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

62 ORPHEUS. ORSABARIS.
ancient mystical poet Orpheus, dedicated tlem- says, were only inferior in beauty to the poems of
selves to the worship of Bacchus, in which they Homer, and held even in higher honour, on account
hoped to find satisfaction for an ardent longing of their divine subjects. He also speaks of them
after the soothing and elevating influences of re- as very few in number, and as distinguished by
ligion. The Dionysus, to whose worship the Or- great brevity of style (ix. 30. ~~ 5, 6. s. 12).
phic and Bacchic rites were annexed (a'OLOpKad Considering the slight acquaintance which the
KaEcSdpsana Kal BaKXic d, Herod. ii. 81), was the ancients evidently possessed with these works, it is
Chthonian deity, Dionysus Zagreus, closely con- somewhat surprising that certain extant poems,
nected with Demeter and Cora, who was the per- which bear the name of Orpheus, should have been
sonified expression, not only of the most rapturous generally regarded by scholars, until a very recent
pleasure, but also of a deep sorrow for the miseries period, as genuine, that is, as works more ancient
of human life. The Orphic legends and poems than the Homeric poems, if not the productions of
related in great part to this Dionysus, who was Orpheus himself. It is not worth while to repeat
combined, as an infernal deity, with Hades (a here the history of the controversy, which will be
doctrine given by the philosopher Heracleitus as found in Bernhardyand the other historians of Greek
the opinion of a particular sect, ap. Clem. Alex. literature. The result is that it is now fully estaP1rotrep. p. 30, Potter); and upon whom the blished that the bulk of these poems are the forgeries
Orphic theologers founded their hopes of the puri- of Christian grammarians and philosophers of the
fication and ultimate immortality of the soul. But Alexandrian school; but that among the fragments,
their mode of celebrating this worship was very which form a part of the collection, are some genuine
different from the popular rites of Bacchus. The remains of that Orphic poetry which was known to
Orphic worshippers of Bacchus did not indulge in Plato, and which must be assigned to the period of
unrestrained plea:ure and frantic enthusiasm, but Onomacritus, orperhaps a little earlier. The Orphic
rather aimed at an ascetic purity of life and man- literature which, in this sense, we may call genuine,
ners. (See Lobeck, Aylaoph. p. 244.) The fol- seems to have included Hymns, a Theogony, an
lowers of Orpheus. when they had tasted the mystic ancient poem called Minyas or the Descent into
sacrificial feast of raw flesh torn from the ox of Hades, Oracles and Songs for Initiations (TeAheT-a),
Dionysus (kAtoqpaj'ya), partook of no other animal a collection of Sacred Legends ('Iepol A&oyol),
food. They wore white linen garments, like ascribed to Cercops, and perhaps some other works.,Oriental and Egyptian priests, from whom, as The apocryphal productions which have come down
Herodotus remarks (/. c.), much may have been to us under the name of Orphica, are the following:
borrowed in the ritual of the Orphic worship." 1.'Apyovauiirad, an epic poem in 1384 hexHerodotus not only speaks of these rites as being ameters, giving an account of the expedition of the
Egyptian, but also Pythagorean in their character. Argonauts, which is full of indications of its late
The explanation of this is that the Pythagorean date.
societies, after their expulsion from Magna Graecia, 2.'Trivoi, eighty-seven or eighty-eight hymns in
united themselves with the Orphic societies of the hexameters, evidently the productions of the Neomother country, and of course greatly influenced Platonic school.
their character. But before this time the Orphic 3. ALOi,,ca, the best of the three apocryphal
system had been reduced to a definite form by Orphic poems, which treats of properties of stones,
PHERECYDES and ONOMACRITUS, who stand at both precious and common, and their uses in
the head of a series of writers, in whose works divination.
the Orphic theology was embodied; such as 4. Fragments, chiefly of the Theogony. It is in
Cercops, Brontinus, Orpheus of Camarina, Or- this class that we find the genuine remains, above
pheus of Croton, Arignote, Persinus of Miletus, referred to, of the literature of the early Orphic
Timocles of Syracuse, and Zopyrus of Heracleia or theology, but intermingled with others of a much
Tarentum (Miiller, p. 235). Besides these asso- later date. (Eschenbach, Epigenes, de Poesi Orphica
ciations there were also an obscure set of mysta- Commentarius, Norimb. 1702-1704; Tiedemann,
gogiues derived from them, called Orpheotelests Griechlenlands erste Philosophen, Leipz. 1780; G.
('OpqseorehEAerTa), " who used to come before the II. Bode, de Orp/7eo Poetariun Graecorsum antiquisdoors of the rich, and promise to release them from simo, Gott. 1824; Lobeck, Aglaophnamus; Bode,
their own sins and those of their forefathers, by Gesch. d. Hell. Dichtkunst, vols. i. ii.; Ulrici, Gesch.
sacrifices and expiatory songs; and they produced d. Hellen. Dic/tkunst, vols. i. ii.; Bernhardy, Grunat this ceremony a heap of books of Orpheus and driss d. Griechl. Litt. vol. ii. pp. 266, &c.; Fabric.
Musaeus, upon which they founded their promises" Bibl. Graec. vol. i. pp. 140, &c.; for a further
(Plat. Ion, p. 536, b.; Miiller, p. 235). The list of writers on Orpheus, see Hoffmann, Lexicon
nature of the Orphic theology, and the points of Bibliographicum Scriptorumn Graecoruma.)
difference between it and that of Homer and Hesiod, The chief editions of Orpheus,' after the early
are fully discussed by Mtiller (Iist. Lit. Anc. (Ar. ones of 1517, 1519, 1540, 1543, 1566, and 1606,
pp. 235-238) and Mr. Grote (vol. i. pp. 22, &c.); are those of Eschenbach, Traj. ad Rhen. 1689,
out most fully by Lobeck, iI his Aglaoph7amnus. 12mo.; Gesner and Hamberger, Lips. 1764, 8vo.
Orphic Literature.-We have seen that many and Hermann, Lips. 1805, 8vo., by far the best.
poems ascribed to Orpheus were current as early There are also small editions, chiefly for the use
as the time of the Peisistratids [ONOMA.CRITUS], of schools, by Schaefer, Lips. 1818, 12mo., and in
and that they are often quoted by Plato. The theTauchnitz Classics, 1824, 16mo. [P. S.]
allusions to them inlater writers are very frequent; ORPHI'DIUS BENIGNUS, a legate of the
for example, Pausanias speaks of hymns of his, emperor Otho, fell in the battle of Bedriacum
which he believed to be still preserved by the against the troops of Vitellius, A. D. 69. (Tac.
Lycomidae (an Athenian family who seem to have Hist. ii. 43, 45.)
been the chief priests of the Orphic worship, as the ORPHITUS. [ORFITUS.]
Eumolpidae were of the Eleusinian), and which, he ORSA/BARIS ('OpariCapts), a daughter of