[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]