compositions which passed under these names emanate for the most part from poets of the Alexandrine age, and subsequent to the Christian æra; and that even the earliest among them, which served as the stock on which the later additions were engrafted, belong to a period far more recent than Hesiod; probably to the century preceding Onomakritus (b. c. 610-510). It seems, how ever, certain, that both Orpheus and Musæus were names of established reputation at the time when Onomakritus flourished; and it is distinctly stated by Pausanias that the latter was himself the author of the most remarkable and characteristic mythe of the Orphic Theogony—the discerption of Zagreus by the Titans, and his resurrection as Dionysos.[1]
The names of Orpheus and Musaeus (as well as that of Pythagoras,[2] looking at one side of his character) represent facts of importance in the history of the Grecian mind the gradual influx of Thracian, Phrygian, and Egyptian, religious ceremonies and feelings, and the increasing diffusion of special mysteries,[3]
- ↑ Pausan. viii. 37, 3. Τιτᾶνας δὲ πρῶτος ἐς ποίησιν ἐσήγαγεν Ὅμηρος, θεοὺς εἶναι σφᾶς ὑπὸ τῷ καλουμένῳ Ταρτάρῳ, καὶ ἔστιν ἐν Ἥρας ὅρκῳ τὰ ἔπη: παρὰ δὲ Ὁμήρου Ὀνομάκριτος παραλαβὼν τῶν Τιτάνων τὸ ὄνομα Διονύσῳ τε συνέθηκεν ὄργια καὶ εἶναι τοὺς Τιτᾶνας τῷ Διονύσῳ τῶν παθημάτων ἐποίησεν αὐτουργούς. Both the date, the character and the function of Onomakritus are distinctly marked by Herodotus, vii. 6.
- ↑ Herodotus believed in the derivation both of the Orphic and Pythagorean regulations from Egypt—ὁμολογέουσι δὲ ταῦτα τοῖσι Ὀρφικοῖσι καλεομένουσι καὶ Βακχικοῖσι, ἐοῦσι δὲ Αἰγυπτίοισι (ii. 81). He knows the names of those Greeks who have borrowed from Egypt the doctrine of the metempsychosis, but he will not mention them (ii. 123): he can hardly allude to any one but the Pythagoreans, many of whom he probably knew in Italy. See the curious extract from Xenophanês respecting the doctrine of Pythagoras, Diogen. Laërt. viii. 37; and the quotation from the Silli of Timôn, Πυθαγόραν δὲ γοήτος ἀποκλίναντ’ἐπὶ δόξαν, etc. Compare Porphyr. in Vit. Pythag. c. 41.
- ↑ Aristophan. Ran. 1030.—
Ὀρφεὺς μὲν γὰρ τελετάς θ' ἡμῖν κατέδειξε φόνων τ' ἀπέχεσθαι·
Μουσαῖος δ' ἐξακέσεις τε νόσων καὶ χρησμούς· Ἡσίοδος δὲ
Γῆς ἐργασίας, καρπῶν ὥρας, ἀρότους· ὁ δὲ θεῖος Ὅμηρος
Ἀπὸ τοῦ τίμην καὶ κλέος ἔσχεν, πλὴν τοῦθ', ὅτι χρήστ' ἐδίδασκεν,
Ἀρετὰς, τάξεις ὁπλίσεις ἀνδρῶν; etc.The same general contrast is to be found in Plato, Protagoras, p. 316; the opinion of Pausanias, ix. 30, 4. The poems of Musæus seem to have borne
