, 8, 11, 366.

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In an Orphic hymn to Helios this is developed into something more philosophical:

Thy tears are the race of suffering mortals,
by smiling thou didst cause the holy gods to grow.¹²¹

But the sufferings here implied by birth from tears ought not to have afflicted Phanes' golden race, and Damascius' phrase `shed from the top of his head' does not suggest that the poet of the theogony intended to signify tears. He seems to have started from the idea of mankind as tears but, to suit the happy golden race that Phanes created, replaced the tears by a special fountain effect from the god's head without melancholy connotation.

The Cave

These things the Father made in the misty cave.

(Fr. 97.) Phanes was the father of all the gods,¹²² but here he is called the Father in a more absolute sense, apparently qua demiurge. This use seems to have its origin in the language of Plato (Politicus 273b, Timaeus 28c, 37c, 41a), and then by way of Xenocrates (fr. 15) and the Stoics (D.L. 7.147) to become established in Hermetic and Neoplatonic theology. So the verse is not likely to be pre-Hellenistic.

The cave was elsewhere referred to as Phanes' adyton, and he and Night were said to be seated there eternally (104). In the Rhapsodies it took the place of the Cretan cave in which Zeus was born (cf. p. 124), and in that context it was called the adyton of Night. According to Hermias, she sat in the middle giving oracles, and Phanes lurked in the background (105). The motif of Night, the nurse of the gods, giving oracles from an adyton is already attested for the Derveni Theogony (p. 86). If this is the cave where Phanes produced his creation, it is obviously where he united with Night. It is fruitless to ask how it came into being or what it was made of. It is a metaphysical cave, not a geological one.

In Hesiod (Th. 744-57) Night has a house, from which both she and Day come out to roam the earth. Similarly in Parmenides the Daughters of the Sun go out into the light from the house of Night, tossing the veils from their faces; that is

¹²¹ Fr. 354, cf. above, n. 96.

¹²² Lactantius in fr. 89.

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where the gates on the paths of day and night are (B 1.8-11). As in Hesiod, the house of Night is a place apart from this world, no one knows what passes inside it, but day and night issue from it into our sky. The Orphic cave of Night is a comparable establishment. As long as Phanes stays in it, no one sees him, except Night, yet his divine radiance bathes the world in light. From his hidden union with Night the world is brought forth. But why a cave now and not a house?

The change may be connected with the development in the fifth century of a stronger historical awareness of technical progress. The author of the Homeric Hymn to Hephaestus (H. 20) takes as the principal feature of the earlier life of men that they lived in caves like animals.¹²³ It was at about this period that the Giants, who had earlier always been represented with human armour, were reduced to fighting with boulders and tree-trunks, and Heracles abandoned his hoplite panoply for simpler weapons. It may have been felt that a `house' was unsuitable for such a primitive figure as Night. Oceanus too regresses from a `house' to a `natural cave'.¹²⁴

The Chariot

The testimonia which represent Phanes as permanently settled in the cave with Night are hard to reconcile with others in which he is said to travel round the cosmos. In fr. 78 he glides hither and thither on his golden wings, and in the Hymns (6.7) he is described as having wheeled round the world in this way to bring light to it. Hermias (78 again) attributes to him a team of horses. We must surely connect with this the verses

mounted on which the great daimon ever patrols¹²⁵

and

seated beside Helios, surveying the holy firmament.¹²⁶

We also hear that the demiurge `set out on the vast circle' (71b). Finally we are told that Phanes `sits on the outer ridge of heaven and from his mystic station illuminates the vastness

¹²³ Cf. Moschion, TrGF 97 F 6.5, Diod. 1.8.7, etc.

¹²⁴Il. 14.202, 303, 311; , [A.] PV 300 f., cf. 133.

¹²⁵ 83, reading (Lobeck) for . Proclus confirms that the daimon was Phanes.

¹²⁶ Procl. in Tim. 40b (iii. 131.30 D., p. 216 Kern).

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of this temporal world' (56 § 6), which I have compared with `making his seat in the uttermost limits of the heavens' (p. 106).

Several different conceptions seem to be in competition here:

(i) that as the unseen source of creation Phanes is to be located beyond the sensible world, in the cave of Night;

(ii) that as Pater Mundi, identified with Zeus, he should sit up on a suitable vantage point and watch over the world;¹²⁷

(iii) that as the source of light, with many solar attributes, he should circle the world in tandem with the sun. As the sun may be imagined either flying on wings¹²⁸ or driving a chariot,¹²⁹ so may Phanes; only one would have expected the poet to settle for one or the other.

The apparent contradictions may best be reconciled by supposing that it was only when Phanes first appeared from the egg that he flew about on his wings, and that it was only while he was engaged in the work of creation that he abode with Night in the cave. Afterwards he `set out on the vast circle', chariot-borne, and continued so ever after (or until Zeus swallowed him), surveying and illuminating the world from the rim of heaven. This reconstruction involves the not very difficult assumption that the Neoplatonists are wrong when they speak of Phanes being seated with Night in the cave eternally (Proclus in 104) or at the time of Zeus' birth (Hermias in 105). They may have taken a statement from the context of the demiurgy to express a permanent metaphysical truth, notwithstanding the subsequent mention of Phanes' going into orbit.

Uranos and His Children:
The Reign of Kronos

With the marriage of Uranos and Ge we move on to familiar Hesiodic territory. From Athenagoras' summary of this part

¹²⁷ Cf. GDK 24r.7. In Homer Zeus favours `the highest peak of many-ridged Olympus' (Il. 1.499, 5.754, 8.3). This attracted the attention of philosophical interpreters; see [Arist.] De Mundo 397b23 ff., Heraclitus Alleg. 36.1-2, Eust. in Hom. 141.33, 694.5.

¹²⁸ A. Supp. 212, E. Ion 123, Orph. fr. 62.3.

¹²⁹Titanomachy fr. 3 Allen, Mimn. 12, etc. (Orph. Hymn 8.6, al.); so Eos, Od. 23.244, Bacch. fr. 20C.22, etc.

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of the Hieronyman Theogony (fr. 57) it appears that it agreed with the Protogonos and Cyclic Theogonies in having the Hundred-Handers and Cyclopes born before the Titans and imprisoned in Tartarus, the Titans being then produced by Ge in pique. The Moirai also appeared as children of Uranos and Ge, perhaps the eldest of all. It was Night, we assume, who prophesied to Uranos that he would be deposed by his children.¹³⁰

Kronos castrated Uranos and, according to Athenagoras, `threw him down from his chariot'. This is odd, for while Phanes may ride in a chariot, or anyone else who traverses heaven, Heaven himself cannot be imagined to ride in a chariot. Where would he find a road? And what became of the vehicle after he was ejected from it? More probably Athenagoras' `chariot' () was a misunderstanding of an original which may mean either `chariot' or `throne'. It was really from his royal throne that Uranos was expelled.¹³¹ It is worth noting that Proclus, with the Rhapsodies in view (117), says that Kronos seized `the celestial Olympus' and was enthroned there.

Athenagoras makes no mention of the creatures, if any, born from Uranos' genitals or from the drops of blood that fell on the earth. In the Rhapsodies the births of at least the Giants and Aphrodite occurred at this juncture (63, 127), probably also the Erinyes (p. 124). The Erinyes, probably also the Giants, appeared in the Cyclic Theogony. They presumably came there from the Protogonos Theogony, if the castration story was omitted from the Eudemian. From the Protogonos Theogony they would naturally be taken over into the Hieronyman. Aphrodite's birth from the genitals must likewise come from the Protogonos tradition, not the Eudemian. But I am inclined to think that it did not come from the Protogonos Theogony itself. It is not likely that the goddess already had two births in that poem, and in the Derveni version, at least,

¹³⁰ Cf. p. 87. It does not fit well that Ge should warn him of danger from his children and then become angry when he tried to do something about it. Nor are the Moirai likely to have spoken up. (Their prophesying in Catullus 64 is exceptional.)

¹³¹ Cf. the mountain (Triphylian Olympus) called Euhemerus 63 F 3 (Diod. 5.44.6) = Caeli sella F 21. So far as I know, is not used of a god's or king's throne before Euhemerus, l.c., and Call. H. 1.67. If the explanation here advanced is correct, therefore, the verse in question was probably of Hellenistic manufacture.

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she seems to have been created afresh by Zeus after he had swallowed Protogonos (p. 91). And fr. 127 as it stands has a Hellenistic appearance:

The parts fell in the sea from on high, and there
a white foam curled about them as they drifted.
In the revolving seasons the year bore
a seemly maiden: as she first came forth
Zelos and Apate took her in their arms.

It is modelled on Hesiod (Th. 188 ff.), but shows a touch of originality by having Aphrodite welcomed ashore by Zelos and Apate (Rivalry and Deceit) instead of by Eros and Himeros (Desire and Love). This suggests a poet with a taste for Hesiod's type of personified abstraction.¹³² Both Zelos and Apate occur in Hesiod's genealogies, but the Orphic poet has brought them together in a new context and so made an original statement in theogonic language about the connection of rivalry, deceit, and love. We shall find what looks like the same poet's handi-work when we come to the marriages of Zeus, together with signs of a Hellenistic date for it. If fr. 127 was composed in Hellenistic times, we may suspect that it was in the Hieronyman Theogony that Aphrodite's birth from Uranos' genitals was introduced into Orphic tradition, making the first of two births.

Kronos swallowed his sons as they were born,¹³³ presumably after a prophecy (from Night?) that he would be deposed by one of them. Zeus must have been concealed from him, but we have no details of his birth and nurture in this poem, except that his mother Rhea was identified with Demeter, as in the Protogonos/Derveni Theogony. Fragment 145 belongs here:

Having been Rhea before, when she was mother of Zeus (Dios meter) she became Demeter.

As to the means by which Zeus ousted his father, Athenagoras only says that he bound him and sent him to Tartarus, as Uranos had done to his sons; he then speaks of a Titanomachy, as if it was a separate event.

¹³² On this type see my Hesiod, Theogony, 33 f.

¹³³ Athenagoras specifies that it was his male children. Cf. Euhemerus 63 F 14 (~ Orac. Sib. 3.130-4).

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The Swallowing of Phanes

Athenagoras tells us that Zeus swallowed Phanes, and we can assume that he did so on the strength of advice from Night, as in the Derveni and Rhapsodic Theogonies. The agreement of those two sources allows us to assume further that the swallowing of Phanes signified the temporary absorption of the whole world in Zeus, and gave the cue for the `hymn to Zeus' discussed on p. 89. It was noted there that in addition to some fragments of this hymn in the Derveni papyrus and the expanded version of it preserved from the Rhapsodies (fr. 168), we have a version preserved in a late Stoic source, the De Mundo. This version must have stood in the pre-Rhapsodic Protogonos tradition (fr. 21a). It is economical to suppose that it comes from the Hieronyman Theogony. The fragment runs:

           Zeus was born first, Zeus last, ruler of the thunderbolt:
           Zeus is the head, Zeus the middle, from Zeus are all things made:
           Zeus is the foundation of earth and starry heaven:
           Zeus was male, Zeus was an immortal nymph:
5          Zeus is the breath of all, Zeus is the thrust of tireless fire:
           Zeus is the root of the sea: Zeus is the sun and moon.
           Zeus the king, Zeus the ruler of all, ruler of the thunderbolt.
           For after he had hidden them all away, again into the glad light
           from his holy heart he brought them up, performing mighty acts.

Lines 1, 2, and 7 are attested for the Derveni Theogony. The other lines, however, cannot all be so old, because they contain some distinctly Stoic concepts.¹³⁴ The statement that Zeus was (literally was born, or became) both male and female may, I have suggested, have been developed from an earlier equation of Zeus with Moira, but it is fully intelligible only in the light of Chrysippus' doctrine that there is a single god who is given different names in different functions, masculine names for active functions and feminine names for passive ones.¹³⁵ This fitted in with the idea that the bisexual Phanes could be identified with Zeus (p. 204), though it implied a new interpretation of his bisexuality. The next two lines in fr. 21a are the only two which do not reappear in the Rhapsodies version.

¹³⁴ R. Harder, Philol. 85 (1930), 243-7.

¹³⁵SVF ii. 313.32, 315.11 (Henrichs, Cronache Ercolanesi 4 (1974), 15 f.); cf. Apollodorus 244 F 117.

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Again, they can only be understood from Stoic principles. The Stoic Zeus is an intelligent fiery breath that passes through everything in the world and gives it life. It passes through and connects the sea and the sun: the sun is an `intelligent ignition from the sea', and the moon is similarly related to the fresh waters. The sea, sun, and moon are Poseidon, Apollo, and Artemis respectively, and all parts of Zeus.¹³⁶

Even the lines inherited from the older Protogonos tradition may have suffered modernization in this version. In the Derveni commentary line 7 is quoted with the Homeric epithet , `of the bright thunderbolt', and this presumably also stood in line 1, which is not quoted in full in the extant portion of the papyrus. But in the De Mundo the best manuscripts give in both lines , `ruler of the thunderbolt'. The same form is offered by the sole manuscript of Cleanthes' Hymn to Zeus, 32 (SVF i. 122.28), and it is given point by an earlier passage in the poem where Cleanthes says that the whole cosmos willingly obeys Zeus' leadership because he holds in his invincible hands the fiery, ever-living thunderbolt, with which he directs the work of nature. This concept of the cosmic role of the thunderbolt is inspired by Heraclitus, and so far as I know it is peculiar to Cleanthes, the most Heraclitean of the Stoics.¹³⁷

We have earlier found evidence both of Stoicizing embellishment in the Hieronyman Theogony (Chronos identified as Heracles, Ananke as Adrastea; Protogonos entitled Zeus) and of Stoic transmission of the poem (Hieronymus' formulation of the first material principles). The ascription of fr. 21a to it is very much in line with those findings.

There is no telling whether Zeus' restoration of the cosmos was described in any detail. In the Derveni poem some lines were devoted to it, but there was more need there, as Phanes' creation had hardly been mentioned.¹³⁸ It is likely that fr. 95,

,
and the works of nature abide, and the boundless aeon,

belongs in this context, emphasizing the stability of Zeus' world. The phrase  . . .  also occurs in Cleanthes' hymn (II).

¹³⁶ Aët. 1.6, SVF ii. 299.11; D.L. 7.144, SVF ii. 196.9; Cleanthes SVF i. 122.8-9; Diog. Bab. fr. 33, SVF iii. 217.

¹³⁷ Cf. EGPO 117 n. 2, 142-4.

¹³⁸ Cf. above, n. 111.

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is a poetic variation on , a phrase which first occurs in Aristotle and is common in later prose.¹³⁹ In the Orphic fragment seems to have the Hellenistic sense of the temporal universe.

Zeus' Snake-Matings

Zeus pursued Rhea-Demeter and, after they had both turned themselves into snakes, coupled with her in the posture of the entwined snakes represented on Hermes' caduceus. Why the pattern they made was described so carefully is not clear, unless it corresponded to a holy symbol recognized by the religious society for whose edification the narrative was composed. It was prefigured, I have suggested, by the entwined pair Chronos and Ananke at the start of the cosmogony.

As the serpentine union of Chronos and Ananke led (indirectly) to the birth of the four-eyed, horned Phanes with additional animal heads, so the union of Zeus and Rhea produced a Kore who had `two eyes in the natural place and two on her forehead, and an animal (?) face () on the back of her neck, and also horns'. Rhea ran away in fear at the sight of this irregular baby, without feeding her. This has a close parallel in the Homeric Hymn to Pan (19.35 ff.), where the birth of the horned, goat-shanked, mischievous-looking god has the same effect on his mother. But these are Pan's regular features. I cannot explain why Kore should be given such an abnormal physique. Athenagoras says that because of her mother's failure to give her the breast () she received the mystic name of Athela. This too is perplexing. If it were true that Kore was known as Athela in a certain cult, we could understand the myth as an invention to account for it. But a couple of pages earlier Athenagoras has given Athela as the mystic name of Athena, and it occurs otherwise only in attempts to give an etymology for the name Athena.¹⁴⁰ Athena is a kind of Kore (cf. p. 138 n. 49), but she was not the one

¹³⁹ Arist. fr. 44; A.D. Nock, Essays on Religion and the Ancient World, 379. Of the two apparent Presocratic instances cited by Nock, one is a late doxographer's formulation (DK 12 A 10), and the other (Philolaus 44 B 21) is certainly pseudepi-graphic. The phrase is unconvincingly suggested for Anaximander by F. Solmsen, Archiv f. Gesch. d. Philosophie 44 (1962), 129 ff.

¹⁴⁰ Athenag. Pro Christianis 17, p. 19.9 Schwartz; Tzetzes in Hes. Op. 76; Eust. in Hom. 83.25, 312.35, 918.30; cf. Et. Magn. 24.44.

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born to Rhea-Demeter, and in the Rhapsodies at least she appeared as a quite separate goddess.

Zeus did not share Rhea's abhorrence of their daughter, and soon it was her turn to submit to his sinuous attentions. Dionysus was born as a result. I need add nothing here to what I have said about the episode on p. 97.

Other Wives and Associates of Zeus

The only other detail to be extracted from Athenagoras (fr. 59) is that Zeus had sexual relations with his sister. Hera must be the one meant. As to the children she bore, we can make the same guesses as in an earlier chapter (p. 137). We can also assume, as there, that Apollo, Artemis, and Athena arrived in the world by the traditional routes.

In the Rhapsodies (p. 73, section E) we find a number of personified abstractions of an auspicious character, and significant associations of them, among the marriages of Zeus and in his government.

Zeus' two marriages and the children born from them are taken over from Hesiod (Th. 901-11), with one modification. In Hesiod the goddess whom he marries after Themis, and who bears the Charites, is the Oceanid Eurynome: the Orphic poet has substituted the similar-sounding Eunomia from Themis' family.¹⁴¹ Marriage between Zeus and Eunomia (Law-and-order) had an attractive symbolic significance, analogous to

¹⁴¹ This assumes that is the correct reading in Orph. Hymn 60.2. J. Schrader conjectured . Pausanias 9.35.5, in a discussion of the Charites, cites Hesiod's account of their names and parentage and then says `and likewise () in the poetry of Onomacritus', Onomacritus being his name for Orphic poetry. But I do not think `likewise' can be pressed.

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that of his marriage with Themis. Hephaestus' marriage to Aglaia is also Hesiodic (Th. 945 f.), but the children are a new idea. Another original construction is the family

which interestingly suggests the proposition that when sexual desire meets with acquiescence, health flourishes.¹⁴² The statement that Nomos and Eusebia, Law and Morality, were the parents of Dike (fr. 159) stands on its own. Neither of them has a known place in the genealogy, though Nomos was said to have been chosen by Zeus to sit beside him on Night's instructions (160); Dike is duplicated among the children of Zeus.

This active development of Hesiod's manner of operating with personifications is in the same vein as the new use made of Zelos and Apate in the story of Aphrodite's birth, and it may be suspected that it is due to the same author. Hephaestus' family in particular has a Hellenistic appearance, especially as Euthenia is a word not attested before the Hellenistic age. Nomos as the associate of Zeus would not be surprising in the fifth century BC, but the only parallel I can quote is from Cleanthes' hymn:

Zeus, leader of nature, steering all things together with Nomos.¹⁴³

The Soul

I attributed to the Protogonos Theogony the doctrine of reincarnation preserved in fragments of the Rhapsodies. If that was right, it must also have appeared in the Hieronyman Theogony.

There is one interesting fragment which presumably stood in the same context in the Rhapsodies but which seems to represent a Stoicizing addition to the old doctrine, of the same sort as we have suspected elsewhere in the Hieronyman Theogony.

¹⁴² This has a Cynic air. One may perhaps compare Cercidas fr. 5 Powell.

¹⁴³SVF i. 121.35. Chrysippus identified Zeus with Nomos (SVF ii. 316.36) or the (D.L. 7.88, SVF iii. 4.2) or with and (Philod. De Piet. 11 = Henrichs, Cronache Ercolanesi 4 (1974), 15; SVF ii. 315.10). He is also said to have recognized Nomos as a god (ibid., Henrichs 17, SVF ii. 315.23). Nomos is first personified by Pindar, fr. 169.1.

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226       Water is death to the soul, but dies in turn;
          from water, earth, and from earth again water,
          and from that, soul transferring to the universal aither.

The first line is corrupt in the Greek, but the sense is given by Heraclitus fr. 66(a) Marcovich = B 36, on which the verses are obviously modelled: `For souls it is death to become water, and to water it is death to become earth; from earth comes water, and from water, soul.' This theory of the cyclical conversion of physical elements, in which the soul participates, is not in complete accord with the reincarnation doctrine, in which

The soul is immortal and unaging by grace of Zeus.
The soul of all creatures is immortal, their bodies mortal.

(228c,d; cf. 223.7)no provision here for death by liquefaction. The conversion theory is characteristic of the Stoics, who developed it directly from Heraclitus.¹⁴⁴ It was they who introduced air into the Heraclitean cycle as the physical correlate of soul. The poet of Orph. fr. 226 has thus interpreted the Heraclitean text in a Stoic sense. We should probably also ascribe to him fr. 228a,

the soul of men is rooted from the aither.

For the older poet, the preacher of reincarnation, souls blow about in the breeze after occupying animal bodies (223.4-5), but there is no suggestion there that soul is an extension of the universal air (228a) or extends through it (226.3, ). This is more like Stoic doctrine:

They say that there is a soul in the universe, which they call either and aer, which encircles the earth and sea and is an exhalation from them. Other souls are attached to itthose that are in living creatures and those that are in the atmosphere, which is where the souls of the dead abide.¹⁴⁵

Recapitulation and Conclusion

The basic framework of the Hieronyman Theogony is that of the old Protogonos Theogony. Some of the details attested for it which appear to be ancient allow us to fill out our picture of

¹⁴⁴ See EGPO 132 f., 150 f.

¹⁴⁵ Arius Didymus fr. 39.4, SVF ii. 225.18 = Posidonius F 351 Theiler; cf. SVF i. 111.8, ii. 191.39, 217.17. Anticipations of the idea in Anaximenes 13 B 2, Diogenes of Apollonia 64 B 4, 5. For the idea of man's `roots' being in heaven see Pl. Tim. 90a, `Hermes' Asclepius 6.

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the Protogonos Theogony: details of the cosmogony, such as the primordial watery abyss, the half-serpent forms of Chronos and his consort Ananke, and the means by which the egg was formed and broken open; details of Phanes' physique; his mating with Night in a cosmic cave; his production of monsters such as Echidna. Two surprising echoes of Orphic imagery in the cosmologies of the atomists can be added to our previous evidence for the influence of the Protogonos Theogony on Presocratic philosophers.¹⁴⁶

At the same time we have found a considerable number of indications of later, specifically Stoic embellishment. There is the identification of Chronos with Heracles, which seems to presuppose Cleanthes' interpretation of the Heracles myth in terms of the Stoic ecpyrosis; and the identification of Ananke with Adrastea, which is otherwise first attested for Chrysippus. The Stoic theory of cyclical re-creation and repetition of the cosmos offers an explanation of Protogonos' paradoxical equation with Zeus. His equation with Pan is, if not distinctively Stoic, at any rate post-Platonic. The same is true of his being called `the Father', qua demiurge, and of his spherical earth with temperate and intemperate zones. The hymn to Zeus which followed his swallowing of Protogonos, though based on one in the Protogonos Theogony, has been markedly Stoicized, and so has the account of the nature and fate of man's soul. Finally, we discern a multiplication of personified abstractionsZelos and Apate attending Aphrodite's birth, Hygieia as daughter of Eros and Peitho, Nomos as the partner of Zeus, others in family relationships with Zeus or Nomosat least some of which have a Hellenistic or Stoic appearance.

I speak of `embellishment', because none of it seriously affected the essence of the poem. It was not transformed into an exposition of Stoic theology. Doctrines such as the ecpyrosis and cyclicalism may lie behind some of the embellishments, but they were not imported into the text. It remained an Orphic poem with something like its original religious message. We know that Cleanthes and Chrysippus applied themselves to interpreting the theology of Orpheus, Musaeus, Homer,

¹⁴⁶ One of them at least goes back to the first atomist, Leucippus. It is worth noting that he came from Miletus, in view of what was argued about the Ionian origin of the Orphic poem.

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Hesiod, and others in such a way as to make it accord with their own philosophy (p. 80). We have seen that one Orphic poem which they knew and interpreted must have been a form of the Protogonos Theogony (p. 113). The Hieronyman Theogony was a modernized version of the poem which reflected their understanding of it and which amplified certain parts in accord with a Stoic viewpoint.

Was it the old poem with interpolations, or a complete rewriting? At least some of the old text was re-used, as is shown by the evidence of the Derveni papyrus on the `hymn to Zeus'. On the other hand, if the lines in the Derveni Theogony about the unification of the world in Zeus are a faithful copy from the Protogonos Theogony, and the corresponding passage in the Rhapsodies (fr. 167) is a faithful copy from the Hieronyman Theogony, then comparison of the two versions (set out on pp. 88 f.) indicates that the Stoicizing poet's method was one of free re-composition, using lines and phrases from the original but not following it slavishly. Hellenistic style and diction are detectable even in verses describing events that must have been described in the old poem.¹⁴⁷ Incidentally, the man who composed such lines as

(82), or

(94), was no mean poet. It is quite possible that he was responsible for some of the other fine verses preserved from the cosmogony, for example

or

¹⁴⁷ Phanes' self-love, fr. 82; the expulsion of Uranos, fr. 58, if para-phrases `throne'.

¹⁴⁸ Frr. 72, 86. The word in 72.1 seems to occur in verse elsewhere only at A.R. 4.1577. For other parallels with Alexandrian poetry see above, nn. 100 and 115.

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In view of the author's apparent familiarity with Alexandrian poetry of the best period and his evident knowledge of Stoicism as taught by Cleanthes and Chrysippus, we can hardly date him earlier than the second half of the third century BC. A terminus ante quem is given by the Rhapsodies, which I shall argue to have been put together soon after 100 BC. The poem enjoyed some currency in Stoic circles, as we can infer from the style of Hieronymus' paraphrase and the quotation in the De Mundo. In the next chapter we shall find reason to think that it was known and well regarded in the capital of Stoic literary scholarship, Pergamum.

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VII
The Rhapsodic Theogony

What Damascius refers to as `these current Orphic Rhapsodies' may safely be identified with the Hieroi Logoi in 24 Rhapsodies, listed in the Suda among Orpheus' works. The Suda adds that `they are said to be by Theognetus the Thessalian, or according to others Cercops the Pythagorean'. In the Etymologicum Genuinum and Magnum a fragment is quoted as being from `Orpheus in the eighth (book) of the Hieros Logos'; the quotation probably goes back to the early fifth-century grammarian Orion.¹ In the so-called Tübingen Theosophy, a work dating from between 474 and 508, a fragment (61) is quoted as from `the fourth Rhapsody' of Orpheus. It is addressed to Musaeus. At the beginning of the poem, apparently, stood a prayer to Apollo-Helios, in which Orpheus claimed to derive his knowledge from the god, and said that this was his twelfth revelation (62 K., cf. 65). This implies that the author of the Rhapsodic Theogony intended it to take its place in a canon of Orphic poems.²

For Damascius this was the `current' Orphic theogony, as opposed to the ones recorded by Eudemus and Hieronymus, and after dealing with it he says, `This, then, is the usual Orphic theology'. His fellow Neoplatonists, who supply the majority of the Orphic fragments we have, must have used the same poem, a presumption confirmed by agreements of substance. It is also confirmed, so far as concerns the most constant citer of Orpheus among them, Proclus, by what his pupil and biographer Marinus (one of Damascius' teachers) tells us:

Once when I was reading the works of Orpheus with him, and hearing in his exegeses not only what is in Iamblichus and Syrianus but further material, apter to the theology, I asked the philosopher not to leave such

¹ Fr. 63 K. The numeral is corrupted in cod. A of the Genuinum, N for H. For Orion as the source cf. fr. 75, where Orus is named in the MSS but Orion is to be assumed as the true reading: see R. Reitzenstein, Geschichte der griech. Etymologika (1897), 348 n. 2. The one fragment gives an etymology of the name Gigantes, the other of Phanes and Protogonos.

² Cf. p. 37 on the Argonautica. Kern apparently takes the reference to be to the 12th Rhapsody, but Malalas does say `at the beginning of his composition'.

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an inspired poem unexplained but to write a fuller commentary on this too [sc. as he had on the Chaldaean Oracles]. He said he had often felt an urge to write one, but had been prevented by dreams in which he had seen his tutor himself [Syrianus] deterring him with threats. I thought of a way round, and proposed that he should mark the passages in his tutor's volumes which he approved. He acquiesced (image of goodness that he was), and marked the commentaries in the margins. We collected the passages together, and thus obtained his notes and comments on quite a number of verses of Orpheus, even if he did not manage to mark up the whole of the divine mythology or all of the Rhapsodies.³

The Suda tells us what the relevant volumes of Syrianus were. There were two On the Theology of Orpheus, and one on The Agreement of Orpheus, Pythagoras, and Plato. He also held Orphic seminars.⁴ Another member of the Athenian Academy at the same period, Hierocles, devoted the fifth book of his work On Providence to showing that Orpheus and Homer were fore-runners of Platonism.⁵ From this time on, through the fifth and sixth centuries, Orpheus was a constant object of study and source of illustration to the Athenian and Alexandrian philosophers. They represent a single didactic tradition, of which the main outlines are these:

Before he went to Athens Proclus studied philology at Alexandria with Orion, who, as we have seen, used the Rhapsodies for his own purposes.

³Life of Proclus 27 (t 239 K.).

⁴ Procl. in Tim. i. 315.2 D.

⁵ Phot. Bibl. 173a (t 237 K.).

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For this period, then, the currency of the Rhapsodies at Alexandria and Athens is particularly well documented. The Neoplatonists' references to the poem are so numerous that it is possible to reconstruct the narrative in some detail from them. When this is done it becomes reasonably clear that the more sporadic allusions to Orphic theogonic poetry found in authors of the earlier centuries of our era may almost all be accommodated without difficulty in the Rhapsodies. In certain cases there are grounds for a more definite attribution to this poem. Marinus in the extract quoted above implies that Iamblichus had left useful contributions to the interpretation of the Rhapsodies. Syrianus' exegesis presumably had a good deal in common with Iamblichus', and Proclus is portrayed as presenting both and building on them. Iamblichus takes us back at least to the first quarter of the fourth century. His teacher Porphyry takes us back nearly to the middle of the third. In his early work On Statues Porphyry quoted the `hymn to Zeus' which followed the swallowing of Protogonos, and he quoted it in the expanded version which was peculiar to the Rhapsodies.⁶

Of the writers who cite Orpheus in the first century BC and the first two centuries AD, a few have the Hieronyman Theogony in view: Hieronymus himself (if he falls within that period), the author of De Mundo, Athenagoras, possibly Alexander of Aphrodisias (p. 185). But there are others (Philodemus, Diodorus, Pausanias, Clement) who refer to the sufferings of Dionysus, and whose Orphic theogony must therefore be either the Eudemian or the Rhapsodic. The probability is, in my opinion, that it was the Rhapsodic, which I shall argue to have been in circulation from soon after 100 BC. For the moment it is sufficient to remark that there is nothing in the fragments of the Rhapsodies which is evidently post-Hellenistic on grounds of metre, prosody, style, or philosophical or religious content.⁷

A reconstruction of the poem was printed on pp. 70-75.

⁶ Porph. fr. 3 Bidez ap. Eus. PE 3.9 = fr. 168 K. The quotation of the verses in Stob. 1.1.23 is surely also taken from this work of Porphyry, which provides Stobaeus with his next excerpt but one.

⁷ Such suspicion does attach to fr. 169.6-12; but this fragment did not stand in the Rhapsodies, though its first five lines were taken from them (1-5 = 168.6-10). Syrianus quoted it as an `oracle', and it is one of many late theological oracles collected in the Tübingen Theosophy.

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Much of its subject-matter has already been discussed in the last four chapters under the headings of the different theogonies from which I believe it to have been drawn. It remains to consider how this material was organized in the Rhapsodies, and to comment on those episodes and other details which have not so far been taken account of.

The First Stages of the Cosmogony

It is immediately obvious that the first part of the cosmogony is closely similar to that of the Hieronyman Theogony. It starts with Unaging Time, and proceeds to Aither, Chaos, and Darkness, from which an egg is made, and from the egg comes the very individual figure of Phanes. The one palpable difference between the two accounts is that the Rhapsodies, as Damascius tells us explicitly, omitted the water and mud (or Oceanus and Tethys) which preceded Chronos in the Hieronyman Theogony. Perhaps the compiler of the Rhapsodies thought that nothing should be older than Time. If the initial principles in the Hieronyman Theogony were called Oceanus and Tethys, he will have had the problem of reconciling this with the Eudemian and Cyclic Theogonies, in which Oceanus and Tethys appeared as children of Uranos; the easiest solution would certainly have been to eliminate the couple from the position preceding Chronos.

Other differences between the Hieronyman and Rhapsodic cosmogonies may be only apparent. Thus there is a simple explanation of the fact that in describing the Hieronyman Theogony Damascius says that Time had three offspring, Aither, Chaos, and Erebos, whereas in describing the Rhapsodies he ignores Erebos, of which, however, there is some trace in other authorities. In his interpretation of the former (cf. p. 179), Chronos completes the first triad, following the unexpressed One and the dyad consisting of water and earth, and Aither, Chaos, and Erebos make up the second triad. In the Rhapsodies there is no water and mud at the beginning, and Damascius' first triad therefore begins with Chronos as Father; Aither and Chaos are taken as the dyad representing Potentiality (so fr. 60), Erebos being tacitly relegated to the status of an attendant circumstance, and the triad is completed

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by the egg. The two verses which Proclus quotes recording the birth of Aither and the Chasm (66a) may have been followed by one about Darkness; he alludes to the phrases `continuous darkness' and `in the dark fog' (66, 67),⁸ but withholds their verbal contexts.

Nothing is said about Time's being represented as a winged serpent or coupled with Ananke. Damascius deals with the Rhapsodies first, and only introduces these complications when he comes to Hieronymus, so that prima facie it might look as if they were omitted in the Rhapsodies. On the other hand Proclus mentions `grim-faced Ananke' as having appeared in the early stages of the theogony (126), and Chronos' serpent form seems to be implied in the Hymns, 12.9 f. (to Heracles),

self-grown, unwearied, noblest scion of Ge,
who didst flash out with firstborn scales, O famous Aion,⁹

while in Argonautica 12 ff. (from the catalogue of Orpheus' previous songs, cf. p. 37) we find allusion both to the serpent form and to Ananke:

firstly, ancient Chaos' stern Ananke,
and Chronos, who bred within his boundless coils
Aither and two-sexed, two-faced, glorious Eros,
ever-born Night's famed father, whom latter men
call Phanes, for he first was manifested.

In fact Damascius does just the same when he comes to Phanes: gives no detailed description in talking about the Rhapsodies, but assumes familiarity, and then writes out the description that came down from Hieronymus, which as far as we can tell was fully applicable to the Phanes of the Rhapsodies.

The Royal Sceptre

Proclus tells us that according to Orpheus there were six successive divine monarchs: Phanes, Night, Uranos, Kronos, Zeus, and Dionysus; `for it was Phanes who first fashioned the

⁸ Cf. Malalas' `gloomy Night' in 65.

⁹ `Self-grown' () and `unwearied' () are both applied to Chronos in the Peirithoos. `Scion of Ge' = Kronos (13.6) = Chronos. `Scales' implies the serpent form. (For the bright scales of the Time-serpent cf. Claudian, Laudes Stilichonis 2.429.) is my correction of see CQ 18 (1968), 291.

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sceptre'. In another place he mentions that the same sceptre was handed down from the first reign to the last, and he quotes the verses in which Phanes

placed his distinguished sceptre in the hands
of goddess Night, that she hold royalty.

Another verse described her

holding in her hands the glorious sceptre of Erikepaios.¹⁰

The poet evidently referred to the sceptre several times, and attached some importance to the system of six kingships of which it was the formal symbol.

When Zeus had it, it was apparently described in more detail than before. It was said to be (fr. 157)

of four and twenty measures.

Why so? Not, as Proclus speculates, because Zeus in his demiurgy created `two dodecads'; that is simply Neoplatonist construction. The true explanation, I suggest, is much more interesting. The same phrase `of four and twenty measures' occurs in fr. 356,¹¹

straight, in six parts, of four and twenty measures.

This verse was ascribed variously to Orpheus, Musaeus, or the Pythia. It referred to the hexameter, which contains six feet and 24 morae, and since the three claimants for authorship were those to whom the invention of the hexameter was attributed (if we take the Pythia to be Phemonoe), the verse presumably came in a context where the poet declared that he had invented this metre. It is first quoted, as being by Musaeus, in the Odysseus attributed to Alcidamas, a work which Blass puts in the early fourth century BC, but others in the third or second.¹² The verse may have been known to Democritus, as he too regarded Musaeus as the inventor of the hexameter (DK 68 B 15). It is at any rate relatively ancient.

I suggest that the author of the Rhapsodies borrowed the whole verse and gave it a new application. The six parts into

¹⁰ Procl. in Tim. iii. 168.15 ff. D. (p. 171 Kern); in Crat., p. 54.21 ff. Pasquali = fr. 101; fr. 102.

¹¹ With the minor variant for .

¹² J. Brzoska, RE i. 1536.

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which, on this hypothesis, the sceptre of Erikepaios was divided correspond to the six reigns of the dynasty whose emblem the sceptre was. The 24 `measures' correspond to the 24 Rhapsodies themselves, the divisions of the official history of the dynasty as communicated to Orpheus by Apollo.¹³

The idea that the divine kingship is linked with the possession of a physical object upon which the destiny of the world is marked out has a precedent in Old Babylonian mythology; it was no doubt of Sumerian origin. The bird-god Zû usurped the kingship from Enlil by flying away with the `tablets of destinies'. In Enûma Elis *, when Tiâmat sets up her son Kingu as chief of the gods, she fastens these tablets on his breast. When Marduk eventually overpowers Kingu,

He bound him and counted him among the dead gods.

He took from him the tablet of destinies, which was not his rightful possession,

He sealed it with his seal and fastened it on his breast.¹⁴

In Hesiod's Theogony, despite the undoubted Mesopotamian provenance of the Succession Myth, there is no trace of the motif, and there is little emphasis on kingship until Zeus achieves power. Kronos is called a king twice in passing (462, 486), Uranos never. There may have been somewhat more emphasis on it in the earlier Orphic theogonies. In the Derveni poem Protogonos was called a king (pp. 88, 114.21), though this was evidently no more than a eulogistic title, since it was stated that Uranos became king first of all, that is, king in the sense of ruler over others (pp. 85, 114.17). The same was said of Uranos in the Cyclic Theogony. In the Hieronyman Theogony he was deposed, I have suggested, from a throne. In the Eudemian Theogony Dionysus was installed on one, though it is not clear whether this was represented (as it was in the Rhapsodies) as a bestowal of kingship. It is unlikely that the six generations of gods envisaged in the poem had six rulers corresponding to them.

¹³ The poet was unable, however, to apportion four rhapsodies to each reign, for those of Night and Uranos were relatively uneventful. He had only reached the 8th rhapsody when he told of the castration of Uranos (fr. 63).

¹⁴En. El. ii. 156, iv. 119-22, trans. Heidel. Myth of Zû: ANET 111-13. Cf. H.W. Haussig, Wörterbuch der Mythologie (1965- ), i (1).120 s.v. Schicksalstafeln.

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When the compiler of the Rhapsodies came to conflate the different theogonies, he found the three series

In order to unite them once and for all in a firm sequence and to resolve ambiguities about kingship, he decided to establish a well-defined dynastic framework running from Protogonos, the creator of the cosmos and the first god to whom the title `king' was attached, to Dionysus. There may have been a casual mention somewhere of a sceptre, as a conventional expression of kingship.¹⁵ He took this as the definitive symbol of the dynasty, applying to it the verse about the six parts and 24 measures, which was already associated with Orpheus. He put in some lines about Phanes' creation of the sceptre, and made a point of mentioning it when Phanes transferred the kingship to Night.

Night, Uranos, Kronos, Zeus

The reign of Night is anomalous in two respects. She is the only female sovereign in the whole series; and her period of

¹⁵ As suggested on p. 86. Cf. Zeus' sceptre in Pind. P. 1.6, fr. 70b.7; PV 171, 761; E. fr. 912.7; Ar. Av. 480, 1535, etc.

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rule is entirely eventless. She owes her throne to the Rhapsodist's construction. In the Eudemian Theogony she could hardly have been called a queen, for before the coming of Uranos there was nothing and no one for her to rule over, but the generation before Uranos clearly belonged to her alone. In both the Cyclic and the Derveni Theogonies Uranos was explicitly said to have been the first sovereign. The verse in the Rhapsodies which says of Uranos

who first became sovereign of the godsafter his mother Night.

(fr. 111) is obviously an adaptation of a statement of absolute priority. In extending the kingship back to Phanes the compiler could not exclude Night from the succession. It was perhaps he too who invented the detail that Night's power of prophecy was bestowed upon her by Phanes (103). It is in just the same spirit as Phanes' handing over his sceptre to her.

Ge was called the first bride, and her union with Uranos the first marriage (112). This too is presumably due to the influence of one of the source-poems, for it ignores Phanes' union with Night, and Chronos' with Ananke.¹⁶ It was in the Eudemian and Cyclic Theogonies that the first sexual union was that of Uranos and Ge. In the Eudemian poem the first `marriage' was said to have been contracted by Oceanus and Tethys: I suggested that this was a survival from a still older theogony (pp. 119 f.). In the Cyclic version Oceanus and Tethys were integrated into the family of Titans, and it was at this stage, one may conjecture, that the title to the first marriage was transferred back to Uranos and Ge, who had a very obvious claim to it. If this reconstruction of developments is correct, adjustment of nominal marital primacy kept lagging behind revisions of the genealogy. (See the table overleaf.)

The order of Uranos' children (Titans last) was as in the Cyclic and Hieronyman Theogonies, the Cyclic providing the tally of fourteen Titans (pp. 123 f., 126). The same two sources account for the story of the castration, the birth of the Erinyes and Giants from the drops of blood, and that of Aphrodite from the genitals.

¹⁶ It is, however, uncertain how the union of Chronos and Ananke was conceived and described. Proclus strives to account for Orpheus' failure to recognize Phanes and Night as a married couple, but it does not occur to him to bring Chronos and Ananke into the discussion.

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The reference to Kronos' being `enthroned' upon Olympus (117) may, I have suggested, be connected with the expulsion of Uranos from a throne in the Hieronyman Theogony. Of the marriages of the Titans, apart from Kronos, we know few

Actual first pairing

Nominal first marriage

`Homeric' theogony

Oceanus ~ Tethys

Oceanus ~ Tethys

Eudemian Theogony

Uranos ~ Ge

Oceanus ~ Tethys

Cyclic Theogony

Uranos ~ Ge

Uranos ~ Ge

Rhapsodies

Chronos ~ Ananke

Uranos ~ Ge

(or Phanes ~ Night)

details and can therefore say little about the relationship of that section of the Rhapsodies to the earlier poems. If Apollodorus' statement that Iapetos married Asia comes from the Cyclic Theogony (p. 131), we can infer that that poem at least recorded the birth of Prometheus, the son of Iapetos, and his theft of fire, which was also related in the Rhapsodies.

All of the theogonies told of Kronos' swallowing his children and of the concealment of Zeus. It was the Hieronyman Theogony that at this point identified Rhea with Demeter (p. 217). It was the Cyclic and, as I have argued, the Eudemian Theogony that placed Zeus' upbringing in the Dictaean cave and represented him as nursed by Ida and Adrastea and guarded by the Kouretes until he was mature enough, with the help of Metis as pharmacist, to make Kronos vomit his other children up. The compiler of the Rhapsodies made two alterations here, as already noted (p. 124). Firstly he identified the cave with the cosmic cave or adyton of Night, which came from the Protogonos tradition. As Night was presently to be represented as giving Zeus prophetic advice from this establishment, it was economical to identify it with the cave where Zeus was reared. As she had previously reared the Titans there, it also had the effect of giving the poem a greater thematic unity, in the same way as the transmission of the sceptre. Secondly, because in the Protogonos tradition (and hence in the Rhapsodies) Metis was one of Phanes' identities, the compiler dispensed with her services in this context, and allowed Kronos' vomiting to be provoked not by a special drug but by the stone he was given to swallow instead of Zeus.

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The change of government was completed by the castration of Kronos and the casting of lots by his three sons. These episodes, I have suggested, came from the Eudemian Theogony. But it was the Rhapsodist who made Night responsible for recommending the castration to Zeus after telling him that he was to be the fifth king of the gods (as he was only in the Rhapsodies). She already appeared as his adviser in the Protogonos Theogony, where she told him to swallow Protogonos: the Rhapsodist extended her advisory role to include the castration, which he took from a different line of tradition. What she said to Zeus included the verses (154)

Then when you see him under the tall oaks
befuddled with the works of buzzing bees,
bind him.

The same pompous phrase for honeycombs, occurs in a fragment that describes Rhea-Demeter's preparations for the fatal feast (189):

For she procured () attendants, butlers, waiters,
procured ambrosia and red nectar draught,
procured the gleaming works of buzzing bees.

The triple anaphora of here may perhaps be traced to a model in the Protogonos tradition (cf. pp. 92, 115.35 ff.), which would suggest that fr. 189, like 154, comes from the hand of the Rhapsodist and was not inherited from the Eudemian narrative. For `the works of buzzing bees' Alexandrian models can be cited.¹⁷

The Golden Chain

Zeus was anxious to know

How shall all things be one, yet each distinct?

Night answered:

Catch all in infinite aither round about,
therein the sky, the boundless earth, the sea,
and therein all the encircling signs of heaven.
When you have strung a firm bond round them all,
to the aither fasten then a golden chain.
                                        (165-6)

¹⁷ Call. H. 1.50 (in the context of the birth of Zeus) , A.R. 3.1036, Nicias epigr. 6.3.

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This is certainly a Hellenistic contribution to the story. The golden chain is derived from allegorical interpretation of Iliad 8.19, the passage where Zeus emphasizes his dominance by challenging the gods to suspend a golden chain from the sky and try to pull him down. If he chose, he says, he could pull the lot of them up, and earth and sea as well; he could tie the chain round a peak of Olympus and leave everything dangling in space. In the Orphic poem the chain serves to unify the contents of the cosmos. By parcelling them up in aither Zeus ensures that they will stay in a finite area, but he has by no means made them one. We can only suppose that he achieves this end by threading them on the golden chain that hangs down from the aither. But this is nothing but the Stoic theory of Heimarmene, Theios Logos, and all the other names they gave it: a divine breath, not a contrivance of Zeus but Zeus himself, that runs perpetually through all things and makes them one. Chrysippus posited `that the whole of existence is unified because of a breath which extends throughout it, by which the universe is held together and remains together, and whose changes it shares'.¹⁸ Many other passages could be quoted. Now it is known that Homer's golden chain was interpreted as the Stoic Heimarmene.¹⁹ We do not know to whom this interpretation is due, but there is a suspicion that it was Posidonius.²⁰ The Orphic passage evidently presupposes the interpretation and is to be understood in terms of it.

There may also be a relationship with another piece of Stoic exegesis of Homer. The lines

therein the sky, the boundless earth, the sea,
and therein all the encircling signs of heaven

imitate lines in the description of Achilles' shield, Il. 18.483-5.

¹⁸SVF ii. 154.7.

¹⁹ Heraclitus, Alleg. Hom. 36.3, Aristid. 43.15 (ii. 342-3 Keil), Eust. in Hom. 695.1; cf. Themist. Or. 32.363cd, Lucr. 2.1154 with Virg. E. 4.7. Its interpretation as the continuity of the four elements (sch. h Il. 8.19 (Cramer, Anecd. Par. iii. 110.2); Eust. in Hom. 695.3; Anon. Exeg. in Hes. Th. 116, p. 377.6 Flach) amounts to the same thing. The passages are collected in a valuable monograph by P. Lévêque, Aurea Catena Homeri (Paris, 1959).

²⁰ The argument is that the description of the interdependence of elements in sch. Hom. and Exeg. Hes., ll.cc., resembles Cic. ND 2.84, which is thought to depend on Posidonius (K. Reinhardt, Kosmos und Sympathie (1926), 100 ff.; F 361 Theiler): Lévêque, 26 f.

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That passage too was given a cosmological interpretation.²¹ The five folds of the shield were explained as the five cosmic zones (polar, temperate, torrid). The silver telamon which supported it was equated with the world axis running down from the topmost aither through the centre of the earth and ending in the south. It has been conjectured that this goes back to Crates of Mallos, the leading figure of Pergamene scholarship.²² The Orphic poet may have thought of the Homeric lines in this context because of their supposed cosmological significance.

It is not certain whether the golden chain appeared in the Hieronyman Theogony, which we found to exhibit a Stoicizing tendency, or only in the Rhapsodies. If it came in the Hieronyman Theogony, and if the poet who introduced it indeed knew the Homeric exegesis of Crates and Posidonius, we obtain a later terminus post quem for that theogony than we had before. It could not have been composed much before 100 BC. But I am more inclined to think that the Rhapsodist was responsible.

The Swallowing of Phanes:
Zeus as the World

Another means used by Zeus to unify the world was to swallow Phanes, as he had in the Protogonos and Hieronyman Theogonies. The `hymn to Zeus' which accompanied the account of this accomplishment (pp. 89, 218) was greatly expanded in the Rhapsodies. After the recital of Zeus' predicates was inserted a passage of 25 lines (fr. 168.6-30) in which the physical world is described and anatomized as the body of Zeus. His head and face are the bright heaven, and the golden locks that surround them are the stars. His two golden ox-horns are the rising and setting paths of the celestial ones, his eyes are the sun and moon, his mind is the aither, with which he hears and takes cognizance of everything. His shoulders, chest, and back correspond to the lower air, and have wings growing from them, on which he flies everywhere. His belly is the earth,

²¹ Heraclitus, Alleg. Hom. 48-51, `Probus' in Virg. G. 1.233, Strab. epit. 2.7 (iii. 462 Kramer), Demo ap. Eust. in Hom. 1154.41 ff. (Under the name of Demo went an allegorizing commentary on Homer, of the late 5th century AD or later; cf. K. Krumbacher, Geschichte d. byzant. Litteratur (2nd ed., 1897), 530.) The texts are collected by H.J. Mette, Sphairopoiia (1936), 177 ff.

²² Reinhardt, De Graecorum theologia capita duo (1910), 60 f.; Mette, Sphairopoiia, 42; R. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship, i. 240.

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and his belt the sea that girdles it; his legs and feet are the Tartarean roots of the earth.

This doctrine is not very well suited to the surroundings in which it has been put. The cosmos has become one inside Zeus' belly (167b.6), and he is to bring it forth again (168.31 f.). Zeus is the foundation of earth and starry heaven (168.4). These statements are hardly to be reconciled with the view that Zeus' whole body is identical with the cosmos. The Rhapsodist has evidently interpolated into the theogony a passage of separate provenance, probably from a hymn and presumably current under the name of Orpheus. It assumes an anthropomorphic Zeus with golden locks, horns, and wings: this is not the Zeus of the theogonies, but the Zeus of some Hellenistic syncretism.²³ It also assumes an unscientific world picture with sky and aither at the top, air () lower down, a flat earth surrounded by water, and beneath it the roots of earth, mouldy Tartarus. This is in contrast with the spherical earth floating in space which Phanes created and appointed for men (p. 210).

The equation of the world with the body of a god whose head is the sky, his eyes the sun and moon, etc., was no new idea. It was well established in Indian literature from the earliest times, and there are traces of it in Iran and perhaps Mesopotamia.²⁴ In Greek we find various suggestions of it from the fifth century BC on.²⁵ The Orphic passage under consideration is the fullest exposition of it.

In working it into the Rhapsodies the compiler made certain minor changes in it and in the immediate context, for reasons which we can appreciate. He altered the verse

Zeus the king, Zeus the ruler of all, author of the thunderbolt

to

Zeus the king, Zeus himself of all the author of birth,

²³ Nor is he Phanes identified with Zeus, for there are only two eyes, not four, and no other evident peculiarities; besides, he is called the son of Kronos, 168.20. His wings apparently support the world; cf. p. 191.

²⁴ R. Reitzenstein and H.H. Schaeder, Studien zum antiken Synkretismus, Stud. d. Bibl. Warburg 7 (1926), 69-103; A. Olerud, L'Idée de macrocosmos et de microcosmos dans le Timée de Platon (Diss. Uppsala, 1951), 128 ff.; J. Duchesne-Guillemin, RE Supp. ix. 1585; T. Jacobsen in H. and H.A. Frankfort, Before Philosophy, 145 f.

²⁵ See CQ 21 (1971), 386; oracle of Sarapis in Macr. Sat. 1.20.17 (p. 265 Kern); Orph. Hymn 66.6 f.; P. Mag. 12.243 13.771 = 21.6; Corp. Herm., Asclepius 2; a possible parody of the idea in Ar. Eq. 74 ff. (W. Kranz, NGG 1938, 149 = Studien zur antiken Literatur und ihrem Nachwirken (1967), 187).

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because the words `ruler of all' () occurred in the first line of the insertion which he wished to make just at this point. To a line (168.8) which listed the things contained in Zeus' body,

fire and water and earth and air, night and day,

he awkwardly appended

and Metis the first progenitor and delightsome Eros,

because Zeus had recently swallowed Protogonos (whose name is paraphrased in `first progenitor', ), who was also Metis and Eros. Following the long review of the parts of the universe it was natural to change `After he had hidden them all [masc., sc. the gods] away' to `After he had hidden all (these things) away' (168.31). He also altered `from his holy heart he brought them up' into `from his heart he was to bring them forth again' (using the form , which is not found before Callimachus). The reason for this change was perhaps that he understood the bringing forth to be a continuing process, not a single event as the Hieronyman Theogony represented it. At any rate the modification helped to blur the contradiction involved in passing straight from saying that Zeus' body is the universe to saying that he brought the universe up from inside his body.

Zeus' Wives and Children

Lobeck thought that Zeus and Hera were represented by Orpheus as practising fellatio, a notion which has intrigued several subsequent scholars.²⁶ Diogenes Laertius (1.5) says that some people call Orpheus the first philosopher, but that he does not know whether `philosopher' is the right name for one who does not shrink from attributing every human condition to the gods, even the obscenity that occasional humans perpetrate with the organ of speech. No mention of Zeus and Hera, but Lobeck refers to an interpretation which Chrysippus gave of a painting at Argos or Samos. It showed (at least according to Chrysippus) Zeus and Hera engaged in fellatio,

²⁶ Lobeck, 604-6; R. Foerster, Die Hochzeit des Zeus und der Hera (Winckelmanns-Progr. 1867), 23; Gruppe, Die griech. Culte und Mythen, i. 622; Cook, Zeus, iii. 1027 n. 5.

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and he gave a decent allegorical explanation. Several authors allude to Chrysippus' handling of this topic,²⁷ among them Diogenes. They say nothing of Orpheus in this connection, and it is clear that Chrysippus did not say anything either. Nor again do the Christians or the Neoplatonists, and that is surprising if such an episode, which lent itself to denunciation or to philosophical exegesis, occurred in the Rhapsodies. It is suspicious that the one indication that Diogenes anywhere gives of the contents of Orphic poetry tells of something that no one else ever mentions. Unless he is thinking of a poem that was not widely current, he is probably adopting a tendentious interpretation of some detail that had quite a different point. It may be recalled that the Derveni commentator misread Orpheus in such a way as to make Zeus swallow a penis (p. 85).

Zeus' snake-mating with Rhea-Demeter and the consequent birth of Persephone came from the Protogonos tradition as represented by the Hieronyman Theogony. I have mentioned a possibility that in the Eudemian and Cyclic Theogonies the parents of Persephone were Zeus and Styx (p. 137). If that was the case, it was of course irreconcilable with the other account (short of identifying Rhea-Demeter with Styx), and the Rhapsodist must have discarded it.

Of the other marriages of Zeus listed on p. 73, those with Themis, Eunomia, and Leto require no further comment here. The form which his encounter with Dione takes is most readily explained, as noted on p. 121, from the conflation of different accounts. In the Eudemian and Cyclic Theogonies he fathered Aphrodite upon her in the normal way, while in the Protogonos tradition he produced Aphrodite from his seed alone. The compromise is that he has an ejaculation while pursuing Dione. In the Erichthonios myth which provided the model, Hephaestus' semen was thrown on the earth and fertilized it. The Rhapsodist made Zeus' semen fall in the sea so that Aphrodite could develop there, just as in her birth from the genitals of Uranos. He gave her Eros as her attendant, following Hesiod. At her other birth, it will be recalled, Zelos and Apate fulfilled this role.

Athena was born from Zeus' head in her gleaming armour to be an executant of his will. As a goddess of handicraft she

²⁷SVF ii. 314, Nos. 1071-4.

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was linked with Hephaestus, a reflection of their association in Attic cult. Of her leadership of the Kouretes we have spoken in the context of the Eudemian Theogony (pp. 137, 162). She was further identified with Virtue (), which seems to be a development of Stoic ideas. The Stoics themselves identified her with thought (),²⁸ and explained her birth from Zeus' head as the origin of wisdom in the governing part () of the soul.²⁹ At the same time they said that virtue characterizes all who are thoughtful () in all circumstances, or even that thought is the only virtue.³⁰ Virtue was a certain disposition or faculty of the governing part of the soul, produced by reason.³¹ It must have been either the poet of the Hieronyman Theogony or that of the Rhapsodies who, working after the formulation of these theories, combined them and identified Athena with Virtue.

Kore

Demeter is represented as `handing over the queenship' to Kore and as taking the opportunity to prophesy to her about children she will bear (194). Neither Demeter nor Kore has a place in the series of six monarchs, so it appears that the queenship in question means the status of Zeus' official consort. It looks like a concept invented by the Rhapsodist, who has shown a certain preoccupation with dynastic succession.

Demeter announces that Kore will bear to Apollo children with fiery faces. These are presumably the Eumenides, who are described in the Hymns (70.6-7) as flashing terrible light from their eyes. Persephone does indeed give birth to them, though in the event the father is Pluto. In the Protogonos Theogony, I suggested (pp. 95, 98), the prophecy was fulfilled to the letter, and there was a change of paternity when poems were conflated, to link up with the myth of Persephone's abduction by Pluto. I argued that the abduction came from a different poem from the snake-Zeus' mating with Persephone, which belonged to the Protogonos tradition. The hypothesis

²⁸ Chrysippus, SVF ii. 256-8, iii. 217.18 ff., cf. Cornutus, p. 33.10 L., Orph. Hymn 32.9, etc., and above, p. 43 n. 22.

²⁹SVF ii. 256.12, cf. 305.21, iii. 217.19.

³⁰SVF iii. 24.43, Apollophanes SVF i. 90.19.

³¹SVF i. 50.1.

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that the abduction came from the Eudemian Theogony is supported by the fact that before being carried off by Pluto, Persephone was guarded by the Kouretes, a motif intrinsic to the Eudemian narrative.

Making the Eumenides the children of Pluto's marriage with Persephone is an obvious acknowledgement of their chthonic nature. Aeschylus called them children of Night, Sophocles children of Earth and Darkness, Virgil children of Pluto and Night. Their number, when specified, is elsewhere one, two, or three.³² In the Rhapsodies they are nine, like the Muses. Their epithet `flower-workers' () in fr. 197 is presumably to be explained from their general control over the workings of nature and especially over the fertility of the earth.³³

In the usual version of the rape of Kore by Pluto, she is abducted while gathering flowers. In the Orphic narrative he finds her weaving a flowery robe.³⁴ She goes beneath the earth at ploughing-time.³⁵ At that season, in antiquity, the sun was in Scorpio,³⁶ and that is why she is just working a scorpion into her design when Pluto interrupts her. Proclus' interpretation for once hits the mark.

The scorpion motif is very unlikely to be pre-Hellenistic, because the division of the zodiac into twelve signs cannot be traced in Greece before Eudoxus, and is not more than a century or two older in Babylon. Not until the Hellenistic age did it become part of the general consciousness. That detail, therefore, seems to be an invention of the Rhapsodist's. The theme of

³² E. Wüst, RE Supp. viii. 122.

³³ As seen in A. Eum. 902 ff., 938 ff. Demeter herself was Erinys in Arcadia. The affiliation of the Horai to Themis is another expression of the same basic association: seasonal growth goes with strict order imposed by the gods and transgressed on pain of punishment.

³⁴ A compromise in Diod. 5.3.4: she picks flowers to be made into a robe for Zeus.

³⁵ See N.J. Richardson on Hymn. Dem. 399 ff., adding Plut. Is.Os. 378de, Arnob. 5.43, Harpocr./Suda s.v. , and for the `death' of the sown seed Evang. Io. 12.24, 1 Cor. 15.36. Further proof is provided by the fact that the pigs of Eubouleus which were swallowed up by the earth at the time of Persephone's abduction were the mythical prototype of the pigs thrown into pits at the Attic Thesmophoria (Clem. Protr. 2.17, cf. sch. Ar. Ran. 338; not Skirophoria as Deubner, Attische Feste, 40 ff., argues on the basis of an unconvincing analysis of sch. Lucian., pp. 275 f. Rabe).

³⁶ An astronomical fact of this kind has no need of support from ancient writers, but those who wish for reassurance may consult sch. Arat. 265; Proclus on Hes. Op. 383-7, p. 130.25 Pertusi.

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Persephone's weaving, however, may go back to the early Pythagorean-Orphic Robe (p. 11), where it will have symbolized the seasonal progress of vegetation. If the abduction story came into the Rhapsodies from the Eudemian Theogony, the question then arises whether the weaving was associated with the abduction in that poem or whether the compiler of the Rhapsodies brought it in from the Robe. I should find it surprising if it appeared in the Eudemian Theogony as well as the Robe, because the Eudemian poem does not otherwise show any affinity with Pythagorean doctrines. It is certainly a possibility that the Rhapsodist drew on the Robe. The hymn to Zeus as embodiment of the world indicates that he did not limit himself to theogonies for his raw material, but also made use of other Orphic poems if they fitted easily into the theogonic frame.

Dionysus, Mankind

Dionysus was important as a god of salvation both in the Protogonos Theogony, where he appears to have been a Hellenized form of Sabazios, and in the Eudemian. From the former (via the Hieronyman Theogony) stemmed the episode of Hipta carying the infant god in a winnowing-basket; from the latter the saga of his guarding by the Kouretes, his enthronement, his enticement and slaughter by the Titans, and his restoration from the heart.

Proclus says that Orpheus repeatedly called Dionysus `Oinos', and he substantiates this with three quotations (frr. 216a-c):

The single root of Oinos they made three.

`Take Oinos' limbs in order, bring me them.'

(Hera) misliking Oinos, Zeus' son.

The meaning of the first of these verses is obscure, and it is not certain that Oinos means more than `wine' in it. But in the other two there can be no doubt that it stands for the child Dionysus. It presupposes an allegorical interpretation of the young god's sufferingsthe interpretation attested in Diodorus and Cornutus (cf. p. 141). It is surely a Hellenistic intrusion,

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not part of the original Eudemian narrative, and we must therefore ascribe it to the compiler of the Rhapsodies.

The two source-traditions gave different accounts of man and his destiny. According to the Protogonos Theogony we are a race created by Zeus following earlier ones created by Phanes and Kronos. We are repeatedly reborn in different human and animal bodies, and subject to judgement in the other world after each human incarnation. In the Hieronyman version the Stoic theory of cyclical conversion of the physical elements into one another was pressed into association with the metempsychosis doctrine, and the soul's close affinity with the universal air was emphasized. According to the Eudemian Theogony, on the other hand, mankind came into being from the soot deposited by the smoke from the blasted Titans. This may have been given as a reason why we are sinful creatures who must seek salvation through purification. It is not unlikely that the soot developed into the first human beings spontaneously, or that the earth sent them up where it fell, without the active intervention of Zeus. That is the pattern of analogous myths such as the birth of the Giants or the Phaeacians from drops of Uranos' blood. When the theogonies were conflated and the Titan story was combined with the creation of a new race by Zeus, it was necessary to say that Zeus made mankind out of the soot. Further, as Zeus' creation was not simply a human race but a legion of souls which are incarnated at different times as men or as animals, it followed from the combination that the whole animal world, not just mankind, is descended from the Titans.³⁷ This was certainly not envisaged by the poet of the Eudemian Theogony.

Composition of the Rhapsodies

The main sources were earlier Orphic theogonies. I assume that the compiler had three at his disposal, namely the Eudemian, the Cyclic (p. 129), and the Hieronyman. The possibility that he had more cannot, of course, be excluded, but if he did they can hardly have been anything but variant recensions reflecting the same two basic traditions (the Protogonos and the Eudemian) as the three poems named.

³⁷ Cf. Proclus in fr. 224 K.; Orph. Hymn 37.4-6.

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What they had to offer may be summarized in tabular form.

Hieronyman
Cyclic
Eudemian

** Oceanus ~ Tethys (?)

ChronosHeracles ~

AnankeAdrastea

Phanes ~ Night

Night

Demiurgy

Ge ~ Uranos
Ge ~ Uranos
Ge ~ Uranos

Prophecies of Night

Oceanus ~ Tethys

? 12 Titans
14 Titans, incl. Oceanus, Tethys
12 Titans

Castration of Uranos
Castration of Uranos without Oceanus

Kronos swallows children
Kronos swallows children
Kronos swallows children

Birth of Zeus
Birth of Zeus
Birth of Zeus

Kouretes etc.
Kouretes etc.

** Titanomachy

Castration of Kronos

Phanes swallowed, new creation
Division by lot
Division by lot

Snakematings with Rhea, Kore

Dionysus, Hipta

Birth of Dionysus
Abduction of Kore
Murder of Dionysus;
his restoration
Titans destroyed: origin of mankind

Zeus creates men

Stoicized reincarnation theory

Cretan purifications

The compiler of the Rhapsodies was able to combine most of these ingredients in his narrative. I have marked with a dagger those which he was obliged to exclude. In addition to the theogonies he made use of other Orphic poetry, including a hymn to Zeus which equated his body with the cosmos, and perhaps the Robe. He also seems to have introduced some material of his own, such as the dynastic sceptre and the golden chain which gives the universe its unity.

It has been established that the Rhapsodies were current by

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the third century AD at the very latest, and may be alluded to by authors of the first two centuries AD and the first BC. On the other hand we have found indications that the compiler may have known the Homeric exegesis of Crates and Posidonius, which would mean that he could not be dated much before 100 BC. This tentative dating can be confirmed by other lines of argument.

The Suda, which gives us our most accurate bibliographical description of the poem (Hieroi Logoi in 24 rhapsodies), reports that it was said to be the work of Theognetus the Thessalian, or alternatively of Cercops the Pythagorean. The ascription to Cercops obviously rests on a confusion with the early Hieros Logos mentioned by Epigenes and attributed to Cercops by him (p. 9); Epigenes' catalogue is incorporated in that of the Suda. Now Cicero appears to have suffered from the same confusion. In his De Natura Deorum (1.107 = t 13 K.), completed in 45 BC, he writes: `The poet Orpheus, as Aristotle (fr. 7) maintains, never existed; and they say that this Orphic poem is the work of a Pythagorean called Cercops'. By `this Orphic poem' Cicero can hardly mean one of the early poems listed by Epigenes. The phrase implies a single major poem current in the first century BC. The likelihood is that it was a poem known as Hieros Logos and that that is the reason why Cicero thinks it has been attributed to Cercops. A single Hieros Logos which stands for the whole of Orpheus' output: what can this be but the Rhapsodies?

With the elimination of Cercops' claim, Theognetus the Thessalian is left as the sole contender for the honour, if such it be, of having compiled the Rhapsodies. He is otherwise unknown, and there is no reason to identify him with any other recorded Theognetus. It cannot be confirmed that he was our compiler, but we have no grounds for questioning the Suda's statement to this effect. Let us at least for the sake of convenience accept Theognetus' nomination.

He collected various Orphic poems that were current in his time and set himself the task of uniting them in a single poem. The result of his endeavours was divided into 24 sections, like the Iliad and Odyssey, and we have seen (pp. 232 f.) that this division was his own. He called the sections not `books' but `rhapsodies', the same term that was used for the books of

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Homer. It does not seem possible that the theogony could have been nearly as long as the Iliad or Odyssey: the division into 24 was imposed nevertheless.³⁸

The whole undertaking is unmistakably connected with the Pergamene account of the Pisistratean recension of the Homeric poems. To counter Aristarchus' arguments for an Athenian Homer, the theory was developed that the rhapsodiai, `recitations', into which the Homeric poems were divided, represented episodes which Homer had recited and left behind him in different towns; they had then been united by Pisistratus with the help of certain poets, who re-created an approximation to Homer's original conceptions, but interpolated passages of their own, which accounted for Attic elements. The theory also accounted for inconsistencies in the poems which had led the Alexandrian scholars to athetize passages.³⁹ The poets who assisted Pisistratus were named as Orpheus of Croton, Zopyrus of Heraclea, Onomacritus of Athens, and a fourth whose name is lost.⁴⁰ It was even felt possible to ascribe particular verses of Homer to particular poets. It is recorded in the scholia to Odyssey 11.604 that the verse (or the passage 602-4) was said to be the work of Onomacritus. Perhaps he was held responsible for all interpolations, because he was known from Herodotus to have falsified the oracles of Musaeus.

Orpheus of Croton, like Orpheus of Camarina (p. 10 n. 17), must have been invented as the author of an Orphic poem that

³⁸ Sarapion, a friend of Isidorus the Alexandrian Neoplatonist, is said to have been so unconcerned with material possessions that he owned nothing except `two or three books, among which was the poetry (or poem) of Orpheus' (Suda s.v. = t 240). This surely means or includes the Rhapsodies, and suggests that they were contained in a single codex. But no useful inference can be drawn about their length, for parchment codices could be very capacious. See E.G. Turner, Greek Papyri (1968), 15.

³⁹ Cic. De or. 3.137 (the earliest testimony, 55 BC), A.P. 11.442, Jos. c. Apionem 1.12, Paus. 7.26.13, Ael. VH 13.14, Vitae Homeri, pp. 28.16, 29.24, 34.2 Wil., sch. Pind. N. 2.1, sch. Il. 10.1, etc.; collected by T.W. Allen, Homer, The Origins and the Transmission (1924), 226 ff.; R. Merkelbach, Rh. Mus. 95 (1952), 43 f. = Untersuchungen zur Odyssee (2nd ed., 1969), 258 f.; most fully in M. Skafte Jensen, The Homeric Question and the Oral-formulaic Theory (1980), 210 ff. and folding table inside rear cover. For Pisistratus' assistants cf. Paus., `P. or one of his companions'; Suda (Vit. Hom.), `by P. among many others'. There was an earlier tradition that Pisistratus was somehow in a position to alter the texts of Homer and Hesiod: it is presupposed by accusations in the Megarian historians Dieuchidas (485 F 6, c. 340 BC) and Hereas (486 F 1, early 3rd century).

⁴⁰ Tzetzes, De Comoedia, p. 20 Kaibel (cf. pp. 30, 32) = t 189 K.

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someone felt unable to ascribe to the Thracian Orpheus.⁴¹ Zopyrus of Heraclea we have met before: he was the Pythagorean reputed to have written the Krater and perhaps the Robe and the Net. The inclusion of these two among Pisistratus' assistants surely implies an edition of Orpheus simultaneous with the edition of Homeran Orpheus acknowledged not to be wholly pre-Pisistratean. The theory may have run as follows. Before Pisistratus there had been some scattered remnants of Orpheus' songs. Pherecydes, the noted theologian of Pisistratus' time, collected them together.⁴² They then went into general circulation, mixed up with poems by Orpheus of Croton and Zopyrus which some people mistook for poems by the older Orpheus. Onomacritus naturally indulged in further forgery.⁴³

Orpheus, then, like Homer, bequeathed disconnected `rhapsodies'; but it was left to Theognetus to complete their reunification. Schooled in the learning of men like Crates and Posidonius, resident probably in Pergamum itself, he was aware of the coexistence of different theogonies claiming to be by Orpheus. They had a certain amount of material in common, but there were also things that one contained and another lacked, and a few actual contradictions. This looked like an example of the situation postulated for the Homeric poems before Pisistratus. The concurrent theogonies were evidently parts of an original unity that had become dispersed (as the rhapsodies of Homer had once been) and that could be reconstructed with some approach to authenticity. There would be 24 rhapsodies, as in each of the Homeric poems. This figure alone shows that Theognetus knew the new theory about Homer. But the theory about Homer involved Orpheus of Croton and Zopyrus; it was therefore a theory comprehending Orphic poetry as well as Homer; and as a theory about Orphic poetry, it was incomplete without Theognetus. His restoration

⁴¹ The solution of literary-historical difficulties by assuming homonyms is a device that already appears in the 5th century BC (Pratinas PMG 713(i)?, Hdt. 2.43, Herodorus 31 F 14), and Herodorus at least applied it to Orpheus (31 F 42 = t 5 K.).

⁴² See p. 20. He is a possible candidate for the fourth place on Pisistratus' editorial staff.

⁴³ Of the Orphica listed in the Suda, he is named as the reputed author of Oracles and Teletai. Pausanias and some others in the Roman age treat him as the author of Orphic poetry in general (t 183, 191-4 K.). Philoponus has it that the doctrines were Orpheus' but Onomacritus versified them (t 188).

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of Orpheus from rhapsodies and the Pisistratean restoration of Homer from rhapsodies are thus interdependent parts of the same construction.

We can trace the Homeric theory back to two men who both came to Rome from the east in the time of Pompey: the Stoic philosopher Athenodorus Cordylion, who had been librarian at Pergamum, and the historian and grammarian Asclepiades of Myrlea. Asclepiades is cited as the authority for Orpheus of Croton's association with Pisistratus.⁴⁴ Athenodorus appears in the margin of one manuscript of Tzetzes' essay on comedy in the passage where Orpheus of Croton, Zopyrus, and Onomacritus are named as Pisistratus' assistants.⁴⁵ The fourth poet appears as (as also pp. 30.173 and 32.32), but one manuscript has with a lacuna marked after it and in the margin . This is evidently derived from a better copy and not merely a docta sed infelix coniectura as Kaibel thinks. Athenodorus can only be present as a source for the story.⁴⁶ The fourth poet's name has fallen out before his.⁴⁷

The rhapsody theory must have been worked out at Pergamum when Athenodorus was there. Theognetus must necessarily have been his contemporary. The compilation of the Rhapsodic Theogony can therefore be firmly dated to the first third of the first century B.C.⁴⁸

Influence of the Rhapsodies

The new creation was such a success that within a couple of centuries it quite displaced the older poems from which it had been put together, and became accepted as the canonical

⁴⁴Suda s.v. = FGrHist 697 F 9 = t 177 K. The Pindar scholium cited in note 39 may be drawing on him, since an Asclepiades suspected of being the Myrlean is referred to several times in the Pindaric scholia.

⁴⁵ p. 20.29 Kaibel.

⁴⁶ Allen, Homer, The Origins and the Transmission, 232 n. 1, 233.

⁴⁷ e.g.
.
⁴⁸ It is interesting that at the same period Artemidorus (a native of Tarsus, like Athenodorus) collected the bucolic poems of Theocritus and others, and in a prefatory epigram (A.P. 9.205) echoed A.P. 11.442, the fake Pisistratus epigram adduced by the Pergamenes (); cf. J. Kohl, Neue Jahrbücher 47 (1921), 204; Merkelbach, Rh. Mus. 95 (1952), 26 = Unters. z. Od. (2nd ed.), 242.

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Orphic theogony. We have seen that it already stands in the foreground of Orphic literature as seen from Rome in Cicero's time. Under the Empire we find its authority acknowledged by those who felt the call to add to the Orphic corpus. The poet of the Argonautica makes it the most important item in his catalogue of Orphic poems, and he also has it in view in another passage where he represents Orpheus as singing a theogony.⁴⁹ The poet of the Hymns is an earlier and more interesting example. The cult practices of the society for which he writes have no connection with those that lie behind the myths of the Rhapsodies.⁵⁰ The greater part of his theology is independent of the Rhapsodies. He salutes many deities that were not to our knowledge mentioned there, or at least were not significant: Hecate, Prothyraia, Physis, the Clouds, Nereus and the Nereids, Proteus, Nike, Antaia, Mise, Semele, and others. But when the deity invoked did play a part in the Rhapsodies, this is sometimes reflected in the hymn. Thus Heracles is conceived as being, among other things, the primeval Time-serpent (above, p. 231). Persephone is born from a mystic union between Zeus and Demeter, and Dionysus from another between Zeus and Persephone (29.5-7, 30.6-7). The Titans are our forefathers, indeed the sources of all marine, bird, and animal life (37.2-6). Hermes leads men's immortal souls to Tartarus and Cocytus, sending them into oblivion and rousing them up again (57). The Eumenides are the daughters of Zeus Chthonios and Persephone, and flash terrible, withering light from their eyes (70.2-3, 7; cf. 29.6). One hymn (6) is addressed to Protogonos,

                 the two-sexed, great sky-courser,
egg-born, resplendent with thy golden wings,
the bellower,⁵¹ genesis of gods and mortals,
famed seed, Erikepaios of many rites,
the mystic, hidden whizzer,⁵² lucent scion,
who cleared the dark fog from before our eyes,
whirling all round the cosmos on thy wings
bringing pure light, wherefore I call thee Phanes,
and lord Priapus, glancing Antauges.

⁴⁹Arg. 12 ff., cf. p. 37; Arg. 419-31 (p. 100 Kern).

⁵⁰ Cf. pp. 28 f.

⁵¹ Cf. fr. 79; M.A. Koops, Observationes in Hymnos Orphicos (1932), 5 f.

⁵² Cf. Koops, 19 f.

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I am not sure what Priapus is doing here,⁵³ but Antauges, `Reflector', also appeared as a name of Zeus-Helios-Phanes-Dionysus in the late Hellenistic Orphic hymn to Helios mentioned on p. 206. There too the influence of the theogonic tradition (either the Hieronyman Theogony or the Rhapsodies) is apparent. Fr. 237:

            (Time) softening the aither that had been motionless
            showed the gods Eros, lovely to behold,
            whom now they call Phanes and Dionysus
            and lord Eubouleus, eminent Antauges;
5           and other men on earth use other names.
            He first came to light, and was named Dionysus
            because he whirls () through infinite Olympus;
            but changed his name, from different societies
            got manifold titles in the course of time.⁵⁴

The atmosphere of syncretism in which this hymn was composed was favourable to the penetration of Orphic elements into other theologies. A verse belonging to the hymn (239),

one Zeus, one Hades, one Helios, one Dionysus,

appears later in the form

one Zeus, one Hades, one Helios, one Sarapis.⁵⁵

Similarly the series of divinities named in the Orphic Oaths (fr. 300), Fire, Water, Earth, Heaven, Moon, Sun, Phanes, and Night, turns up in another source with Phanes replaced by Mithras.⁵⁶ There is a dedication from Rome, of perhaps the third century, to `Zeus Helios Mithras Phanes'.⁵⁷ It is appropriate here to refer to a famous second-century relief at Modena, which also perhaps originated in Rome, and which clearly portrays Protogonos.⁵⁸ He is represented as a youthful nude

⁵³ Cornutus, p. 50.15 L. offers an interpretation of Priapus as the cosmos on the ground that everything through him.

⁵⁴ I adopt two conjectures of G. Vollgraff, Mnem.³ 1 (1934), 288: for in 2, and for in 8.

⁵⁵ Julian, Or. 4.136a. seems an obvious emendation of .

⁵⁶ Zenob. vulg. 5.78 (Paroem. Gr. i. 151).

⁵⁷ F. Cumont, Rev. Hist. Rel. 109 (1934), 63 ff.; M. Vermaseren, Corpus Inscriptionum et Monumentorum Religionis Mithriacae (1956-60), No. 475.

⁵⁸ Vermaseren, No. 695; Nilsson, Symb. Osl. 24 (1945), 1 ff. = Opusc. Sel. iii. 98 ff., and Gr. Rel. ii. 500 n. 4 with Pl. 6.1; my Pl. 6; identified as the Orphic deity by Eisler, Weltenmantel und Himmelszelt, 400 ff.; cf. Cook, Zeus, ii. 1051.

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figure, with a lion's head growing on his breast and buck and ram heads on either side of it. His face is modelled on that of Helios;⁵⁹ rays of light shoot from his head, and the horns of a lunar crescent appear above his shoulders, which are winged. He has hooves for feet. He carries a sceptre and a thunderbolt. Above and below him are the two halves of a broken egg, with fire pouring out of them. A serpent winds up round his body and rests its head on the crown of the eggshell. The whole is enclosed in an oval zodiac, outside which the four winds are depicted.⁶⁰ The egg-birth, the wings, the horns, the excrescent animal heads, the serpent, the sceptre, all conspire to identify him as Protogonos. At the same time the thunderbolt marks him as Zeus, the rayed head as the Sun-god, and the hooves as Pan. And although there is nothing distinctively Mithraic, there is undoubtedly a relationship with the lion-headed god of whom representations frequently occur in Mithraea between the second and fourth centuries. This god is usually shown as a standing male figure with the head of a roaring lion, keys and/or a sceptre in his hands, wings (usually four) on his shoulders, and a serpent coiling up round his body, its head in a number of cases appearing on top of the lion-head. There are often traces of red paint. The only inscription which names him apparently calls him Arimanius, the Latin form of Ahriman.⁶¹ In view of his complex physique he is likely to have combined several identities, and Cumont made out a strong case for considering him as Saturnus in the role of Time (sc. Kronos = Chronos). The Modena Protogonos contains no individual feature which cannot be paralleled from the Mithraic monuments, even though the total combination is unique.⁶²

⁵⁹ Cumont, Rev. Arch.³ 40 (1902), 3.

⁶⁰ Cf. p. 201.

⁶¹ Vermaseren, No. 833 (York). (The name surely refers to the god, not to one of the dedicators as Vermaseren thinks. Mithraists made a number of dedications to Arimanius, cf. Nos. 222, 369, 1773, 1775 V.) See further Cumont, Textes et Monuments figurés relatifs aux mystères de Mithra (1899), i. 74-85; R. Zaehner, BSOAS 16 (1954), 602; 17 (1955), 237-43; J. Duchesne-Guillemin, Numen 2 (1955), 190-5, with the pertinent criticisms of Mary Boyce, BSOAS 19 (1957), 314-16.

⁶² The hooves, the thunderbolt, and the rays of light coming from the head are all paralleled in Vermaseren, No. 103; thunderbolt and sceptre, Nos. 312, 665; sceptre also Nos. 503, 543 (divided by a spiral into twelve parts), 1326; thunderbolt also No. 882; human head, with lion's head on the breast, No. 777; Mithras born from an egg framed in a zodiac, No. 860 (Guthrie, Pl. 13; Nilsson, Gr. Rel. ii, Pl. 6.2).

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So it is not out of place to speak of Orphic-Mithraic syncretism here, the Orphic element being based on the Rhapsodies.

The light-bringing creator Protogonos-Eros who `cleared the dark fog from before our eyes', as the hymn-writer said, was an appealing figure. He is obviously the inspiration, at least in part, of a high-flown prayer to Eros that occurs in the pseudo-Lucianic Amores:

. . . Eros hierophant of mysteries, not the bad child of the painters' fancy, but the Eros whom the original seed generated, who was born full-grown: thou from obscure () and disordered formlessness gavest form to everything. So from the whole world thou didst remove, as it were, a universal shroud of death, the Chaos which lay about it, and banished it to the furthest recesses of Tartarus . . . and exposing the gloomy night to the resplendent light thou didst become the creator of all things inanimate and living.⁶³

There is perhaps a trace of him in the more abstract theology of the fifth Hermetic treatise, in the Father of All Things who `makes everything else manifest, being unmanifest himself' (1).

He has made existent things manifest, the non-existent he keeps within himself. This is the god too great to have a name, this is the unmanifest one, this is the most manifest one () . . . This is the incorporeal one, this is the multicorporeal one, or rather the omnicorporeal, for there is nothing which he is not. (9-10)

Hermes himself appears as a demiurge in a Hermopolite cosmogony in verse fragmentarily preserved on a fourth-century papyrus at Strasbourg (GDK 24). Zeus instructs him and watches with satisfaction from his high seat, but eyes are involuntarily shut against the brilliance that spreads over all. Here again we seem to see the influence of the Orphic account of Phanes.

The motif of the dynastic sceptre which signifies cosmic sovereignty recurs in the `laughing cosmogony' known from a papyrus in the Leiden collection:⁶⁴

When he guffawed for the first time, there appeared Phos-Auge, and illuminated the universe . . . and Moira was the first to take the sceptre of the

⁶³ Lucian 49.32. `Original seed' () may well be a phrase borrowed from `Orpheus' (Wilamowitz, Hermes 59 (1924), 272 = Kl. Schr. iv. 365); Nonnus later applies it to Eros himself (D. 1.398, 41.129; and to Phanes, 9.142).

⁶⁴ P. Mag. 13.165 ff.

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world . . . He guffawed for the sixth time, greatly cheered, and there appeared Kairos (? or Kronos), holding the sceptre showing royalty, and he gave the sceptre to the deity first created.

It also appears in one of the hymns to the Moon in the great Paris magical papyrus, and here the sceptre has destiny inscribed on it:

And a gold sceptre thou holdest in thy hands:
Kronos himself carved writing on thy sceptre
and gave thee it, that all things might abide.⁶⁵

Kronos is of course to be understood as Chronos, the primal president Time.

By the end of the fourth century the Rhapsodic Theogony was enough of a classic to have become a school text. Claudian represents Stilicho's daughter Maria as studying Homer, Orpheus, and Sappho under her mother's tuition.⁶⁶ At the beginning of the chapter we saw Orion making the Rhapsodies an object of his philological attentions in Alexandria, and the Neoplatonists poring over them. It is not surprising to find them influencing literary poets more than they ever had before. The cave of Night from which Phanes produces his creation is doubtless the model for the cave of Time described by Claudian, unknown, remote, inconceivable, issuing the years and calling them in again. It is surrounded by a serpent with ever-gleaming new scales which placidly consumes everything, not omitting its own tail. The ancient goddess Nature sits at the entrace (where Adrastea sits in Orpheus), her body festooned with unattached souls, and a venerable scribeFather Time himself, presumablydetermines the movements of the planets and their effect on the world.⁶⁷ In his epic on the Rape of Persephone Claudian borrows from Orpheus the motif of the goddess's weaving, though he obscures its significance. It is still cosmological in its subject, but there is no seasonal refer-

⁶⁵ P. Mag. 4.2842-7 = GDK 59.10.39-41. `That all things might abide' recalls Orph. fr. 95 (p. 219).

⁶⁶De Nuptiis Honorii 232-5.

⁶⁷Laudes Stilichonis 2.424 ff., compared by A. Dieterich, Nekyia, 159 n. 1; cf. A.D. Nock, Harv. Theol. Rev. 27 (1934), 87 f. = Essays on Religion and the Ancient World, i. 386; A. Cameron, Claudian (1970), 309-11; U. Keudel, Poetische Vorläufer und Vorbilder in Claudians De consulatu Stilichonis (1970), 104-7.

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ence. She completes her design of heaven, earth, and underworld, and is interrupted while adding Oceanus along the edge of the fabric.⁶⁸

Nonnus too has echoes of the weaving episode, in the context not of Persephone's rape by Pluto but of her rape by the serpent Zeus and the birth of Dionysus-Zagreus.⁶⁹ He continues with the story of the Titans' murder of the child, which is also alluded to in Proclus' hymn to Athena.⁷⁰ We found Nonnus' account a useful supplement to the Orphic fragments relating to this episode. Elsewhere he brings mention of Phanes into his narrative. He calls him `firstborn', and on the basis of his association with prophetic knowledge, which was implicit in his making Night into a prophetess, represents him as the author of a sort of pictorial encyclopaedia of the world's future history, done in a series of seven linked tableaux and available for consultation in the house of Harmonia and Aion.⁷¹

The Platonists continued to study the Rhapsodies into the sixth century. One last poetic echo from that time may perhaps be detected in John of Gaza's description of Heaven vomiting the sun forth `from his heart', which recalls how Zeus brought everything forth `from his heart' after swallowing Phanes.⁷² I know of nothing to show that the Orphic poem survived any later. Tzetzes is the sole source for two fragments which have

⁶⁸De raptu Proserpinae 1.244-73. It may be that in the Rhapsodies too Persephone's design included Oceanus (as does Zas' cosmic weaving for Chthonie in Pherecydes). Fr. 115,

And the perennial circle of fair-flowing Oceanus,
whose eddies wind and clasp the earth about,

may belong here, for the scholiast on Dionysius Periegetes says it came `in the episode of Zeus and Kore'. Kern records only Eustathius' inferior version with `the episode of Zeus and Hera' (and `unwearying' for , under the influence of a verse of Dionysius that Eustathius has just quoted).

⁶⁹D. 5.563-6.165; the weaving (no indication of subject), 5.601-8 and 6.150-4. It is hinted that marriage to Pluto is to follow later (6.90 ff.). A reference to the Kouretes' dancing at Dicte (6.160-2) is also to be noted; cf. Claud. De raptu Pros. 1.199-211. Nonnus repeats the theme of weaving a cosmic robe in another context, where the weaver is Harmonia (41.294 ff.).

⁷⁰D. 6.165-228, cf. 10.294-7, 24.45-9, 31.47 f., 38.209 f., 39.71-3, 48.26-30; Procl. Hymn 7. 11-15. From the same period, or somewhat later, we also have the ivory pyxis referred to on p. 156 n. 51 (Pl. 5).

⁷¹D. 12.29 ff. (cf. 41.339 ff., where the author becomes Ophion). For Phanes cf. also 9.141-59, 19.207, and above, n. 63.

⁷² John of Gaza 1.49, Orph. fr. 168.32.

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some claim to be assigned to the Rhapsodies (193, 257), but only for two, and he may well have got them from ancient sources. If the poem had been available to him he would no doubt have quoted from it more often, as he does with the Lithica and the astrological works under Orpheus' name.

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Retrospect

We have travelled a long and anfractuous road; we have sometimes had to double back and return from another direction to a site already visited, for a fuller appreciation of its features. But now we have reached our goal: a vantage-point from which it is at last possible to see a coherent vista. Let us try swiftly to paint it before the light fades.

On the furthest horizon a rivulet of cultural influence trickles into view from the country of the Scythians and Thracians, bringing down to Ionia in the seventh and sixth centuries BC some manifestations of shamanistic theory and ritual. These include the initiatory motif of dismemberment and reconstitution, and the myths of Orpheus. Tales begin to circulate of shamanistic featsjourneys in the spirit, magical flight, bilocationperformed by Greeks (Aristeas, Hermotimus, Pythagoras) or northerners visiting Greece (Abaris).¹

In the sixth century another stream enters the picture from the east. It brings, among other novel religious ideas, a semiabstract cosmogony involving a primeval ocean, Time as a creator god, and a cosmic egg, and a doctrine of reincarnation in a succession of animal bodies. People favourably disposed towards the concept of a soul travelling about the world independently of the body and conversing with animal spirits may well find the idea of reincarnation acceptable, and some interaction occurs between the northern and the eastern currents.

One of the most obvious media for expounding the fate of the soul after death is the shaman's account of what he himself has

¹ J.F. Kindstrand, Anacharsis, The Legend and the Apophthegmata (1981), 18 ff. suggests that the wise Scythian Anacharsis, although he appears in our sources (Hdt. 4.46.1, 76-7, etc.) as a rational being with no supernatural talents, was originally another shamanistic figure. He finds hints of support for this idea in Herodotus' story that Anacharsis implicated himself in the rites of the Great Mother, drumming and festooning himself with amulets (), and was killed (a rationalization of `conveyed to the other world') by an arrow. For the drum as the Asiatic shaman's typical instrument see Eliade, Shamanism, 168 ff.; for his costume, which includes a caftan hung with iron figures, mostly representing animals, ibid., 148 ff.; for the arrow, ibid., 388.

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seen during a visit to the other world. Such accounts begin to be composed in Orpheus' name. Soon his name is used more freely for poems claiming to reveal divine truth. Its use spreads especially among societies of ecstatic Bacchos-worshippers (some of which have adopted the reincarnation doctrine), but also among certain admirers of Pythagoras. The evidences of this diffusion are:

(i) the Protogonos Theogony, postulated as the original of which the Derveni Theogony is an abridged recension. Composed about 500, it incorporates the Time-cosmogony and the reincarnation theory, combining them with a Hesiodic-type theogonic framework and a message of salvation through a Dionysus who appears as a Hellenized form of Sabazios. Knowledge of the poem quickly reaches the west: it is reflected in Empedocles and Pindar, and perhaps Parmenides.

(ii) A group of poems associated with certain early Pythagoreans: Descent to Hades, Hieros Logos, Physika, Krater, Net, Robe.

(iii) The word `Orphic' on a fifth-century bone tablet from Olbia which also bears the words `Life: death: life' and `Dio(nysus)'; literary allusions (Aeschylus, Herodotus, Euripides) which associate Orpheus specifically with Dionysiac or Bacchic cult.

In the cultural maelstrom of Athens in the second half of the fifth century many untraditional religious and philosophical ideas circulate and compete for attention; the rational and the irrational flourish side by side with remarkably little antagonism. Several ancient poets are hawked about as authorities: Bakis for oracles, Musaeus for oracles and cures, Epimenides for oracles and for a theogony taking the form of an oracular revelation, Orpheus for magic spells and for poetry appropriate to purifications and sacraments. It is in this setting that the Eudemian Theogony is composed, towards the end of the century, for a syncretistic Bacchic-Kouretic cult society. It lacks the oriental Time-cosmogony and reincarnation-theory that distinguish the Protogonos Theogony, but draws directly or indirectly on an older Ionian theogony (already reflected in the Iliad) in which Babylonian influence is present. There

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are Cretan and Asiatic elements in it, and, most notably, the myth of the murder, dismemberment, and revival of Dionysus, which preserves a shamanistic motif. The poem is known to Plato and Aristotle.

Meanwhile the priests of Eleusis are becoming restless. They have hitherto ascribed their sacred poetry to their eponym, Eumolpus: feeling the need for authorities of greater prestige, they adopt first Musaeus and later Orpheus. By the end of the fourth century they have constructed a theogony in Musaeus' name. In time Orpheus comes to be acknowledged in various other cults, in Attica and elsewhere, as founder or prophet. But his strongest associations remain with Dionysiac mysteries. Tarentum appears as one important centre where Orphic eschatological poetry plays a part in Bacchic cult in the latter part of the fourth century.

There are now two independent Orphic theogonies in circulation (at least one of them in more than one recension), the Protogonos and the Eudemian. The early Stoics study the first and interpret it to suit their own cosmology. Before long someone rewrites it in a form that reflects their understanding of it: this is the Orphic theogony of Hieronymus and Hellanicus. Not very much earlier or later, the arranger of the Epic Cycle combines portions of the Protogonos and Eudemian Theogonies to make a new `Orphic' account of the history and genealogy of the gods, suitable to stand at the beginning of his mythological collage: this is the Cyclic Theogony. At the beginning of the first century BC one Theognetus, inspired by if not conspiring in the new Pergamene theory of the Pisistratean redaction of the Homeric poems, conflates the Hieronyman, Cyclic, and Eudemian Theogonies into one comprehensive narrative divided into 24 `rhapsodies': this is the Rhapsodic Theogony.

The Hellenistic period sees a proliferation of poems under such names as Orpheus, Musaeus, Epimenides, Abaris, Linus, Melampous. The heirs to Pythagorean tradition still attribute their poetic works to Orpheus, if not to Pythagoras himself. Orpheus thus becomes an expert not only on theology, eschatology, and metaphysics, but on astronomy and astrology, divination and pharmacology. The wider world, however, continues to think of him as a theologian, as the principal

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exponent of Greek doctrines about the gods. By representing him as converted to Judaism, the author of the Testament aims to subvert the authority on which he deems pagan theology chiefly to rest. The pagans take no notice, though they are showing some movement towards monotheism by identifying various different gods as aspects of the same god. This syncretism finds notable expression in an Orphic hymn to Helios, where the multiple identity enjoyed by Phanes in the theogony is extended yet further. In the Roman period he even makes contact with Mithras.

The Rhapsodic Theogony establishes itself as the canonical statement of Orphic theology, displacing the older poems from which it was compiled. It has no normative force, but later poems such as the Hymns and Argonautica presuppose familiarity with it. It is generally thought of as a sacred text of mystery rites, but such rites as stand in any relationship to it are probably only loosely related and liable to change. By the late fourth century AD, if not earlier, it has become a classic. The later Neoplatonists study it keenly and look for their own philosophy in it. But it does not survive into the Middle Ages. Some other Orphic poems do, whether because their subject-matter is thought useful² or by sheer chance.³ The prestige of Orpheus' name was a favouring factor, though there is no longer much appreciation of what it stands for, or much ability to differentiate between Orpheus and Hermes Trismegistus or Zoroaster. By the twelfth century the anonymous Lithica and Maximus' astrological poem have come to be ascribed to him because of his association with learning of those sorts. But the Lithica is read more often in a prose digest than in the original, and the same holds for some of the astrological works. Orpheus is no longer required even to make verses.

Orphic poetry had no special features which marked it off from other Greek poetry. Some of it was of high quality, some

² The astrological poems represented by frr. 249, 251-6, 258-79, 286-8, and the verses on the significance of earthquakes in different months (fr. 285, ascribed to Orpheus or Hermes), come into this category.

³ Besides the Hymns and Argonautica must be mentioned the Shorter Krater, which was still available to Johannes Diaconus Galenus the allegorist on Hesiod (frr. 297-8). His date is unknown, but judging from the text of Hesiod he used, he cannot have been earlier than the 9th or 10th century.

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of it mediocre or poor. It was not enigmatic or mystical in tone. It was not, for the most part, secret: while not widely read as literature until late antiquity, it was freely available to the curious. It was influenced by other poetry, and sometimes influenced it. Its mythology was not exclusive to it, though it did provide the main channel of transmission for two major myths, the Time-cosmogony and the murder of Dionysus by the Titans. If certain deities such as Erikepaios, Hipta, or Mise appear in no literature but Orphic, it is not because they are `Orphic deities' (whatever that might mean) but because they come from local cults which never achieved literary representation except through the use of Orpheus' name.

Orpheus' name: that is what it all comes down to. It is a name that no amount of trivial application or cold-blooded scholarship robs of its fascination. We do not know what it originally meant, nor whether its original owner was a real person. If he was, we may suspect that he was something very unlike the gentle citharode imagined by the Greeks. But the Orphic poems are Greek poems, to be approached like other Greek poems and worked, not as a block but as a number of separate threads of different lengths, into the general history of Greek literature, religion, and civilization.

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Stemma of Orphic Theogonies

Es ist wohl überhaupt verkehrt, ein Stemma aller orphischen Theogonien aufstellen zu wollen.H. Schwabl

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Index of Orphic Fragments

This is more than just an index to this book. It indicates from which Orphic poem, in my opinion, each fragment is taken, and, in the case of the Rhapsodies, from which of the earlier theogonies it came. It also contains comments on the dating of some minor poems where it has not been discussed in the body of the book, and remarks on Kern's choice of texts. As he often puts passages from a number of authors (sometimes quite unrelated, so far as I can see) under one fragment-heading, it is to be understood that the notes below refer, unless otherwise specified, to the main text in Kern in which Orpheus is cited as a source. I use the following abbreviations: C = Cyclic Theogony, E = Eudemian Th., H = Hieronyman Th., P = Protogonos Th., R = Rhapsodies. Where P is given as a source of R, H is always to be understood as the intermediary.

1-2 Not Orphic fragments but may echo P. (1:) 50, 111 f., 201, 203 f., 209 n. 116. (2:) 112, 203 n. 86 3 General reference to poetry of teletai; E perhaps included. 21 4-5 Eleusinian eschatological poetry (Musaeus, Eumolpus; cf. on fr. 235). 23 f., 159 6 Plato has Pindar in mind among others (Empedocles too ?); see Meno 81a-c. 112 7-8 Orphic poem used in teletai. 21 f. 9 No Orphic reference 10 Resembles 6. 112 11 Eschatological? 12 Orpheus as a legendary singer on divine subjects 13 Bacchic mysteries? No necessary Orphic reference. 82 f. 14-16 E. 117 f., 120 17 (Isocrates) E? 112 18-20 No Orphic reference 21 Plato may allude to the passage of P from which the scholiast's quotation (R) is derived. 89 n. 35 21a H. Verses 8-9 also in Clem. Str. 5.122.2. 89 f., 218 f. 22 Possibly P; cf. pp. 13 f. 23 Perhaps an Eleusinian poem; perhaps a theogony; cf. fr. 21. 24 24 E. 116 f. 25 Refers to Homer (Il. 14.201, 15.37, etc.) rather than Orpheus (fr. 15); cf. Pl. Crat. 402b, Tht. 152e, 160d, 180cd 26 Probably Net. 10 27 P; cf. p. 99 28 E. 116 28a (Lydus) = 301: E? 117 f. 29 (Ap. Rhod.) Possibly contains a distorted echo of E. 127. (Orph. Arg.) R. 252 29a A Hellenistic Pythagorean poem? 107 n. 73 30 P 31: 170 f., 205 32 Gold leaves. 22 f., 25 f., 171. They continue to be discovered. The best and most complete edition and discussion is in Zuntz, 277-393; more recent finds in SEG 26.1139 (+27.674, 28.775 bis), 27.226 bis 33 Robe and perhaps other Pythagorean poems. 10, 212 34 R (E). 155-9, 173 35 R (E). 160 f. 36 R (E) 37: 200 f. 38-9 Apparently from a hymn to the Muses, which may have formed the proem to a longer poem; the

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same as 41? 40 (Apollodorus 244 F 139) Presumably a theogony. If E, it would exceed the programmatic six generations 41 A theogony current at Alexandria, perhaps E; cf. on 42 and 188 42 Call. fr. 466: Hecate as daughter of Demeter, perhaps after Orph. fr. 41 43 Possibly E, but one would expect the location there to be Crete; perhaps a separate (Eleusinian?) poem telling of the rape. Cf. N.J. Richardson on Hymn. Dem. 17 44 Also from an account of the rape of Persephone; cf. Str. 8.2. 14, Ov. M. 10.728, Opp. H. 3.486-97, sch. Nic. Al. 375 45: ? 46 Again from an account of the rape of Persephone (assuming the pigs to be those of Eubouleus) 47 Gold leaf C, pp. 344 ff. Zuntz, largely unintelligible (Kern's text is almost all the product of Diels's imagination) 48 Poem on the rape of Persephone 49: 24 50-3 Eleusinian poem on the rape of Persephone. 53 seems to be a late and distorted reminiscence of Baubo 54 H. 178-80, 183, 190-207 55-6 R; cf. Burkert, Antike und Abendland 14 (1968), 107 ff. 105, 186 n. 21, 202, 214 f. 57 H. 180-4, 209, 216, 225 58 H. 136, 181, 207 59 H. 221 60 R (P). 202 61 R (innovation). 227 62 R (innovation). 6, 227 63 R (P, C). 227, 233 n. 13 64-8 R (P). 70. (65:) 205, 208. (65-7:) 198 f., 231 69 R (from a Hellenistic hymn; probably refers to 168) 70 R (P). 198-200, 202. 71 R (P). 214 72 R (P). 203 f., 208, 225 73-4 R (P). 200 75 R (P). 203 n. 87, 227 76-7 R (P) 78 R (P). 214 f. 79 R (P). 200 80-1 R (P). 202 82 R (P). 203 n. 86, 207, 225 83 R (P). 214 f. 84-5 R (P) 86 R (P). 203 f., 208, 225 87 Influenced by R. 252 f. 88-9 R (P). 210 90 R (P) 91 R (P), 92, 210 92 R (H). 210 93 = 91 94 R (H). 210 f., 225 95 R (H). 219 f. 96 R (H). 210 97 R (H). 213 98-9 R (P). 208 100 R (P) 101-2 R (innovation). 232 103 R (innovation). 235 104 R (P). 213, 215 105a R (E, C); 105b R (partly P, partly E/C; Hermias is combining different passages). 213, 215 106 R (P) 107 (`Alex. Aphr.' on Chaos etc.) H? 184 f. The rest R. 231 f. 108 R (innovation) 109 R (P). 203 f., 209 110 R (P) 111-12 R. 235 113 R (P? Cf. the penchant for etymologies shown in 57, 63, 145, 183) 114 R (C). 121, 126 115 R (Robe?). 257 n. 68 116 R (P?); context probably eschatological, cf. 124, 295, Hes. Th. 791 117 R (P). 216 118 If Orphic, R 119-20 R (E); Dionysus episode 121 R (P, C). 103 n. 63 122 R (E), but the Ouranidai referred to by Damascius are probably the Hundred-Handers and Cyclopes, R (P) 123-6 R (P). (124:) 99 n. 55. (126:) 231 127 R (H). 217 128 R (P, C) 129 R (P). 87 130 R (P). 98, 107 131 R (P). 87 132-4 R 135 R (C, from P?). 130 136 R (P) or H, = 57 137-8 R (P: castration of Uranos, E: castration of Kronos) 139 as 29a. 107 n. 73 140-2 R (P, but the `Titanic' race from E, cf. p. 246). 98, 107 143 R. 236 144 R

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145 R (P). 217 146-7 R 148-52 R (E) 153 R (P), but the statements about Apollo, Ares, and Hephaestus are untrustworthy; contrast 179-82, 187 154 R. 72, 130 n. 31, 237 155 R. 72 156 R (E). 166 157 R (innovation). 232 f. 158 R. 90 n. 35, 109 159-60 R. 222 161 R 162 R; `Ananke' and `Heimarmene' seem to stand for Themis and the Moirai (Holwerda, 328, cf. Proclus in 126), unless this is a Stoic embellishment of the genealogy (H) 163 R 164-6 R. 237-9 167 R (P). 89, 205, 240 168 R (P, + a separate hymn to Zeus). 89 f., 218, 229, 239-41 169 Oracle drawing on 168; not itself Orphic. 229 n. 7 170 R (H). 205 f. 171 H? 186 172 R (62.3?) 173 R, unless fictitious 174 R 175 R (H). 243 176-80 R 181-2 R (H). 221 183-4 R. 121, 242 185-6 R (E). 137, 162 187 R 188 R (E; read for cf. 41); but the verse . refers to Phanes, sc. R (P). 214f. 189 R. 237 190 R 191 R (E) 192-3 R (Robe?). 244 f. 194 R (P). 95, 98, 243 195 R (P+E) 196 R (innovation). 244 197 R (P). 95, 98, 244 198 R (P+E) 199 R (P). 96 200 From a hymn, or a hymnic passage in R? 201 R 202 R (H?). 222 203 R 204 Jo. Diaconus, at least, alludes to Hymn 72.3 205-7 R (E) 208 R (E). 140 209 R (E). 156 210 R (E). 162 211-12 R (E) 213 R (E). 173 n. 102 214 R (E) (Firmicus Maternus:) 162 f., 172 f. 215 R (E). 164 216 R (innovation). 142, 245 f. 217 As 354? Or Shorter Krater? 218 R (innovation: reconciliation of Dionysus' kingship with Zeus' continuing power) 219 ? Clement has the verse from Didymus 220 R (P+E). 164-6 221 Allusion to R (E) 222-4 R (P). 98 f., 223 225 R (P). 98 226 R (H). 222 f. 227 Apparently (pace Kern) adduced by Dionysius Thrax (c. 170-90 BC). It expresses the same sort of Stoic cycli-calism as 226, but seems to come from a poem explaining ritual usages 228ab R (H), cd (P?). 99, 223 229-31 R (P) 232 R (P). 99, 110 n. 82 233 R (P). 112 n. 83 234 Descent to Hades? 235 = 5; Olympiodorus assumes Plato's ancient `founders of teletai' to mean Orpheus, but adds no new information. 159 236-7 Hellenistic hymn to Helios. 206, 253 238 A Hellenistic or later poem, perhaps Hierostolika. 28 n. 77, 206 n. 96 239 as 236-7. 206, 253. 240 R (E). 173 241 No Orphic reference 242 as 236-7. 206 243 Bacchica. The title may stand for R or for another poem, not necessarily the Bacchica listed in the Suda. 27 n. 76 244 ? 245-7 Testament (different recensions). 33-5 248 A Jewish-syncretistic hymn; Alexandrian, first century AD? 35 f. 249 Dodecaeterides. 33 250 H? 194 n. 56 251-6 as 249 257 R (E). 74 n. 7 258-67 as 249 268-9 Ephemerides? 33. 270 as 249 271-9 Ephemerides, unless 276 belongs to the Hymn to Number. 33. A possible additional fragment in sch. vet. Hes. Op. 770a,

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'' 280-4 Maximus, Katarchai. 37 285 Earthquake Omens. 33, 35 n. 105 286-7 (effects of planets' entries into other planets' houses). 33 288 (astrological advice). 33 289 (Paus. Att. i 8 Erbse) Net(?) 290 Epigram 291: 14 292 Probably Eleusinian; see Graf, 161 f. 293 Perhaps P among other poems 294 Krater or Descent to Hades? 11 f. 295 R (P); cf. 116, 124. 99 296 Perhaps an Eleusinian poem about Heracles' descent to Hades and initiation 297-8 Shorter Krater 299 Oaths (Jewish). 35 300 Oaths (pagan). 34, 253 301 R (E). 173 302 R (P)? 303 R (E). 173 304-5 Hymns used at Phlya. 28, 44, 53 306-7 Unspecified hymns 308 An acrostic hymn (?). 37 309 Hymn to Number. 29 310 E? 117 f. 311-12 as 309 313 R (E) 314-17 as 309 318 Physika. On poems with this title cf. p. 13 319-29 Medicinal poems including (321, 328-9). On this title cf. D.L. Page, Further Greek Epigrams (1981), 20. 32 330? 331 A medicinal poem 332 Suits the introduction to any revelation of divine truth 333 A late alchemical poem in iambics, perhaps 5th-6th century. 37 334 R (P)? 83 f. 335 (Pythaenetus 299 F 4) If not fictitious, an Aeginetan poem. Cf. p. 28 (Paus. 2.30.2), and Arg. 1284 ff. 336 Source uncertain. Greek text perhaps 337 Apparently a moralizing poem 338 A hymn to Chronos (Kronos), influenced by R (P); cf. Hymn 8.13. Perhaps from the same hymn or collection as 248. 35 339-40? 341 R 342 Maximus, Katarchai 141. 37 343 Probably Maximus in the lacuna after Kat. 93; cf. ibid. 96 and 476 344 R (P)? Cf. p. 92 with n. 39 345 (Herm. fr. 23.36, iv.11.19 Nock-Festugière) R (P)? 35 n. 105, 204 n. 88 346-9 ? 350-2 No Orphic reference. The anonymous verses in 352 apparently describe a vagina 353 Orac. Chald. 216 des Places 354 A hymn to Helios, probably the same as 236-7, 239, 242. 206 n. 96, 213. (P. Lugd.:) 255 f. 355 R 356: 232 f. 357 Greg. Naz. 358 Maximus, Kat. 268. 37 359 Arg. 12, 423 360 Hymn 70.2-3, fr. 197 361-2? 363 Cf. Hymns 22-5, 74-5.

As certain writers of the Imperial period, especially Pausanias, regard Onomacritus as the author of the Orphic poems and cite them under his name, we must add these citations to the list. They appear in Kern as t 191-5. t 191 Cf. frr. 168.8 (R), 300.2 (Oaths) 192 R. 221 n. 141 193? 194 R (E) 195 Musaeus DK 2 A 5.

Fragments not in Kern (see also above on frr. 32, 271-9):

Derveni papyrus, see General Index
Herodian in cod. Vindob. hist. gr. 10 f. 25v: . 13
Olbia tablets, SEG 28.659-61: 17-19
Sch. Virg. A. 6.119 in cod. Par. Lat. 7930: Lyre. 29-32

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General Index

A

Abaris 20, 28, 54, 149, 259, 261

Achelous 92

Acmon 120 n. 12

Adrastea (nymph) 72, 122-4, 127 f., 131 f., 158;

(= Ananke) 178, 194-6

Aegina 28

aegis 42, 133, 168

Aeschines 27

Aeschylus (fr. 105 M.) 113 n. 87;

(fr. 377) 153;

(Bassarai) 4 n. 6, 12 f., 15

Agrionia 148 n. 26

Aion 219 f., 231

Aither 198-200, 230 f.

Alcmaeonis (fr. 3) 153

Alcmeon of Croton 9, 10 n. 21, 11

Alcmeonids 45-7, 50 f.

Alexander of Aphrodisias 184 f., 229

Alexandria 228 f.

allegorical interpretation 43, 78-80, 141 f., 176, 183 f., 192-4, 205, 238 f., 242, 245

Amalthea 122-4, 128, 131-3

Anacharsis 259 n. 1

Ananke 70, 81, 178, 189, 194-8, 231, 235

Anaxagoras 80 f., 91

Andania 27

angels 36 n. 108

Antauges 206, 252 f.

Apate 217

Aphrodite (birth from Uranos) 71, 216 f., 235;

(birth from Zeus) 73, 91 f., 100, 109, 121, 124, 127, 136 f., 242

Apollo 6, 12 f., 30, 74, 95, 98, 150-2, 227

Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 70, 121-6, 264

Apollonius Rhodius (1.496 ff.) 127;

(3.132 ff.) 33 n. 99, 158

apples 158 f.

Aratus (30-5, 162-4) 128, 133 n. 37

Archytas 32

Argonautica (Orphic) 37 f., 70, 99, 186 n. 21, 231, 252

Argonauts, Orpheus and, 4, 32, 37

Arignote 157, 172

Arimanius 254

Aristeas 54 f., 149, 259

Aristobulus 33 f., 59 f.

Aristophanes (Av. 693 ff.) 50, 111 f., 201, 203 f., 209 n. 106;

(Eq. 74 ff.) 240 n. 25;

(Nub. 250 ff.) 174 f.;

(Ran. 1032) 16 n. 42

Aristotle 21, 112, 116 f.;

(Met. 1091b4) 184 f.;

(Probl. *3.43) 161, 173

armed dancing 137 f.

Asclepiades of Myrlea 251

Atharvaveda 104

Athela 73, 181, 220

Athena 74, 137 f., 162, 242 f.

Athenagoras 136, 180-2, 184, 229

Athenodorus 251

Athens 20, 45 f., 50 f., 111 f., 174 f., 228 f., 260 f.

Atlas 74, 164

atomism 202, 224

Atra-Hasis 128 n. 26, 165 n. 86

axis, cosmic 197 f., 239

B

Babylonian myth 102, 120 f., 128 n. 26, 130 n. 30, 135, 165, 187, 211 f., 260

Bacchic cults 15-18, 24-6, 34, 110 f., 149 f., 157, 168-75, 260 f.

Bacchica 27 n. 76

baitylos 167 n. 92

Bakis 21, 40, 260

ball 156, 158

beans 14 f.

Bears, the 197 f.

bisexual gods 70, 90, 202, 207, 211 n. 117, 218

Bologna pyxis 156 n. 51

Book of Eighty Gems 36

books used in cult etc. 21, 25-7

botanical lore 32, 41

Bouphonia 45 f.

Bouzyges 45 f.

Bromios 203, 206 f.

Brontinus 9, 13

bull-roarer 144, 157, 170

C

caduceus 195, 220

Callatis 25

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Callimachus (H. 1.46-54, 60 f.) 128, 132 f., 237 n. 17;

(fr. 43) 152-4;

(fr. 517/643) 151 f.

Carmen Aureum 61

Carnival 143

cave of Night 71 f., 86, 109, 122, 124, 213-15, 236, 256

Cerberus 25, 32

Cercops 9, 227, 248

Chaldaean Oracles 7

Chaos, Chasm 70, 111 f., 178, 184-6, 198-201, 230 f.

chariot, celestial 214-16

Cherubim 192, 197 f.

child initiation 168 f.

chresmologists 40

Chronos 35 n. 107, 70, 103 f., 110 n. 82, 178, 180, 189-93, 198-202, 230 f., 235, 254, 256

Chrysippus 43, 58, 80, 113, 196, 218, 222 n. 143, 224, 226, 238, 241-3

Cicero (De Rep. 6.18) 31;

(ND 1.107) 248

Claudian 231 n. 9, 256 f.

Cleanthes 113, 194, 219, 222, 224, 226

cooking, ritual 160 f.

Corybantic rites 27, 167 f., 175

Cosmic Invocations 36

Crates 239, 248

Crete 25, 45 f., 50, 75, 95 f., 122, 124, 131-3, 139, 151, 153 f., 166-8, 172-5

Critias, Peirithoos 191 n. 41, 192 n. 44, 197 f., 231 n. 9

Cycle, Epic 124-9, 138

Cyclic Theogony 69, 121-38, 216, 234-6, 246 f., 261, 264

Cyclopes 71 f., 87, 102 f., 122 f., 126, 180, 216

Cylon 45 f.

D

daimones 21 f.

Damascius 68, 116, 176, 227 f.

Death carried away 143

Delos 51, 53

Delphi 12, 96, 101 n. 58, 146 f., 150-4

Demeter (-Rhea) 72-4, 82, 93, 107, 141, 217, 220 f., 243

demiurge 104 f., 207-13

Democritus 202, 232

[Demosthenes] (25.11) 24

Derveni papyrus 25 n. 67, 75-81, 94, 111

Derveni Theogony 18, 20, 69, 82-101, 108, 114 f., 204, 210 n. 111, 218 f., 225, 233, 235, 260, 264

Descent to Hades 6, 9 f., 12

Dicte 122, 124, 127 f., 132 f.

Diktyon 10

Diogenes of Apollonia 79-81

Diogenes of Babylon 58

Diogenes Laertius (1.5) 241 f.

Dione 121-4, 127 f., 137, 242

Dionysus (association with Orpheus) 12 f., 15-18, 24-6;

(as god of salvation) 94 f., 100 f., 171, 205;

(birth, death, rebirth) 74 f., 96, 106 f., 126 n. 21, 137, 139-43, 145, 147, 150-74, 181;

(identified with Phanes) 206 f.;

(D. Erikepaios) 205;

(king of gods) 233 f.;

(in Orphic Hymns) 29, 252 f.

Dioscuri 138

dismemberment 140-5, 148

divination 32 f., 147

dolls 158

E

eagles 147

Echidna 70, 181 f., 190, 207 f., 212

ecpyrosis 113 n. 88, 193, 224

egg, cosmic 48, 50, 70, 83, 87, 103-5, 111 f., 178, 180, 198-203, 209, 254

eggs, divination from 33

Egypt 8, 16, 26, 35, 53, 105 f., 141, 188 f., 198 f., 201, 212 f.

Eleusis 23 f., 41-4, 53, 159, 171, 261

Empedocles 6, 11, 14 f., 79, 92, 99, 108, 110, 112 n. 83, 149, 195 f., 260;

(A 50) 202 n. 82;

(B 115) 22, 195

Empusa 155 n. 48

enthronement 27, 167 f., 174 f.

Enthronements 27

Enûma Elis * 102, 120 f., 130 n. 30, 135, 211 f., 233

Epic Cycle 124-9, 138

Epicurus 27, 202

Epigenes 9 f., 248

Epimenides 6, 45-53, 112, 116, 128 n. 24, 174, 201, 260 f.

Eratosthenes 30 f., 33 n. 99, 211

Erebos 199 f., 208, 230

Erichthonios 121 n. 16, 242

Erikepaios 70, 171, 203, 205-7, 263

Erinyes 78, 122, 124, 130, 216, 235

Eros 70, 92, 109, 111, 200 f., 203, 207 n. 100, 222, 241, 253, 255

eschatology 12, 18, 21-6, 98-101, 107, 110 n. 82

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Eudemian Theogony 69, 96, 116-21, 126-75, 243-7, 244-7, 260 f., 264

Eudemus 43, 69, 113, 116-18, 178

Eugammon 43 f.

Eumenides 74, 78, 81, 95, 98, 243 f., 252

Eumolpidae 23, 41

Eumolpus 23 f., 41, 261

Eunomia 221

euoi 156 f.

Euphorion (fr. 13) 151;

(fr. 88) 154

Euripides (Cretans fr. 79 Austin) 50 f., 153, 170, 174;

(Hipp. 952-5) 16;

(Hyps. 1103-8) 112, 203 n. 86

Eurydice story 4-6, 12, 30, 32

F

`Father' (demiurge) 213

fellatio of Zeus and Hera 241 f.

Firmicus Maternus 162 f., 172 f.

Fleece of Zeus 159

forgery, literary 34 f., 41, 44, 55 f.

funerary art 24 f.

G

Ge 70 f., 101 f., 209, 235

Genesis, Book of 187 f., 201

ghosts, colourless 155 n. 47

Giants (birth) 71, 122, 124, 130, 134 n. 44, 216, 235, 246;

(physique) 190 n. 38;

(fighting equipment) 214;

(origin of man from G.) 165 f.

golden chain 237-9, 247

golden race 75, 98, 107, 212 f.

gold leaves 22 f., 25 f., 171, 265

Great Year 58, 193 f.

Gregory of Nazianzus 186 f.

Gurôb papyrus 170 f., 205

gypsum 74, 140, 145, 154 f., 163

H

harmony of spheres 30-2

Harpies 48, 50

heart 162, 172

hebdomadism 61

Hectataeus of Abdera 26, 53, 141 n. 4, 170

Helenus 54 n. 61

Hellanicus, see Hieronymus

Hephaestus 221 f., 242 f.

Hera 73 f., 221, 241

Heracles (weapons) 214;

(= Chronos) 178, 180, 192-4, 252;

(in Hymns) 252

Heraclides Ponticus 13 f., 55 f.

Heraclitus 58, 77 f., 81, 110, 219, 223;

(frr. 16-17 M.) 8

Hermetica 7, 35 n. 105, 255

Hermotimus 149, 259

Herodicus 10

Herodorus 49, 80 n. 16, 250 n. 41

Herodotus (2.53) 40;

(2.81) 8, 16, 159;

(2.123) 8 n. 11;

(4. 79) 17

heroization 25

Hesiod 87 f., 91, 99, 101-3, 106, 119-21, 124, 130 f., 133, 213 f., 217, 221 f., 233, 264

hexameter 232

Hieronyman Theogony 69, 136, 176-226, 229 f., 233-6, 239, 243, 261, 264

Hieronymus and Hellanicus 68, 176-8, 181 f., 189 n. 34, 226

Hieros Logos 9, 13, 68, 83, 227, 248

Hierostolika 27

`Hippocrates' De Victu 77

Hipta 74, 96 f., 106 f., 263

Homer (Il. 14.200-7, 246, 261) 119 f., 135 f., 184-8;

(Il. 15.187-92) 128

Homeric Hymn to Demeter 24

`Homeric Theogony' 120, 128, 135 f., 260, 264

homonyms, ancient postulation of 250 n. 41

honey 133-6, 168

Horai 73, 221, 244 n. 33

human sacrifice 160 n. 69

Hundred-Handers 71 f., 87, 102 f., 122 f., 126, 180, 216

Hygieia 73, 222

Hymenaeus 58

Hymns 28 f., 36, 70, 203 f., 231, 243, 252 f.;

(to Helios) 35, 206, 253, 262;

(to Number) 29, 118 n. 7;

(to Zeus) 35, 239 f., 245, 247

I

Iacchus? 17, 36 n. 108

Iamblichus 229

Ida 72, 122-4, 128, 131 f.

Illuyanka 135

incorporeality 196

India 104 f., 192, 199, 240

initiations 17, 27, 34, 143-5, 150, 155-63, 167-70

interment of sacrificed victims 152

intoxication of stronger opponent 135

Ion of Chios (DK 36 B 2) 7, 9

Iran 103-5, 190, 192, 198-200, 208 f., 240

Isocrates 112

Istros (334 F 48) 167, 169

Italy 24 f., 110

Page 272

J

Jewish Orphica 33-5, cf. 59

Johannes Diaconus 262 n. 3

John Barleycorn 142

John of Gaza 257

K

Katabasis, see Descent

Katazostikon 27

kingship, divine 231-5

knucklebones 158

Kore, see Persephone

Korybantikon 27

Kouretes 48, 50 f., 72, 74, 95 f., 122 f., 127 f., 131 f., 137 f., 140, 156 n. 51, 162 f., 166-8, 171, 174

Krater 10-13;

Shorter Krater 262 n. 3.

Kronos 35 n. 107, 71-3, 75, 85 f., 88, 98, 107, 117-19, 122-4, 133-6, 167 f., 217, 256;

(castrated) 72, 134-6, 138, 237;

(swallowed stone) 123 f., 133 f., 167, 236

L

Laitos, see Moch

`laughing cosmogony' 255 f.

Leucippus 80 f., 202, 224 n. 146

Linforth 2

Linus 55-67, 261

Lithica 36, 262

Lobon 44, 52, 56 f., 60 n. 85

lots drawn by gods 123, 128, 138, 237

[Lucian] (Amores 32) 255

Lycaon 148

Lycomidae 28, 44

Lydia 96, 106, 205

Lydus (De mensibus 4.51) 156

lyre, cosmic 30 f.

Lyre 29-32, 61

M

Macedon 24, 111

Macrobius (Sat. 1.18.20) 36 n. 108

Magnus Annus, see Great Year

Mandaean myth 209

mankind, creation of 75, 98, 107, 139 f., 164-6, 212 f., 246

Marinus 227 f.

Maximus, Katarchai 37, 262

Melampous 53 f., 149, 261

Melanopus 53

Melisseus, Melissos 72, 122 f., 133, 136

metempsychosis 14, 18 f., 22, 75, 101, 107 f., 112, 222 f., 259

Metis 70, 87 f., 101, 106, 123 f., 134, 203, 236, 241

Metrodorus of Lampsacus 79, 82

Mind 81

mirrors 156 f., 163, 172

Mise 252, 263

Mithras 253-5

Moch 103, 177 f., 188, 200 f.

Modena relief 253-5

Moira 90;

Moirai 71, 124, 180, 216

moon 47-9, 92 f., 100, 109, 210, 212, 219

Mother of the Gods 27, 82, 93, 153 f.

mud 183

Musaeus 39 f., 48;

(disciple of Orpheus) 33 f., 41, 227;

(oracles) 21, 40, 47 f., 260;

(cures) 41;

(poetry ascribed to M.) 21, 23 f., 28, 33 n. 99, 39-44, 116 f., 132 f., 232, 261;

(interpreted by Stoics) 224

Muses 146

music (cosmic) 30-2;

(mimetic, in cult) 172 f.

N

narthex 156, 159

Navel of Earth 147

Neoplatonists 227-9, 257

Neoteuktika 28

Net 10

Nicander 133

Nicias 50 f.

Nicodemus of Acanthus 80 n. 16

Night 70-3, 85-8, 99-101, 109, 111, 116-20, 128, 201, 208-10, 213-18, 234-7

Nigidius Figulus 32 f., 107 n. 73

Nomos 73, 222

Nonnus 70, 97, 154 f., 257

number-speculation 10, 29

Nyktelia 154, 174;

Dionysus Nyktelios 154

O

Oceanus 71 f., 92, 117-21, 127, 130, 180, 184-9, 214, 230, 235 f., 257

Oeagrus 4

Oinos 142, 245 f.

Olbia 3, 17 f., 149, 156, 260

Olen 53

omophagy 18 n. 44, 160, 170, 172

Onomacritus 8 f., 40, 221 n. 141, 249-51

Onomastikon 28

Ophion 127

oracles, see Bakis, Musaeus, Night

Orion (grammarian) 227 f., 256

Orpheotelestae 21 f., 169

Orpheus 3-7, 24 f., 146;

(of Camarina) 10 n. 17;

(of Croton) 249-51;

(O.'s name interchanged with others) 14 f., 35 n. 105

Page 273

`Orphic', `Orphism' 2 f.

Orphic poems (acrostic) 37;

(alchemical) 37;

(astrological) 33, 262 n. 2;

(botanical) 32;

(divinatory) 33;

(hymns, various) 35 f., 81. See further under individual titles

Osiris 26, 126 n. 21, 140 f., 170

P

Palaephatus 54 f.

Palaikastro Hymn 132, 166 f.

Palamaon 42 f.

Pamphos 28, 53

Pan 179, 203, 205, 254

Pap. Soc. It. 850: 156 n. 51

Parmenides 6, 109 f., 112 n. 83, 113 n. 87, 149, 195, 197, 213 f., 260

Patrai 147

Pelops 148

Pentheus 143 n. 12, 148 n. 26

Peplos, see Robe

Pergamum 239, 249-51

Persephone (birth) 73, 94, 181, 220, 242, 252;

(daughter of Styx) 137, 242;

(weaving) 11, 74, 97, 244 f., 256 f.;

(rape) 24, 74, 95, 97, 243-5;

(mother of Dionysus) 74, 95, 97, 107, 221, 252;

(queenship) 74, 243;

(goddess of salvation) 74, 94, 100;

(mother of Eumenides) 74, 95, 98, 243 f., 252

personification of crops 142;

of abstracts 217, 221 f.

Phaeacians 134, 246

Phanes 34, 252, 255;

(name) 203;

(physique) 70, 180 f., 202 f.;

(identities) 70, 203-7;

(demiurgy) 70 f., 75, 98, 207-15;

(kingship) 71, 231-5;

(swallowed) 72 f., 86 f., 89, 186, 218, 239;

(syncretism with Mithras) 253-5;

(in Nonnus) 257

Phemonoe 54 n. 16, 232

Pherecydes 11, 19 f., 104, 108, 127, 183, 190 n. 35, 191, 198 f., 203 n. 86;

(alleged edition of Orphica) 20, 250

Philo of Byblos 177, 188

Philolaus 10, 14 f.

Phlya 28, 44, 53

Phoenician cosmogonies 103-5, 188, 190, 198-201, 203 n. 86

Phorkys 121 f., 124, 131

Phrygia 27, 106, 132

Physika 9, 13

Pindar 3, 27 n. 76, 260;

(Ol. 2) 110;

(frr. 129-33) 110 n. 82

pine-cone 157

Pisistratean recension of Homer 249-51

Plato 112 f.;

(Crat. 400c) 21 f.;

(402b) 118;

(Ep. vii. 335a) 112;

(Lg. 715e) 89 n. 35;

(Meno 81ab) 112;

(Phd. 62b) 21 f.;

(69c) 23;

(70c) 112;

(111d) 11;

(Phil. 61 bc) 11;

(66c) 118;

(Rep. 363cd) 23;

(364-5) 21;

(616b-7c) 32;

(Tim. 35, 41d) 11;

(40e) 6, 117;

(78b) 10

Plutarch (De sera num. vind. 566b) 11 f.;

(fr. 202) 83 f.

Pluto 74, 95, 97, 123, 243 f.

Pompeii 26

Porphyry 229

Posidonius 238 f., 248

Prajapati 104 f.

Priapus 203 n. 85, 252 f.

Proclus 227-9, 257;

(Chrestomathy) 125, 264

Prometheus 72, 236

Proros 61 n. 86

Protogonos 70, 85 f., 103-7, 112, 178, 180, 203-7, 241, 252. See also Phanes

Protogonos Theogony 69, 85, 87, 95-9, 101, 108-13, 119, 126, 128-31, 134, 137 f., 182, 203 f., 216-18, 223-5, 234, 245-7, 260 f., 264

Ptolemy, edict of 26

purifications 21, 27, 51, 60

Pythagoras 7-9, 18-20, 49 n. 44, 149, 167 n. 90, 259

Pythagoreans (early) 9 f., 15 f., 110 f., 260;

(later) 31-3, 58, 61, 107 n. 73, 261;

(symbola) 22, 161 f., 197;

(literature) 7-15, 29-33

Pythia 147, 232

R

Rape of Persephone, poems on 24

105 f., 188 f., 198 f., 201, 203 f., 212 f.

reincarnation, see metempsychosis

`rhapsodies' 233, 248-51

Rhapsodies, the 1, 37, 68-75, 83 f., 86-92, 94-101, 121-5, 129 f., 136 f., 140-2, 178 f., 181, 202 f., 207, 209, 227-58, 261, 264

Rhea 71-4, 107, 171;

(identification with Demeter) 81 f., 93, 217;

(marriage with Zeus) 93 f., 181, 195, 220;

(mother of Kouretes) 131 f.;

(association with bees and honey) 136;

(collects Dionysus' remains) 141, 151;

(the Bears her arms) 197

Page 274

Robe 9-11, 97, 245, 247

roots of the soul in sky 223

S

Sabazios 27, 96 f., 106 f., 110, 155 n. 48, 157, 171, 205 f., 260

sacrifice 152, 160-2

salvation 21, 28 n. 79, 94, 110

Sanchuniathon 177

Sandon 176 f., 181 f., 189 n. 34

sceptre, cosmic 71 f., 74, 231-4, 247, 254-6

Scythinus 30

Scyths 17, 146, 149 f.

seers 149

Semele 162 f.

Seneca (De Benef. 4.8.1) 193

shamanism 4-7, 49 n. 44, 144-50, 161, 259

Sibyl 40

Sirens 25, 32

sky-gods 146

snake-handling 97

snaky gods 70, 73 f., 94 f., 97, 105 f., 180-2, 189-91, 194 f., 197, 201 f., 220, 231

Sophocles (OT 660, frr. 582, 752) 13 n. 34

Soteria 28

soul imprisoned in body 21-3;

cosmic soul 223

Sparta 28

Sphaera 33, 61

spherical earth 210 f.

Stoicism 36, 53 n. 59, 58-61, 89 f., 113, 183, 193-6, 205, 218 f., 222-6, 238 f., 243, 261

stones, sacred 167

Styx 48, 61, 75, 99, 137, 242

Suda s.v. '9, 248

Sumerian myth 135, 187, 233

Summer carried in 143

sun 78, 210, 215, 219;

(Sun-worship) 12 f., 35, 206

swallowing of universe 88-90, 100, 113, 218, 239-41

syncretism 35 f., 82, 132, 168, 206, 253-5, 262

Syrianus 184 f., 228 f.

T

tablets of destinies 233

tantric rites 145

Tarentum 3, 10, 24 f., 32, 261

Teiresias 149

Telegonus 54 n. 61

Telegony 43 f.

Testament 34 f., 82 f., 262

Tethys 184, 186 f.

Thamyris 54 f.

Theagenes 79

Thebaid 125

Themis 73

Theognetus 9, 227, 248, 261

Theogony (Orphic) 68

Thrace 4, 146, 149 f.

thunderbolt 23, 123, 167 n. 90, 219

Thyepolikon 28, 36

thyrsus 157

time (as a river) 191;

(all-mastering, tireless, unaging) 192

Time-cosmogony 103-5, 108, 183, 187 f., 198-200, 259 f., 263; see also Chronos

Titanika 174

Titanomachy, Cyclic 125 f., 131

Titans 71, 87, 96, 102 f., 119-24, 126, 130 f., 134, 181, 217, 235 f.;

(kill Dionysus) 74, 139-42, 154-7, 160-3, 173 f.;

(mankind created from T.) 75, 139, 164-6, 246, 252;

(Xenocrates) 21-3;

(Epimenides) 48, 201 f.

tomb of Dionysus 150-2;

of Zeus 49 n. 42, 151, 167

tops 157, 158 n. 61

toys 157 f.

transmigration, see metempsychosis

triads, Neoplatonic 179, 230

tripod, Delphic 147

Tübingen Theosophy 227, 229 n. 7

Tzetzes 36 f., 55 nn. 65 f., 257 f.

U

Uranos 70 f., 85-8, 101-3, 117-24, 126 f., 209, 233, 235 f.;

(castrated) 48, 71, 85 f., 100, 102 f., 121-4, 129 f., 134, 181, 216, 233 n. 13, 235;

(throne) 216, 233, 236

V

Varro 30 f., 61, 107 n. 73

vegetarianism 16-18, 21

Virgil (E. 4.12) 194 n. 56;

(G. 1.231-9) 211;

(A. 6.893 ff.) 12

vowels intoned in magic 32

W

weaving, cosmic 10 f., 244 f., 256 f.

week, planetary 59 f.

Wilamowitz 2

wind, cosmogonic 200-2

wings 190 f., 197, 215, 240

Wisdom of Solomon 172 n. 101

Page 275

wool 159

world as body of god 239 f.

worlds, other 13 f.

X

Xenocrates 21 f.

Z

Zagreus 152-4, 170

Zalmoxis 20

Zelos 217

Zeno (Stoic) 183

Zeus 23, 72-5, 80, 84-90, 97-102, 106, 108 f., 113, 117-21, 146, 151, 215;

(birth) 72, 122-4, 127 f., 236;

(demiurgy) 73, 90-3, 100, 219 f., 237-9;

(creator of man) 246;

(marriages) 72-4, 93-7, 106 f., 220-2, 241-3;

(= Phanes) 203-7, 218;

(= world) 239-41;

(Idaean cult) 46 n. 32, 48, 50 f., 170, 174

zodiac 192 n. 44, 193, 244

Zopyrus 10, 249-51

Zoroastrian cosmogony 103-5, 190, 192, 194 n. 56, 198-200, 208 f.

Zû 135, 233

1.
Bone plates from Olbia. Fifth century BC. (p. 17)

2.
Orpheus and an Orphic. Apulian amphora in Basel; c. 325 BC. (p. 25)

3.
Arriving in Hades. Apulian calyx crater in London. Later fourth century BC. (p. 25)

4.
Terracotta group of Orpheus and Sirens in the J. Paul Getty Museum. (p. 25)

5.
(a) The Derveni papyrus, column xviii. (pp. 75 ff.)
(b) The enticement of the child Dionysus. Ivory pyxis in
Bologna. Fifth or sixth century AD. (p. 156 n. 51)