NOTES TO CHAPTER X

[1] . . . ὅς ποτε καὶ τελετὰς μυστηρίδας εὕρετο Βάκχου, AP. vii, 9, 5 (Damagetos). διὸ καὶ τὰς ὑπὸ τοῦ Διονύσου γενομένας τελετὰς Ὀρφικὰς προσαγορευθῆναι, D.S. 3, 65, 6. εὗρε δὲ Ὀρφεὺς τὰ Διονύσον μυστήρια [Apollod.] 1, 3, 2, 3. (Dionysum) Iove et Luna (natum), cui sacra Orphica putantur confici: Cic., ND. iii, 58; cf. Lyd., Mens. 4, 51, p. 107 W. Βακχικά an Orphic poem: Suid. Ὀρφεύς (cf. Hiller, Hermes, 21, 364 f.), whence fr. 3 (Abel); and perhaps frr. 152, 167, 169, 168. τὰ Ὀρφικὰ καλούμενα καὶ τὰ Βακχικά are already reckoned as a single class by Hdt. ii, 81.

[2] This is seen in the decree of the Council and people of Athens dealing with the ἔμποροι Κιτιεῖς and their temple of “Aphrodite”—CIA. ii, 168 (333/2 B.C.).—That on the other hand such foreign mystery-cults were not always so tolerated (or not without resistance) is shown by the case of Ninos: Dem., FL. (19) 281 with Sch.; cf. D.H., Dinarch. 11.

[3] θεοὶ ξενικοί, Hsch., see Lob., Agl. 627 ff. A nameless θεὸς ξενικός occurs in CIA. i, 273 f., 18.—The foundation of such θίασοι for foreign deities (or deities at least not officially worshipped by the city in question) is almost invariably the work of foreigners (many exx. from Rhodos in BCH. 1889, p. 364). They are all foreigners, e.g. whose names occur in the decree of the θιασῶται of the Karian Zeus Labraundos, CIA. ii, 613 (298/7 B.C.); cf. ib. 614; SIG. 726. Merchants from Kition found a cult of their Aphrodite (Astarte) in Athens, just as some Egyptians had a little while before put up τὸ τῆς Ἴσιδος ἱερόν there: CIA. ii, 168. The names of foreigners (in addition to Athenians) are very numerous among the ὄνοματα τῶν ἐρανιστῶν of a collegium of Σαβαζιασταί in the Peiraeus (second century B.C.): Ἐφ. Ἀρχ. 1883, p. 245 f. The foreign worship would then begin to receive the support of natives of the host-city (most of them being at first of the poorer classes), and in this way the new religion would gain a footing in its adopted home. (Pure Athenian citizens compose the society of the Dionysiastai in the Peiraeus, second century B.C., Ath. Mitt. ix, 288 = CIA. iv, 2, 623 d.)

[4] The Bendideia early became a state festival in Athens (even fifth century, CIA. i, 210, fr. K, p. 93). An allusion in Plato (Rp. 327 A), however, shows that the Thracians (who must have introduced the cult of Bendis into Athens, or at least into the Peiraeus, the home of most θίασοι) still kept up a special worship of their goddess in their own manner, side by side with the Hellenized cult. It appears at least as if the worship in its remodelled Greek form seemed to them no longer the right one. (Bendis, too, like Dionysos, is a divinity of both this world and the next: see Hsch. δίλογχον.)

[5] Alleged traces of Orphic influence on special sections of the Iliad (Διὸς ἀπάτη) or the Odyssey are entirely illusory, nor did the Orphic doctrines exert any influence on the Hesiodic Theogony. On the other hand, Orphism was itself strongly affected by the primitive Greek theology the fragments of which were put together in the Hesiodic poem.

[6] Ὀνομάκριτος . . . Διονύσῳ συνέθηκεν ὄργια, Paus. 8, 37, 5. [349]

[7] Among the writers of Orphic poems mentioned by (1) Clem. Al., Str. 1, 21, p. 397 P. (from Epigenes) and (2) Suidas (from Epigenes and another authority: both Su. and Clem. probably got their information through the mediation of D.H.)—two certain Pythagoreans are named, Brotinos (of Kroton or Metapontum) and Kerkops (not the Milesian). [Abel, Orphica, p. 139.] From lower Italy or Sicily come: Zopyros of Herakleia (the same person is probably meant by Iamb., VP. 190, 5 N., when he counts Zopyros among the Pythagoreans coming from Tarentum), Orpheus of Kroton, Orpheus of Kamarina (Suid.), Timokles of Syracuse. Pythagoras himself is mentioned among the writers of Orphic poems in the Τριαγμοί of [Ion] (at least as early as the beginning of the fourth century). Apart from these the only names of conjectured composers of Orphic poems are: Theognetos ὁ Θετταλός, Prodikos of Samos, Herodikos of Perinthos, Persinos of Miletos; all of whom are unknown to us except Persinos, whom Obrecht not improbably identifies with the court poet of Euboulos of Atarneus mentioned by Poll. ix, 93 (cf. Lob. 359 f. Bgk., PLG. iii, 655). In this case he is an Orphic of a much later period.

[8] ὁμολογέουσι δὲ (sc. Αἰγύπτιοι) ταῦτα (prohibition to bury the dead in woollen clothing) τοῖσι Ὀρφικοῖσι καλεομένοισι, καὶ Βακχικοῖσι, ἐοῦσι δὲ Αἰγυπτίοισι καὶ Πυθαγορείοισι, Hdt. ii, 81. There can be no doubt that Hdt. in these words meant to derive the Ὀρφικὰ καὶ Βακχικά (the four datives are all neuters, not masc.) from the Αἰγύπτια καὶ Πυθαγόρεια, i.e. the Pythagorean ordinances which were themselves derived from Egypt (cf. Gomperz, Sitzb. Wien. Ak. 1886, p. 1032). If he had regarded the Πυθαγόρεια as entirely independent of the Αἰγύπτια (and the Ὀρφικά as independent of the Pythag.) he certainly could not have brought them in here. (This answers Zeller, Ber. Berlin. Ak. 1889, p. 994, who introduces a comma before καὶ Πυθ.)—It is equally impossible (with Maass, Orpheus, p. 165, 1895), to connect the ἐοῦσι δὲ Αἰγυπτίοισι with Βακχικοῖσι only; it must of necessity go with τοῖσι Ὀρφικοῖσι as well; for it is the whole point of Hdt.’s note to show that the religious usage which he mentions has, like so much else of the kind in Greece wherever it may be found, been borrowed from Egypt, and “is Egyptian”. In this he would fail completely if he did not regard the Ὀρφικά (and hence also the Πυθαγόρεια) as Αἰγύπτια ἐόντα and clearly say so. Hdt. certainly has no idea, as Maass would have us believe, of making a generic distinction between Ὀρφικά and Βακχικά: Βακχ. is the name of the genus of which Ὀρφ. is the species.—“the Ὀρφικά, and the Βακχικά in general.” Not all Βακχικά are Ὀρφικά. This use of καὶ whereby the whole is added subsequently to the part is perfectly regular and legitimate (it may also add the part to the whole as in the cases adduced by Maass, 166 n.: τὰς Διονυσιακὰς καὶ τὰς Ὀρφικάς, etc.). Hdt. mentions the Πυθαγόρεια last in order to indicate by what intermediate step the Egyptian element in the first-mentioned Ὀρφικά was specially assisted—he has further in ii, 123, shown clearly enough that he regarded Pythagoras as one of the pupils of the Egyptians (P. in any case is one of the teachers of immortality there referred to). This is also obvious from his whole attitude.—Hdt.’s opinion does not in any case oblige us to believe in it. He was forced to regard Pythagoras as the earliest author of Orphic doctrine because his connexion with Egypt seemed certain (cf. Hdt. ii, 123) while that of the Ὀρφικοί themselves was not so: in this way only could Hdt. seem to prove the Egyptian origin of that doctrine.—The priority of the Orphics is often supposed to be proved by the witness of Philolaos (fr. 14 D.) ap. Clem. Al., Str. [350] 3, 3, p. 518 P. (and cf. Cic., Hortens. fr. 85 Or.); it must be admitted, however, that the passage does not prove what it is supposed to do.

[9] Frr. 143–51 (cf. Lob. 715 ff.). Here, indeed, Orphic and Pythagorean doctrine are mixed up inextricably. Fr. 143 (Πυθαγορείως τε καὶ Ὀρφικῶς Syrian.) belongs to the εἰς τὸν ἀριθμὸν Πυθαγόρειος ὕμνος which is several times distinctly so called by Proclus. (The frr. are in Nauck, Iamb., VP., p. 228. fr. iii). Fr. 147 (Lyd. Mens.) obviously comes from the same (Nauck, p. 234, fr. ix). The same is at least highly probable of the frr. 144–6, 148–51. Probably what Orpheus says of the number 12 comes from the same ὕμνος (ap. Procl. in Rp. ii, 131, 10 Kroll). Proclus, however (in Rp. 169, 25 K.), also cites ll. 2–5 from the ὕμνος (Nauck, fr. iii) but this time attributes them to an εἰς τὸν ἀριθμὸν Ὁρφικὸς ὕμνος. This Orphico-Pythagorean ὕμνος had at any rate nothing to do with the (Rhaps.) Theogony of Orpheus. On the other hand, the words τετράδα τετρακέρατον, which acc. to Procl. in Rp. 169, 29 K., occurred μυριάκις in the Ὀρφικὴ θεολογία, come from the Theogony. They were possibly used as a title of Zagreus the κερόεν βρέφος (Nonn., D. vi, 165): though what is here said by Proclus about the Διονυσιακὴ (i.e. of Zagreus) θεότης, viz. that it τετράς ἐστιν, was applied rather to the four-eyed Orphic Phanes by Hermias (fr. 64 Ab.).

[10] On the other hand, there is much in Orphic theology and poetry that is taken immediately from the primitive Thracian worship of Dionysos and absent from Pythagorean teaching. This makes it very probable that even such theologoumena as are common to Orphism and Pythagoreanism really go back to the fanatical cult of Dionysos, or at least were easily thence derived by religious speculation: in this case the Orphics may well have got them from this original source of mystic lore that was common to both parties and not by the circuitous route of Pythagorean teaching. Orphism remained more closely attached to the common source than did Pythagoreanism, and may for that reason be regarded as somewhat older than its rival and be supposed to have originated independently of it.

[11] Zopyros of Herakleia, Orpheus of Kroton: Tz., Prol. in Aristoph. ([p. 20, 28 Kaibel, Com. Fr.] Ritschl, Opusc. i, 207); Suid. Ὀρφ. Κροτωνιάτης (from Asklepiades of Myrlea).

[12] We may not simply take it for granted that the account given in Dem. 18, 259–60, of the nocturnal initiations and the processions by day through the city held by a mystical sect, is intended to describe the secret mysteries of an Orphic conventicle (as Lob. does 646 ff., 652 ff., 695 f.). The explanation of the ἀπομάττειν τῷ πηλῷ of that passage by reference to the specially Orphic myth of Zagreus and the Titans is arbitrary in itself and hard to reconcile with the language of Demosth. (Harp. and Phot. are responsible for this expl.) Hardly more successful is the derivation of the call ἄττης ὕης from the ἄτη of Dionysos (Zagreus) on being torn to pieces by the Titans: EM. 163, 63. A definite connexion undoubtedly does exist between the Ὀρφικὰ ὄργια and the Σαβάζια καὶ Μητρῷα (Str. 471) described by Dem.; but the Orphics were never called worshippers of Sabazios nor their god Σαβάζιος, and it seems likely that their secret worship was different from the ceremonies of the Σαβαζιασταί that Dem. had in view (the latter may have retained more of the primitive barbaric ritual: cf. the ins. given in Ἐφ. Ἀρχ. 1883, p. 245 f. = CIA. iv, Supp. ii, n. 626 b; from the end of second century B.C.).

[13] See Lob., Agl. 235 f., 237, 242 f.

[14] To attribute the practical side of Orphism to a late degeneration [351] of the once purely speculative character of the sect (as many have done) is a very arbitrary proceeding and quite unjustifiable on historical grounds. The fact that a clear description of this activity does not occur before the fourth century (in Plato) does not prove that it did not exist earlier. Apart from this an ὀρφεοτελεστής named Philippos is mentioned by Plu., Apoph. Lac. 224 E as a contemporary of King Leotychidas II of Sparta (reigned 491–469). This evidence is not to be so easily set aside, as K. O. Müller, Introd. Scient. Myth. 311 ff., would like to do. The Orphic sect from the very beginning derived its strength from its telestic and kathartic practices.

[15] Thphr., Ch. 28 (16).

[16] αὐτοῦ (Ὀρφέως) μὲν εἶναι τὰ δόγματα, ταῦτα δέ φησιν (Aristot.) Ὀνομάκριτον ἐν ἔπεσι κατατεῖναι Arist. π. φιλοσοφίας fr. 10 [7] Rose, Arist. Pseudepig.

[17] Tatian, Gr. 41 (p. 42 Schw.), seems to speak only of redaction (συντετάχθαι) of the εἰς Ὀρφέα ἀναφερόμενα among already existing Orphic poems as the work of Onomakritos (in the same way Onomakr. is only the διαθέτης—the arranger not the author—of the χρησμοί of “Mousaios”, Hdt. vii, 6). Traces of an external linking-together of the individual poems of Orpheus in a “redaction” are not wanting (cf. the linking-together of the poems of the Epic Cycle or of the corpus Hesiodeum): first of all coming in all probability the greater κρατήρ (as in the enumeration of Clem. Al., Str. i, 21, p. 397 P.); see Lob. 376, 417, 469.—Clem. Al., Str. i, p. 397 P. (and Eus., PE. 10, 11, p. 495 D) is only derived from Tatian, though Onomakr. is here definitely called the author of the εἰς Ὀρφέα φερόμενα ποιήματα. Onomakr. seems also to have been simply regarded as the author of the Ὀρφικά in the doxographical excerpt ap. S.E. P. iii, 30 = M. 9, 361, p. 287 Mutschm.; cf. Gal., H. Philos. (Dox., p. 610, 15): Ὀνομάκριτος ἐν τοῖς Ὀρφικοῖς.—On the other hand, in the—admittedly incomplete—enumeration of Orphic poems in Clem. Al., Str. i, 21, p. 397 P., not one is attributed to Onomakr., and in Suid. Ὀρφεὺς he is only given the χρησμοί (no confusion with the χρησμοί of Mousaios is to be suspected here) and the τελεταί. Paus. (8, 37, 5) mentions (without naming them) ἔπη of Onomakr. (cf. Ritschl, Opusc. i, 241). Some at least of the poetry going under the name of Orpheus must have been ascribed to Onomakr. by Arist. (fr. 10 [7 Teubn.]).

[18] Suid. Ὀρφεύς, 2721 A Gaisf.

[19] Onomakr. εἶναι τοὺς Τιτᾶνας τῷ Διονύσῳ τῶν παθημάτων ἐποίησεν αὐτουργούς, Paus. 8, 37, 5. Lob., p. 335, thinks this refers to the “Theogony”: but no authority attributes a single one of the several Orphic Theogonies to Onomakr. as its real author. We should rather be inclined to think of the τελεταί which is distinctly ascribed to Onomakr. and which at least dealt with the practical side of worship: cf. Pl., Rp. 364 E–365 A, λύσεις, καθαρμοί ἀδικημάτων κτλ. ἃς δὴ τελετὰς καλοῦσιν (but it was not that the mystical βίβλοι were called τελεταί as Gruppe, Gr. Culte u. Mythen, i, 640, mistakenly supposes: he is otherwise quite right in his protest against Abel’s treatment of the τελεταί). They must almost necessarily have dealt with the reproduction of the πάθη τοῦ Διονύσου (as providing the ἱερὸς λόγος to the δρώμενα), and, as the central idea of the orgiastic cult, must have included the most important circumstance of the Orphic τελεταί (see D.S. 5, 75, 4; Clem. Al., Protr. ii, 17, p. 15 P.).

[20] One of the poems (perhaps indeed the poem of the ῥαψῳδίαι, and in that case the ἱερὸς λόγος as well) made Orpheus distinctly appeal to a revelation made to him by Apollo: fr. 49 (see Lob. 469). [352]

[21] Besides the three Theogonies distinguished by Damascius there were (apart from other more doubtful traces) at least two other variations of the same theme: see fr. 85 (Alex. Aphrod.) and frr. 37; 38 (Clem. Rom.); cf. Gruppe, i, 640 f.—The series of divine rulers given by “Orpheus” acc. to Nigid. Fig. ap. Serv. Ecl. iv, 10 (fr. 248 Ab.), conflicts with all the other Theogonies but agrees in some particulars with Lact. i, 13 (fr. 243). Still, this remark need not necessarily have been taken from any Orphic “Theogony”.

[22] (Zeus) . . . πρωτογόνοιο χανὸν μένος Ἠρικαπαίου, τῶν πάντων δέμας εἶχεν ἑῇ ἐνὶ γαστέρι κοίλῃ, fr. 120 (from the Rhapsodiai). We are accustomed to read here χανών with Zoëga (Abh. 262 f.): but χανών does not mean “catching up or devouring” [Zo.]; at most it might mean, in bad late-Greek, just the opposite of this—“abandoning” (transitive). Lobeck’s explanation (p. 519 n.) is also unsatisfactory. The word may have been originally χαδών.

[23] The line occurred in various forms in the Theogonic poem; frr. 33 (Plato?); 46 [Arist.] de Mundo); 123 (Rhapsod).; see Lob. 520–32. It seems certain then (Gruppe’s doubts go too far: Rhaps. Theog. 704 ff.) that the line appeared in the oldest form of Orphic Theogony and was merely borrowed thence, like so much else that was ancient, by the Rhapsod. Theogony (i.e. the words, Ζεὺς κεφαλὴ κτλ. which would be the oldest form, as Gruppe rightly remarks: κεφαλὴ = τελευτή; cf. Pl., Ti. 69 B). Even the writer of the speech against Aristogeiton A ([Dem.] 25), an Orphic adherent, appears, as Lob. remarks, to allude to the words in § 8.

[24] Theokrasia must have belonged to Orphic theology from the outset: Lob. 614; though the most extreme examples of this may perhaps come from later poems: frr. 167; 169 (Macr.); 168 (D.S.); 201 (Rhaps.), etc., being probably derived from the “Little Krater” (fr. 160), in which Chrysippos seems to be imitated (Lob. 735 and fr. 164), and from the Διαθῆκαι, fr. 7 (J.M.) a forgery in Judaeo-Christian interests which nevertheless made use of many ancient pieces of Orphic literature (the ἱερὸς λόγος: Lob. 450 ff., 454).—Theokrasia is met with even in the orthodox poets of the fifth century, though they did not invent it; the “theologoi” of the sixth century Epimenides and Pherekydes were as familiar with it as were the Orphics; cf. Kern, de Theogon. 92.

[25] See [Append. ix].

[26] It must have been chiefly the religious significance of the gods which caused the retention of their personalities and prevented them from fading into mere personifications of abstract ideas or elementary powers with which religion could have had nothing further to do.

[27] In the statements of the Neoplatonic writers this first Orphic Dionysos is regularly called Διόνυσος simply (perhaps also Βάκχος: fr. 192). Nonnus in recounting the Orphic legend calls him Zagreus: D. vi, 165; cf. Ζαγρέα γειναμένη (of Perseph.) with clear allusion to Callim. fr. 171, υἷα Διώνυσον Ζαγρέα γειναμένη. Callim. here, as elsewhere, seems to have in mind the Orphic story. Tz. on Lyc. 355 calls the god of the Orphic legend Διόνυσον τὸν καὶ Ζαγρέα καλούμενον. Ζαγρεύς the great Hunter is a name of the all-absorbing Hades: thus also the Alkmaionis fr. 3 Kink. Zagreus is identified with the Dionysos of nocturnal revelry in E., Kret. fr. 472, 10 (a reference in Ba. 1181 Kirchh.); and see above, chap. viii, [n. 28]. This Dionysos is regarded as a χθόνιος (see Hsch. Ζαγρεύς) and this must indubitably have been quite familiar to the poets who made him the son of Persephone: χθόνιος ὁ τῆς Περσεφόνης Διόνυσος (Harp. λεύκη). [353] They were as clearly conscious as was Herakleitos of the fact that ὡυτὸς Ἅιδης καὶ Διόνυσος, whereas this consciousness was undoubtedly obscured in the public ceremonial of Dionysos-worship (to which, however, Hcl.’s saying refers). Zagreus-Dionysos was never identified with the Ἴακχος of the Eleusinia (to which Orph. fr. 215, l. 2 refers); though Dionysos alone was often so identified.

[28] Ouranos casts the Titans into Tartaros: frr. 97, 100. Acc. to Procl. (fr. 205) and Arn. (196: prob. not from the Rhaps.) we should be led to suppose that the Titans after they had torn Zagreus in pieces were cast down to Tartaros by Zeus. In Arn. this is set down side by side with the statement that the Titans were destroyed by the lightning of Zeus (ἡ Τιτάνων κεραύνωσις, Plu., Es. Carn. 1, 7, p. 996 C), though obviously incompatible with the latter statement, as it is also (even more so) with the origin of mankind from the ashes of the Titans which is known not only to Olympiodoros (ad Phd., p. 68 Finckh: Lob. 566), but also to Proclus who got it from the “Rhapsodiai” (as also did Olymp.): Procl., in Rp. ii, 74, 29; i, 93 Kroll. It seems from this that Proclus (and perhaps Arn.) in error ascribed the καταταρτάρωσις of the Titans to Zeus instead of to Ouranos.

[29] Nonn. vi, 173; O., fr. 195. Perhaps Proclus is right in explaining this doubling of the god’s figure in the mirror as meaning his entrance upon the μεριστὴ δημιουργία. A reference to a similar explanation of this Διονύσου κάτοπτον occurs even in Plot. 4, 3, 12 (Lob. 555)—? also in the strange statement made by Marsilius Ficinus as to the crudelissimum apud Orpheum Narcissi fatum (was Zagreus another Narcissus?) fr. 315; cf. Plot. 1, 6, 8. The entry of the one origin of the universe into the multiplicity of phenomena is first clearly referred to in the dismemberment of Zagreus, but it would be quite like this symbol-loving poetry to introduce the same motif in a different form with a passing reference earlier in the poem.

[30] Nonn., D. vi, 197 ff.

[31] Paus. 8, 37, 5.

[32] Procl., O., frr. 195, 198, 199. In any case Nonn. vi, 169 ff. is following the Rhapsodiai.

[33] Callim. and Euphor. knew of the dismemberment of Dionysos by the Titans: Tz. ad Lyc. 208 (from the completer version in EM.). In any case it is not from the Rhaps. that this legend is also known to D.S. 5, 75, 4; Cornut. 30, p. 62, 10 Lang; Plu., Es. Carn. 1, 7, p. 996 C; Is. et Os. 35, p. 364 F; Clem. Al. (see Orph. frr. 196, 200).—A roughly caricatured drawing on a hydria belonging to the early fourth century found at Rhodos and made probably in Attica appears in JHS. xi (1890), p. 243; where it is said to represent the dismemberment of Zagreus as conceived by Orphics. The picture, however, does not agree at all with the meaning thus attributed to it; the interpretation cannot be the right one.

[34] A true ἱερὸς λόγος, i.e. an account of the origin of ritual acts founded upon myth or legend. (The Orphics had such accounts, e.g. of the prohibition against being buried in woollen clothing: Hdt. ii, 81 fin.)

[35] That the tearing in pieces of the bull in the primitive Thracian manner occurred also in the Orphic ὄργια may perhaps be deduced from the fact that in the legend Orpheus himself is torn in pieces by the Mainads. The priest stands in the place of the god: what the god suffers in the ritual δρώμενα that the priest suffers too. This is frequently met with. Ὀρφεὺς ἅτε τῶν Διονύσου τελετῶν ἡγεμὼν γενόμενος τὰ ὅμοια παθεῖν λέγεται τῷ σφετέρῳ θεῷ, Procl. in [354] Rp. i, 175 Kr. The ancients were fully aware that the bull torn in pieces in the Bacchic orgies represented the god himself (and this not only in Orphic ritual but from the beginning in the Thracian worship): the idea is often expressed (see e.g. Firm. Mat., Error. P.R. vi, 5), but nowhere more clearly than in the Orphic ἱερὸς λόγος.

[36] The introduction of the Titans from Hellenic mythology into the Thracian myth is clearly described as the work of Onomakritos by Paus. 8, 37, 5.

[37] Τιτῆνες κεκομῆται, ὑπέρβιον ἠτορ ἔχοντες, fr. 102. ἀμείλιχον ἠτορ ἔχοντες καὶ φύσιν ἐκνομίην, fr. 97. As early as Hesiod the Titans are hated by their father as δεινότατοι παίδων (Theog. 155). Τιτανικὴ φύσις is the evil character that cannot keep an oath: Pl., Lg. 701 C; Cic., Lg. iii, 5; impios Titanas, Hor., O. 3, 4, 42.

[38] This explanation of the διαμελισμός of Zagreus is often put forward (though subtilized into a Neoplatonic sense) by those who use the Orphic Rhapsodiai: see Lob. 710 ff. But even Plutarch has something of the sort (E ap. D. 9, p. 389 A), and it cannot be doubted that this (apart from its Platonist wrappings) was the meaning of the legend in the mind of its first inventor. Nor can the conception that the separate existence (multiplicity) of things first came into the world by an act of impiety, have been strange to the theologoi of the sixth century: we must admit this at once on remembering the doctrine of Anaximander that the multiplicity of things which has arisen out of the original one ἄπειρον is in itself an ἀδικία for which it must pay “recompense and punishment” (fr. 2 Mull., 9 Diels). Such personification of the processes of nature and the reading of an ethical sense into them, combined as it was with a quietist tendency, was much more likely to have arisen in the fanciful minds of semi-philosophical mystics than to have been given to them by the philosophers.

[39] See the accounts given in Lob. 565 f.: they come from the Rhapsodiai. The fact that the origin of men and the doctrine of Metempsychosis as well were dealt with in the Rhaps. follows from Procl. in Rp. ii, 338 Kroll. It must, however, have been from older Orphic poetry—at any rate, not from the Rhaps.—that the story was derived by D. Chr. 30, 10 f. Plutarch, too, does at least refer to it: τὸ ἐν ἡμῖν ἄλογον καὶ ἄτακτον καὶ βίαιον οἱ παλαιοὶ Τιτᾶνας ὠνόμασαν, Es. Carn. 1, 7, p. 996 C; and possibly Opp., H. v, 9–10; Ael. fr. 89, p. 230, 19 f. Herch. (Lob. 567 g). Even the words of Xenokrates (fr. 20, p. 166 Heinze) seem to allude to this Orphic myth. Thus the Rhapsodiai in this case also were following older Orphic teaching and poetry. Orph. H. 37 derives from a later age. What Nic. Th. 8 ff. reproduces (mistakenly?) as Hesiodic tradition was perhaps really an echo of Orphic poetry. Was the derivation of Man from the Titans suggested by still earlier fancies such as e.g. meet us in passages like h. Hom. Ap. 335 (137) f.: Τιτῆνές τε θεοὶ τῶν ἒξ ἄνδρες τε θεοί τε—? This is not Homeric (for all the Homeric πατὴρ ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν τε), though possibly it had a different sense from what it had for “Orpheus”.

[40] Dionysos is the last of the divine rulers of the world: frr. 114, 190. Hence δεσπότης ἡμῶν, Procl. in Crat., pp. 59, 114 Boiss. (though Procl. also speaks of e.g. Hermes as ὁ δεσπότης ὑμῶν in Cr., p. 73 B.). Dionysos is the sixth ruler; Zeus who came before him being the fifth: frr. 113 (85, 121, 122). The order given is: 1 Phanes, 2 Nyx, 3 Ouranos, 4 Kronos, 5 Zeus, 6 Dionysos. This is definitely stated by Syrian.: fr. 85 (Proclus follows his master: frr. 85, 121), and confirmed by the fragments of the Rhapsodiai: frr. 86, 87, 96, 113. It seems, however, as if Plato actually found this order (as Syrian. thought) [355] in the Orphic Theogony which he read. It is true that as their silence shows the Neoplatonists did not find the verse cited by Plato in the Rhapsodiai as they knew them. (Plato’s line is ἕκτῃ δ’ ἐν γενεῇ καταπαύσατε κόσμον ἀοιδῆς: Plu., E ap. D. 15, p. 391 D, has the meaningless θυμόν instead of κόσμον—did he read θεσμόν?) They were right, however, in deducing from the line that the ancient Orphic Theogony referred to by Plato also knew of six generations of the gods (following the Pythagorean τέλειος ἀριθμός?) and ended with the sixth generation. The verse was intended doubtless by Plato himself in rather a different sense and he only quotes it humorously (Gruppe differs; Rhaps. Theog. 693 f.). This passage therefore provides important evidence of the harmony that existed between the Rhapsodiai and the oldest Orphic Theogony in the general outlines of their construction. It is, of course, quite a different question whether the six rulers in the poem referred to by Plato were the same as those given by the Rhaps.; nor can we tell whether Dionysos there occupied the last place, though the predominance held by Dionysos in Orphic belief makes it very probable that he did.

[41] The authorities who speak of the origin of mankind from the ashes (or the blood) of the Titans (Lob. 565 ff.) express themselves in such a way that we are forced to suppose that they regarded this as essentially the first appearance of men. This, however, cannot be reconciled with what Proclus, as usual following the Rhapsodiai, says of the golden and silver ages of mankind under Phanes and Kronos, which then, and not till then, are followed by the third and last race, τὸ τιτανικὸν γένος: see fr. 244 and esp. in Rp. ii, 74 Kr. θνητοί in the reign of Phanes even occurs in the line quoted by Syrian. (in Ar. Meta. 935a 22 Us.) fr. 85. It is impossible to say whether this improvement upon the Hesiodic legend of the Ages of Mankind actually occurred in an ancient Orphic Theogony (the one used perhaps by Lactant.; O., fr. 243, 8; cf. 248), and was thence taken for the Rhapsodiai without being reconciled with the legend of the origin of men from the ashes of the Titans; or whether the two scarcely reconcilable accounts of the origin of men were somehow or other made to agree. (Fr. 246 [Plu.] prob. comes from a picture of the long life enjoyed by the earliest generations of men: see Lob. 513. This picture does not necessarily presuppose a series of several γενεαί before the Titanic race.)

[42] μέρος αὐτοῦ (τοῦ Διονύσου) ἐσμέν, Olymp. (from Orphic doctrine) in Pl. Phd., p. 3 Finckh. ὁ ἐν ἡμῖν νοῦς Διονυσιακός ἐστιν καὶ ἄγαλμα ὄντως τοῦ Διονύσου, Procl. in Crat., p. 82 Boiss. The Hellenes are accustomed to make use of the dismemberment, re-integration and resuscitation of Dionysos εἰς τὸν περὶ τῆς ψυχῆς λόγον ἀνάγειν καὶ τροπολογεῖν, Orig., Cels. 4, 17, p. 21 Lo.

[43] οἱ ἀμφὶ Ὀρφέα think that the soul has the body as a περίβολον, δεσμωτηρίου εἰκόνα, Pl., Crat. 400 C. Certainly Orphic, too (as the Schol. also say), is ὁ ἐν ἀπορρήτοις λεγόμενος λόγος ὡς ἔν τινι φρουρᾷ ἐσμεν οἱ ἄνθρωποι κτλ., Pl. Phd. 62 B; see Lob. 795 f.

[44] fr. 221 (Phd. 62 B with Sch.). The similar saying of Philolaos is, as Plato’s manner of recording it shows (Phd. 61 E–62 B) evidently derived from a saying of the Orphic ἀπόρρητα (and Philolaos himself appealed to the παλαιοὶ θεολόγοι τε καὶ μάντιες in confirmation of the closely connected doctrine of the enclosure of the ψυχή in the σῆμα of the σῶμα: fr. 23 Mull. 14 Di.). The doctrine continued to be taught by Pythagoreans: see Euxitheos Pyth. ap. Klearch. in Ath. iv, 157 CD; Cic., Sen. 73. It had moreover some root in popular belief and in legal usage: see above, chap. v, [n. 33]. [356]

[45] According to the Ὀρφικὰ ἔπη καλούμενα, ap. Arist. de An. 1, 5, p. 410b, 28 ff.: τὴν ψυχὴν ἐκ τοῦ ὅλου εἰσιέναι ἀναπνεόντων φερομένην ὑπὸ τῶν ἀνέμων. (The ancient commentators add nothing fresh.) ἐκ τοῦ ὅλου means simply “out of space”. The ἄνεμοι were regarded as daimonic powers subordinate and related to the Τριτοπάτορες: see above, chap. v, [n. 124]. We cannot say how this conception was made to square with the other articles of Orphic belief (purgation of souls in Hades, etc.). It is plainly nothing but an attempt at such reconciliation that (following the Rhapsodiai, fr. 224) makes the souls that pass in death out of the bodies of men, go into Hades, while those that have inhabited the bodies of animals fly about in the wind εἰσόκεν αὐτὰς ἄλλο ἀφαρπάζῃ μίγδην ἀνέμοιο πνοῇσιν. Aristotle knows nothing of any such restriction. Plato (Phd. 81 D; rather differently 108 AB) apparently making free use of Orphic ideas regards all the μὴ καθαρῶς ἀπολυθεῖσαι ψυχαί as liable to the same fate as that allotted by the Rhapsodiai to the beasts. (Of course it is possible to suppose that the ψυχαί on being released from Hades for a new ἐνσωμάτωσις first of all fly about in the wind round the dwelling places of the living and are then breathed into a new body. This would not prevent there being a predestined conjunction of a particular soul with the particular σῶμα corresponding to its state of purification.)—The establishment in later Orphic poetry of the theory that the ψυχαί dwelt in the air may have been assisted by the philosophic theory of the soaring-up of the πνεύματα into their element the aether (of which more [below]). This theory, though not first put forward by the Stoics, was specially favoured by them: it almost attained the status of a popularly accepted belief. When the realm of the souls had thus been at least in part transferred to the air, late Orphic poetry began to regard one of the four rivers of the soul-world, Ἀχέρων, as the ἀήρ: frr. 155, 156 (Rhaps.). There is no reason to see in all this the traces of a supposed ancient conception in which Okeanos is really a river in the sky (in spite of Bergk’s fanciful speculations in Opusc. ii, 691–6). The elevation of the soul-kingdom to the sky is in Greek thought invariably the result of comparatively late speculation. We might even ask whether there is not Egyptian influence at work in the transference of Okeanos (= the Milky Way?) to the sky. Such influence would be late of course; but in Egypt the idea of the Nile in the sky was quite familiar.

[46] κύκλος τῆς γενέσεως, fr. 226; ὁ τῆς μοίρας τροχός, rota fati et generationis: see Lob. 797 ff.

[47] οἱ δ’ αὐτοὶ πατέρες τε καὶ υἱέες ἐν μεγάροισιν (πολλάκις) ἠδ’ ἄλοχοι σεμναὶ κεδναί τε θύγατρες . . . γίγνοντ’ ἀλλήλων μεταμειβομένῃσι γενέθλαις, frr. 225, 222 (Rhaps.). Here, as Lob. 797 rightly remarks, there is an allusion to the dogma of the recurrence of exactly the same state of things in the world. The doctrine of complete παλιγγενεσία or ἀποκατάστασις ἁπαντων (see Gataker ad. M. Ant.1, p. 385) was closely and indeed indissolubly bound up with the doctrine of the migration of souls. (Illogicality belongs rather to the conception of the break in the circle caused by the secession of individual souls.) It was therefore found among the Pythagoreans to whom it is ascribed by Eudemos fr. 51 sp. (see Porph., VP. 19, p. 26, 23 ff. N.; used later still in a Pythagorean sense by Synes., Aeg. 2, 7, p. 62 f. Krab.). It was borrowed from the Pythagoreans by the Stoa (by Chrysippos esp.), which after its usual fashion pushed the rather bizarre fancy to pedantic extremes. (After the Stoic model is Plot. 5, 7, and perhaps also the genethliaci spoken of by Varro ap. Aug., CD. 22, 28.) It is at least [357] probable in the extreme that these ideas were first held by the Orphics and not borrowed by them from the Stoics: there are even traces in Orphic tradition of the great World-year (which is always closely connected with the ἀποκατάστασις τῶν ἁπάντων): Lob. 792 ff.

[48] κύκλον τε λῆξαι καὶ ἀναπνεῦσαι κακότητος were the words Proclus probably had before him: (fr. 226) in Tim. 330 B. The forms ἂν λήξαι καὶ ἀναπνεύσαι—thus rightly accented here by Schneider—come from Procl. himself, who accommodates the words of the original to the construction of his own sentence. We must therefore not write αὖ λῆξαι with Gale and Lob. 800. In this case the subject of the sentence is the praying soul; on the other hand, in the form preserved by Simp., κύκλον τ’ ἀλλῦσαι καὶ ἀναψῦξαι κακότητος, the subject is the gods to whom the soul prays; ψυχή being object. In either form the freeing of the soul from the circle is regarded as a grace from the gods.

[49] fr. 76. The lines of the Carm. Aur. 55 ff. (Nauck, p. 207) are probably modelled on the Orphic οὔτ’ ἀγαθοῦ παρεόντος κτλ. The point is: few are they who trouble about the salvation that Orpheus (or Pythagoras) brings them; the ὅσιοι are always a small minority.

[50] frr. 208, 226. Διόνυσος λυσεύς, λύσιος, θεοὶ λύσιοι; see Lob. 809 f. and cf. fr. 311 (Ficinus).

[51] Ὀρφέα τ’ ἄνακτ’ ἔχων βάκχευε . . . E. Hp. 953 (N.B. ἄναξ not δεσπότης, l. 88).

[52] Ὀρφικὸς βίος, Pl., Lg. 782 C; Lobeck, 244 ff.

[53] The Pythagorean ἔπου θεῷ, ἀκολουθεῖν τῷ θεῷ (Iamb., VP. 137, from Aristoxenos) might also have been given to the Orphics as their motto.

[54] ἄψυχος βορά of the Orphics: E., Hp. 952, Pl., Lg. 782 CD; Lob., p. 246. This, too, is the meaning of Ar., Ra. 1032, Ὀρφεὺς μὲν γὰρ τελετάς θ’ ἡμῖν κατέδειξε φόνων τ’ ἀπέχεσθαι, i.e. using slain animals for food. Hor., AP. 391 f.: silvestris homines . . . caedibus et victu foedo deterruit Orpheus means to speak not of the ritual vegetarianism of “Orpheus”, but of the previous cannibalism of men which Orpheus had put an end to. As this is nowhere else mentioned of Orpheus we might perhaps regard it as mistaken allusion on the part of Horace to the passage of Aristoph. quoted above. It is not, however, impossible that Horace did in fact have in mind some Orphic verse which really reported something like what he himself says of Orpheus. The Orphic fragment [247] ap. S.E., M. ii, 31; ix, 15 (Lob., p. 246), may have arisen in the same way; see Maass, Orpheus, 77. (The well-known lines of Kritias [S.E., M. ix, 54 fr. 25 Di.] and Moschion, p. 813 Nauck, can hardly have anything to do with Orphism and should rather be connected with the theories of the Sophists and Demokritos—followed later by the Epicureans—about the gradual evolution of human civilization from miserable and savage origins; and not from a “golden age” of which the Orphics too spoke.)

[55] Prohibition to bury corpses in woollen garments: Hdt. ii, 81 (in each case in order that nothing θνησείδιον might cling to the departed). Prohibition against eating eggs: Lob. 251 (eggs are part of the offering to the dead and the food of the χθόνιοι, and so forbidden: so rightly explained by Lob. 477). It was forbidden in Orphic poetry, as well as Pythagorean, to eat beans: Lob. 251; Nauck on Iamb., VP., p. 231 f.: the reason here, too, being that beans as part of the offerings to the dead, putantur ad mortuos pertinere (Fest.); see Lob. 254 and Crusius, Rh. Mus. 39, 165. The same or similar reasons are everywhere at work to cause the eating of certain foods to be forbidden [358] both by the Pythagorean ordinances and in the mystical cult of the χθόνιοι: it is because they are used as offerings to the beings of the lower world, πρὸς τὰ περίδειπνα καὶ τὰς προκλήσεις τῶν νεκρῶν, or even because they have names which, like ἐρέβινθος or λάθυρος, recall ἔρεβος and λήθη: Plu., QR. 95, p. 286 E. The purified state requires above all complete separation from anything connected with the realm of the dead and the divinities of the dead.

[56] Cf. fr. 208.

[57] The soul is confined within the body (according to those ἀμφὶ Ὀρφέἀ), ὡς δίκην διδούσης τῆς ψυχῆς ὧν δὴ ἕνεκα δίδωσιν, Pl., Crat. 400 C. The exact nature of this “guilt” of the soul is not explained in our remains of Orphic literature. The point, however, is chiefly that the life within the body is according to their doctrine not in accordance with but contrary to the proper nature of the soul.

[58] συμπόσιον τῶν ὁσίων, Pl., Rp. 363 C. ὁσίους μύστας, Orph., H. 84, 3; see above, chap. vi, [n. 18].

[59] ψυχὰς ἀθανάτας κατάγει Κυλλήνιος Ἑρμῆς γαίης ἐς κευθμῶνα πελώριον fr. 224 (it would be vain to look for an example of ἀθάνατος used as adjective to ψυχή in Homer). Hermes χθόνιος leads the souls down into Hades and also upwards again (to fresh ἐνσωματώσεις): Orph., H. 57, 6 ff. (For the Pythagorean Hermes see D.L. viii, 31.)

[60] Especially in the κατάβασις εἰς Ἅιδου (Lob. 373; cf. above, chap. vii, [n. 3]). The descent lay through the chasm at Tainaron: see above, chap. v, [n. 23], and cf. Orph., Arg. 41.—Other Orphic poems may also have dealt with such matters: πολλὰ μεμυθολόγηται περὶ τῶν ἐν Ἅιδου πραγμάτων τῷ τῆς Καλλιόπης, Jul., Or. vii, p. 281, 3 Hertl. [216 D].

[61] λύσεις καὶ καθαρμοί of the living and even the dead carried out by Orphic priests: Pl., Rp. 364 E. Reward of the initiated in Hades: cf. the anecdote of Leotychidas II in Plu., Apophth. Lac., p. 224 E; and of Antisthenes in D.L. vi, 4. Those who feared the bite of Kerberos or the water-carrying to the leaky cask (see [App. iii]) sought protection against such things in τελεταὶ καὶ καθαρμοί: Plu. N.P.Q. Suav. Epic. 27, p. 1105 B. Hope of immortality for the soul rests on the Dionysiac mysteries acc. to Plu., Cons. ad Ux. 10, p. 611 D.

[62] It is significant that the belief in a judgment and punishment of ψυχαί is based in [Pl.] Ep. vii, 335 A not on popular acceptance or the statements of poets but on παλαιοί τε καὶ ἱεροὶ λόγοι; cf. above, chap. vii, [n. 13].

[63] fr. 154 (punishment in Hades of those guilty of crimes against their own parents? fr. 281).

[64] See above, chap. vii, [n. 15].

[65] δεινὰ περιμένει: Pl., Rp. 365 A; cf. fr. 314 (Ficinus).

[66] fr. 208 (Rhaps.) ὄργιά τ’ ἐκτελέσουσι (ἄνθρωποι), λύσιν προγόνων ἀθεμίστων μαιόμενοι· σὺ (sc. Dionysos) δὲ τοῖσιν (dat. commodi), ἔχων κράτος, οὗς κ’ ἐθέλησθα λύσεις ἔκ τε πόνων χαλεπῶν καὶ ἀπείρονος οἴστρου (of continual rebirth). That this belief in the efficacy of prayers for the “poor souls of the departed” belonged to the earlier stratum of Orphism follows from Pl., Rp. 364 BC, E, 365 A, where he speaks of λύσεις τε καὶ καθαρμοί of the Orphics which promised to deliver living and dead from the ἀδικήματα αὐτοῦ ἢ προγόνων. (It has been wrongly attempted to fasten the same belief on Plato himself, in the Phaedo.)—For Gnostic and early Christian ideas of the same kind see Anrich, D. Ant. Mysterienwesen, 87, 4; 120 n. But even in the Rigveda (7, 35, 4) we may find the thought that the “pious works of the pious” can help others to salvation (Oldenberg, Rel. d. [359] Veda, 289). Religious pietism seems to produce the same effects everywhere.

[67] πολλοὶ μὲν ναρθηκοφόροι κτλ. was an Orphic verse. Lob. 809, 813.

[68] fr. 154.

[69] ὁ κεκαθαρμένος τε καὶ τετελεσμένος ἐκεῖσε (εἰς Ἅιδου) ἀφικόμενος μετὰ θεῶν οἰκήσει, fr. 228 (Pl.).

[70] συμπόσιον τῶν ὁσίων in Hades, μέθη αἰώνιος their reward: Pl., Rp. 336 CD (cf. Dieterich, Nekyia, 80 n.). Plato there mentions Mousaios and his son (Eumolpos) as authorities for these promises and contrasts with them, by a οἱ δέ, others who made different promises; perhaps referring to other Orphic poems (cf. fr. 227). But Mousaios, himself always closely connected in Plato with Orpheus (Rp. 364 E, Prot. 316 D, Ap. 41 A, Ion, 536 B), here simply means “Orphic poetry”. A literature of essentially Orphic character went under his name. So Plu., Comp. Cim. et Luc. 1 seems right in substituting simply τὸν Ὀρφέα for the Μουσαῖος named in Pl.

[71] Pl., Lg. 870 DE; then in more detail for a special case but derived from same source: νόμῳ . . . τῷ νῦν δή (i.e. in 870 DE) λεχθέντι 872 DE, 873 A.—The idea of such a religio-juridical talio was popular also in Greece: see below (chap. xi, [n. 44]). Frequently for instance in curses of vengeance the wish is that the doer may suffer exactly the same thing as that which he has done to his victim. Exx. from Soph. (best is Tr. 1039 f.) given by G. Wolff in S., Aias, 839; cf. A., Cho. 309 ff., Ag. 1430.—As a Neoplatonic idea: Plot. 3, 2, 13; Porph. and Iamb. ap. Aen. Gaz., Theophr., p. 18 B.

[72] We may, however, suppose that the ideas of the Orphics corresponded with the statements of Empedokles, Plato, etc., about the series of births.

[73] σῶμα—σῆμα is Orphic: Pl., Crat. 400 C.

[74] Complete escape from the world of birth and death is distinctly anticipated for the pious Orphic in fr. 226, κύκλον τε λῆξαι κτλ. The other and positive side completing this negative promise is not clearly supplied for us by any fragment. (We never even hear distinctly of the return of the individual soul to the one Soul of the World; though certain Orphic myths—probably of late origin—seem to suggest such a doctrine of Emanation and final Remanation.)

[75] frr. 1, 81. The moon was regarded as inhabited, like the world, by Pythagoreans too (esp. Philolaos) and also by Anaxagoras.

[76] This at least was the belief of Pythagoreans and later of Platonics: see Griech. Roman, 269; Wyttenb. on Eun. VS. 117. But the idea occurs as early as in the Ti. of Plato, esp. in 42 B. It may have been long familiar to Greek popular belief (as to other peoples; cf. Tylor, ii, 70), and reached Orphics from that source. (Similar though not quite the same is the popular belief ὡς ἀστέρες γιγνόμεθ’ ὅταν τις ἀποθάνῃ, Ar., Pa. 833 f., which the Greeks shared with all the nations of the earth: cf. “Pythagoras” ap. Comm. Bern. in Lucan, 9, 9.)—No opinion can be built upon the statement of Ficinus (fr. 321).

[77] Orphic poetry must have varied in its account of what happened to the dismembered limbs of Zagreus-Dionysos. That the Titans tore the god limb from limb seems to have been common to all versions of the Theogonic poem (see nn. [28], [41]; [p. 341]). But whereas according to one account the Titans then devoured the god (except the heart) and from the mixed Titanic and Dionysiac elements of their bodies after they had been destroyed by lightning the race of men had its origin ([p. 341]); according to others the mangled limbs [360] of the god were brought by Zeus to Apollo who buried them taking them “on to Parnasos”, i.e. at Delphi: see Orph. fr. 200 (Clem. Al.) and so, too, Callim. fr. 374. The Rhapsodiai gave the first version in detail, but also preserved an account resembling the second (see frr. 203, 204: the ἑνίζειν τὰ μερισθέντα τοῦ Διονύσου μέλη there refers probably to the reunion of the collected limbs for the purpose of burial and not for the restoration of the dead god to life. This is also possibly the meaning of the Διονύσου μελῶν κολλήσεις in Jul., Chr., p. 167, 7 Neum. But Or., Cels. 4, 17, p. 21 Lom., speaks of the reanimation of Dionysos συντιθεμένου after the dismemberment). This second account, where it occurs alone, of course excludes the Anthropogony from the Titans’ ashes. The second version unmistakably connects itself with the Delphic legend of the grave of Dionysos at the foot of Apollo’s tripod (see above, [pp. 97] f.) as K. O. Müller observed, Introd. Scient. Myth. 242. It does, in fact, accord in this instance, but apart from this it has no connexion whatever with the real Delphic legend about the disappearance of Dionysos into the underworld and his periodic return to this world. (See above, chap. viii, [n. 28]. The Orphic and Delphic legends are elaborately compared and worked in together as though they were separate fragments of a single whole in Lübbert’s book, de Pindaro theologiae Orph. censore: Ind. Sch. Bonn. Lib. 1888, p. xiii f.—with shocking results and no intrinsic justification.) Whether this second version was the one put forward by Onomakritos is uncertain. In any case, both accounts are much older than the Rhapsodiai, in which, it appears, they were included side by side and superficially harmonized (—only the limbs of the god not devoured by the Titans being buried acc. to this version). Besides these two versions there may have been another Anthropogony differing from that given in the first account: the existence of something of the kind is perhaps to be deduced from what the Rhapsodiai themselves have to tell about the golden and silver generations of mankind (see above, [n. 41]).

[78] Of the Thracian Mysoi λέγει ὁ Ποσειδώνιος καὶ ἐμψύχων ἀπέχεσθαι (which Pythagoras is said to have learnt from Zalmoxis, Str. 298) κατ’ εὐσέβειαν, διὰ δὲ τοῦτο καὶ θρεμμάτων· μέλιτι δὲ χρῆσθαι καὶ γάλακτι καὶ τυρῷ, ζῶντας καθ’ ἡσυχίαν· διὰ δὲ τοῦτο καλεῖσθαι θεοσεβεῖς τε καὶ καπνοβάτας (perh. καπνοβότας acc. to an ancient conjecture). εἶναι δέ τινας τῶν Θρᾳκῶν οἳ χωρὶς γυναικὸς ζῶσιν, οὓς κτίστας καλεῖσθαι, ἀνιερῶσθαί τε διὰ τιμὴv καὶ μετ’ ἀδείας ζῆν, Str. 296. The religious character of this asceticism is seen in the words κατ’ εὐσέβειαν and the name θεοσεβεῖς; also in the word ἀνιερῶσθαι, which are all used of the κτίσται as of a monastic order. Jos., AJ. 18, 1, 5, says of the Essenes ζῶσι δ’ οὐδὲν παρηλλαγμένως ἀλλ’ ὅτι μάλιστα ἐμφέροντες Δακῶν (i.e. Θρᾳκῶν, Γετῶν: Getae, Daci Romanis dicti, Plin., NH. iv, 80) τοῖς πολισταῖς καλουμένοις. In any case the same Thracian ascetics are meant whom Poseidonios (literally translating a Thracian word) calls the κτίσται. Thus, they are said like the Essence to live without women, eat no meat, and in the practice of various other asceticisms live together and have all things in common.—It cannot be certainly decided how old this Thracian asceticism was, its exact connexion with Dionysiac religion, and whether it could or did give any impulse in the direction of asceticism to the Orphics. (Following Hom., Ν 4 ff., many told similar stories of the nomadic Skythoi: see Ephor., frr. 76, 78; or of the fabulous Argimpaioi, Hdt. iv, 23; Znb., Pr. 5, 25, p. 129, 1, etc. Griech. Roman, 203.—ἀποχὴ ἐμψύχων occurred also among the Atlantes and certain Indian races: Hdt. iv, 184; iii, 100.) [361]

[79] ii, 123. His words make it plain that the Greek teachers of transmigration of souls whom he has in mind (Pherekydes, Pythagoras, Orphics, Empedokles) had no idea of the Egyptian origin of that doctrine (Rh. Mus. 26, 556, 1).

[80] The Egyptian monuments show no knowledge of a general transmigration of souls, due to a law of nature or the decree of the gods. We can see very well, however, what it was in Egyptian traditions that might seem like a doctrine of transmigration to Herodotos (cf. Wiedemann, Erläut. zu Herodots 2. B. p. 457 f.).

[81] It is sufficient to refer to Tylor’s collections: ii, 3 ff.—In antiquity the Greeks met with a doctrine of Transmigration, apart from Thrace, among the Keltic races (Caes., BG. 6, 14, 5; D.S. 5, 28, 6; cf. Timagenes ap. Amm. Marc. 15, 9, 8). This was the sole reason why Pythagoras was made the pupil of the Gallic Druids: Alex. Polyh. ap. Clem. Al., Str. i, p. 355/6 P., etc.

[82] That it was not unnatural for the Greeks also to have the conception of the migration of the soul from its first body to some other suitable second or third body (entry of τῆς τυχούσης ψυχῆς εἰς τὸ τυχὸν σῶμα acc. to Arist.) may be seen from the fact that in Greek popular tales of the transformation of men into beasts the idea regularly prevails that while the body changes in such cases the “soul” remains the same as before. Thus, explicitly in Hom. κ 240 (cf. Sch. there and 329); cf. also Ov., M. ii, 485; Nonn., D. v, 322 f.; Aesop., F. 294 (Halm): [Luc.] Asin. 13, 15 init.; Apul., M. iii, 26 init; Aug., CD. 18, 18, p. 278, 11 ff. Domb., etc. (In all transformation stories this is regularly implied and gives the point to the story.) This is true from the earliest times onward, down to Voltaire’s muleteer who was turned into a mule et du vilain l’âme terrestre et crasse à peine vit qu’elle eut changé de place.)—The beasts also have a ψυχή: e.g. ξ 426.

[83] Brahmins, Buddhists, Manichaean, etc.

[84] A fixed term for “transmigration of souls” does not seem to have been offered by Orphic teaching. It was later called παλιγγενεσία (a term which did not exactly fit the real meaning of the idea): this seems to have been its oldest name (cf. αἱ ψυχαὶ πάλιν γίγνονται ἑκ τῶν τεθνεώτων, Pl., Phd. 70 C), and remained its most ceremonious one. “Pythagoras” non μετεμψύχωσιν sed παλιγγενεσίαν esse dicit: Serv., A. iii, 68. μετενσωμάτωσις, is not uncommon (frequent in Hippol., RH., p. 12, 53 D.-S.; 266, etc.). The word most commonly used among ourselves, μετεμψύχωσις, is among the Greeks precisely the least usual; it occurs e.g. in D.S. 10, 6, 1; Gal. iv, 763 K.; Tertul. de An. 31; Serv., A. vi, 532; 603; Suid. s.v. Φερεκύδης. μετεμψυχοῦσθαι occurs in Sch., A.R. i, 645.

CHAPTER XI
THE PHILOSOPHERS

The Orphic teaching, in which a protracted movement of religion in Greece reached comprehensive expression, might seem almost an anachronism, appearing as it did in an age when a religious interpretation of the world and of mankind was hardly any longer admissible. Eastwards, on the coasts of Ionia, a new view of the world had arisen which, like a youth that has come of age, demanded the right to pursue its course without any guidance from traditional beliefs. The Ionic maritime cities were the meeting-place of all the collected wisdom and experience of mankind; and there all the more serious knowledge and study—both indigenous and of foreign origin—of “Nature”, the earth, and the heavenly bodies, was gathered together in the intelligence of those ever-memorable spirits who at that time were laying the foundations of natural science, and of all science in general. This knowledge was now attempting to turn itself into an organized and all-embracing whole. Observation and constructive study combined with an imaginative vision to hazard a picture of the world and reality as a whole. Because it was impossible anywhere in this world to find anything completely and for ever fixed and dead, speculation inevitably pressed forward to the discovery of the undying source of Life, that perpetually fills, moves, and rebuilds this whole, and of the laws according to which it works and necessarily must work.

This was the direction pursued by these earliest pioneers of philosophy; and they pursued it unhampered by any subservience to mythical or religious modes of thought. Where mythology and the theology founded upon it saw a complete history of cosmic events each one of which was the result of the separate and unique action of divine personalities endowed with consciousness and the power of arbitrary choice—there the philosopher saw the play of everlasting forces which could not be completely resolved into the single events of any historical process, for, without beginning or end they had been ever in action, tirelessly fulfilling themselves in accordance with unchanging laws. In such a universe there seemed [363] to be little room left for divine figures created by man after his own image, and worshipped by him as the guiding and supreme powers of the world. And in fact, the foundations were now laid of that tremendous structure of free inquiry, which finally succeeded in weaving out of its treasure new worlds of thought, where even those who had quarrelled or were dissatisfied with the old religion (now inwardly falling into decay for all its outward appearance of being at the most brilliant zenith of its powers) might yet find a refuge if they would not fall back upon sheer nothingness.

And yet Greece never saw a thorough-going opposition and conscious quarrel between science and religion. In a few special cases the religion of the state was forced to recognize its incompatibility with the openly expressed opinions of individual philosophers, and took steps to make its claims to universal supremacy respected. But for the most part, the two streams of influence flowed on side by side for centuries without ever coming into hostile contact. The propagandist temper was completely absent from philosophy from the very beginning. (Even when it appeared later as among the Cynics it produced very little effect on the supremacy of the state religion.) Religion on its side was not represented by any priestly caste which might have been led to take up arms for religion and for what it believed to be its own interest alike. Theoretic contradictions might the more easily remain unobserved when religion depended so little upon fixed dogma or upon a world-embracing whole of opinions and doctrines; while Theology, wherever it accompanied the worship of the gods (εὐσέβεια), which was the real core of religion, was, just as much as philosophy, the business of individuals and their adherents gathered together outside the limits of the official religion of the state. Philosophy (except in a few special and unrepresentative cases) never sought open war with religion—not even with the weakened and diluted religion of the masses. In fact the juxtaposition of philosophy and religion (with theology itself by their side) sometimes went beyond the external conditions of the time, and affected the private intellectual life of certain thinkers. It might seem as if religion and philosophy were not merely different but dealt with different provinces of reality, and thus even strict and philosophically minded thinkers could honestly and without imagining disloyalty to philosophy, adopt particular and even fundamental conceptions from the creed of their fathers, and allow them to grow up side by side and at peace with their own purely philosophical ideas. [364]