A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

30 ONOMACRITUS. ONOMARCHUS.
oracle of Musaeus, for which Hipparchus banished fifty-ninth Orphic Hymn the Graces addressedhim. He seems to have gone into Persia, where thus: -
the Peisistratids, after their expulsion from Athens, OUyaripes Zrn'6s TE ical EVvoptns PafUKdAVOV,
took him again into favour, and employed him to'AyaOpS Z, rhAEa, Kal Eticpoo71 baoXlovE
persuade Xerxes to engage in his expedition against
Greece, by reciting to him all the ancient oracles Some writers have hastily taken this as a proof
which seemed to favour the attempt, and suppress- that the true author of the still extant Orphic
ing those of a contrary tendency. (Herod. vii. 6.) hymns was Onomacritus, or else, as others more
It has been amply proved by Lobeck (Aglaoph. cautiously put it, that Onomacritus was one of the
p. 332) and Nitzsch (Hist. Horn. p. 163), that the authors of them, and that this hymn at least is to
words of Herodotus, quoted above, mean that Ono- be ascribed to him. It proves, if anything, the
macritus was an utterer of ancient oracles, how- direct contrary of this; for, had the hymn in quesever preserved, and that he had made a collection tion borne the name of Orpheus in the time of
and arrangementsof the oracles ascribed to Musaeus. Pausanias, he would have so quoted it, to say
And this is quite in keeping with the literary cha- nothing of the difference between the name Euryracter of the age of the Peisistratidae, and with nome in Pausanias and Eunomia in the hymn.
other traditions respecting Onomacritus himself, as, The truth is that the date of the extant Orphic
for example, that he made interpolations in Homer hymns is centuries later than the time of Onomaas well as in Musaeus (Schol. in Horn. Od. xi. critus [ORPHEUS]. That Onomacritus, however,
604*), and that he was the real author of some of did publish poems under the name of Orpheus, as
the poems which went under the name of Orpheus. well as of Musaeus, is probable from several testiThe account of Herodotus fixes the date of Ono- monies, among which is that of Aristotle, who
macritus to about B. C. 520-485, and shows the held that there never was such a poet as Orpheus,
error of those ancient writers who placed him as and that the poems known under his name were
early as the fiftieth Olympiad, B. C. 580. (Clem. fabricated partly by Cercops, and partly by OnoAlex. Strom. i. p. 143, Sylb.; Tatian. adv. Graec. macritus. (Cic. de NTat. Deor. i. 38; Philopon. ad
62, p. 38, Worth.) The account of Herodotus, Aristot. de Anirnm. i. 5; Suid. s. v.'OpIeds; Sc]wol.
respecting the forgeries of Onomacritus, is confirmed ad A risteid. Panath. p. 165; Sext. Empir. Pyrrh.
by Pausanias, who speaks of certain verses (6erV), Hypotyp. iii. 4; Euseb. Praep. Evan. x. 4; Tatian.
which were ascribed to Musaeus, but which, in his adv. Graec. 62.)
opinion, were composed by Onomacritus, for that From these statements it appears that the literary
there was nothing which could be ascribed with character of Onomacritus must be regarded as quite
certainty to Musaeus, except the hymn to Demeter subordinate to his religious position; that he was
which he composed for the Lycomidae. (Paus. i. not a poet who cultivated the art for its own sake,
22. ~ 7; comp. iv. 1. ~ 6.) In three other pas- but a priest, who availed himself of the ancient
sages Pausanias cites the poems of Onomacritus religious poems for the support of the worship to
((v'TONS V7reot), but without any intimation that which he was attached. Of what character that
they were or pretended to be any others than his worship was, may be seen from the statement of
own (viii. 31. ~ 3, 37. ~ 4. s. 5, ix. 35. ~ 1. s. 5). Pausanias, that " Onomacritus, taking from Homer
That Pausanias does not refer in these last pas- the name of the Titans, composed (or, established,
sages to poems which went under the names of the rvze'Otce,) orgies to Dionysus, and represented
old mythological bards, but were in reality com- in his poems (47rof-rev) the Titans as the authors
posed by Onomacritus, is rendered probable by the of the sufferings of Dionysus." (Paus. viii. 37. ~ 4.
manner in which he generally refers to such sup- s. 5.) Here we have, in fact, the great Orphic
posititious works, as in the passage first quoted myth of Dionysus Zagreus, whose worship it thus
(i. 22. ~ 7; comp. i. 14. ~ 3, el &) Movailou Kal seems was either established or re-arranged by
-ar Ta, and i. 37. ~ 4, r't caAohoeeva'OpqK)Cd): and, Onomacritus, who must therefore be regarded as
moreover, in two of the three passages he quotes one of the chief leaders of the Orphic theology,
Onomacritus in comparison with Homer and He- and the Orphic societies. [ORPHEUS.] Some mosiod. But if, for these reasons, the poems so dern writers, as Ulrici, think it probable that
quoted must be regarded as having been ascribed Onomacritus was the real author of the Orphic
to Onomacritus in the time of Pausanias, it does Theogony, to which others again assign a still
not follow that they were, in any proper sense, the earlier date. (Grote, History of Greece, vol. i. pp.
original compositions of Onomacritus; but it rather 25, 29.)
seems probable that they were remnants of ancient There is an obscure reference in Aristotle (Polit.
hymns, the authors of which were unknown, and ii. 9) to " Onomacritus, a Locrian," the first disthat the labours of Onomacritus consisted simply in tinguished legislator, who practised gymnastic exediting them, no doubt with interpolations of his ercises in Crete, and travelled abroad on account of
own. the art of divination, and who was a contemporary
The last of the three passages quoted from Pau- of Thales. (See Hoeckh, Creta, vol. iii. pp. 318,
sanias gives rise to a curious question. Pausanias &c.)
quotes Hesiod as saying that the Graces were the For further remarks on the literary and religious
daughters of Zeus and Eurynome, and that their position of Onomacritus, see the Histories of Greek
names were Euphrosyne and Aglaia and Thalia, Literature by Miller, Bernhardy, Ulrici, and Bode;
and then adds that the same account is given in Miiller, Proleg. ze einer Wissenschaftlichen Mythe poems of Onomacritus. Now we find in the thologie; Lobeck, Aglaophamus, and Ritschl, in
Ersch and Gruber's Encyklopaidie. [P. S.]
* For an elaborate discussion of the relation of ONOMARCHUS ('Oyvo'apXos), general of the
Onomacritus to the literary history of the Homeric Phocians in the Sacred War, was brother of Philopoems, see Nitzsch, Erkliirende Anrnerkungen zu meius and son of Theotimnus (Diod. xvi. 56, 61;
Homer's Odyssee, vol. iii. pp. 336, &c. Pans. x. 2. ~ 2; but see Arist. Pol. v. 4, and