Orpheus - Background

Background

The earliest literary reference to Orpheus is a two-word fragment of the sixth-century BCE lyric poet Ibycus: onomaklyton Orphēn ("Orpheus famous-of-name"). He is not mentioned in Homer or Hesiod. Most ancient sources accept his historical existence; Aristotle is an exception.

Pindar calls Orpheus "the father of songs" and identifies him as a son of the Thracian king Oeagrus and the Muse Calliope: but as Karl Kerenyi observes, "in the popular mind he was more closely linked to the community of his disciples and adherents than with any particular race or family".

Greeks of the Classical age venerated Orpheus as the greatest of all poets and musicians: it was said that while Hermes had invented the lyre, Orpheus perfected it. Poets such as Simonides of Ceos said that Orpheus' music and singing could charm the birds, fish and wild beasts, coax the trees and rocks into dance, and divert the course of rivers. He was one of the handful of Greek heroes to visit the Underworld and return; his music and song even had power over Hades.

Some sources credit Orpheus with further gifts to mankind: medicine, which is more usually under the aegis of Aesculapius; writing, which is usually credited to Cadmus; and agriculture, where Orpheus assumes the Eleusinian role of Triptolemus as giver of Demeter's knowledge to mankind. Orpheus was an augur and seer; practiced magical arts and astrology, founded cults to Apollo and Dionysus and prescribed the mystery rites preserved in Orphic texts. In addition, Pindar and Apollonius of Rhodes place Orpheus as the harpist and companion of Jason and the Argonauts. Orpheus had a brother named Linus who went to Thebes and became a Theban.

Strabo (64 BC – c. AD 24) presents Orpheus as a mortal, who lived and died in a village close to Olympus. "Some, of course, received him willingly, but others, since they suspected a plot and violence, combined against him and killed him." He made money as a musician and "wizard" – Strabo uses agurteuonta (αγυρτεύοντα), also used by Sophocles in Oedipus Tyrannus to characterize Teiresias as a trickster with an excessive desire for possessions. Agurtēs (αγύρτης) most often meant charlatan and always had a negative connotation. Pausanias writes of an unnamed Egyptian who considered Orpheus a magician (mageuse (μάγευσε)).