s nothing alleged for this opinion from antiquity, except the one passage of Cicero concerning Aristotle; who seems to have meant no more than this, that there was no such poet as Orpheus anterior to Homer, or that the verses vulgarly called Orphic were not written by Orpheus. However, if it should be granted that Aristotle had denied the existence of such a man, there seems to be no reason why his single testimony should preponderate against the universal consent of all antiquity: which agrees, that Orpheus was the son of Cæaer, by birth a Thracian, the father or chief founder of the mythological and allegorical theology among the Greeks, and of all their most sacred religious rites and mysteries; who is commonly supposed to have lived before the Trojan war, that is, in the time of the Israelitish judges, or at least to have been senior both to Hesiod and Homer; and to have died a violent death, most affirming that he was torn in pieces by women, because their husbands deserted them in order to follow him. For which reason, in the vision of Herae Pamphilus, in Plato, Orpheus's soul passing into another body, is said to have chosen that of a swan, a reputed musical animal, on account of the great hatred he had conceived for all women, from the death which they had inflicted on him. And the historic truth of Orpheus was not only acknowledged by Plato, but also by Ictocrates, who lived before Aristotle, in his oration in praise of Buthros; and confirmed by the grave historian Diodorus Siculus, who says, that Orpheus diligently applied himself to literature, and when he had learned the μυστηρια, or the mythological part of theology, he travelled into Egypt, where he soon became the greatest proficient among the Greeks in the mysteries of religion, theology, and poetry. Neither was his history of Orpheus contradicted by Origen, when so justly provoked by Celsus, who had preferred him to our Saviour; and, according to Suidas, Orpheus the Thracian was the first inventor of the religious mysteries of the Greeks, and that religion was thence called Θρησκεία, Theurgy, as if a Thracian invention. On account of the great antiquity of Orpheus, there have been numberless fables intermingled with his history; yet there appears no reason that we should disbelieve the existence of such a man."

Cudworth is also of opinion, that the poems ascribed to Orpheus were either written by him, or that they were very ancient, and contained his doctrines. He farther argues, that though Orpheus was a polytheist, and asserted a multiplicity of gods, he nevertheless acknowledged one supreme unmade deity, as the original of all things; and that the Pythagoreans and Platonists not only had Orpheus in great esteem, being commonly called by them the Theologer, but were also thought in great measure to have owed their theology and philosophy to him, deriving it from his principles and traditions.

The bishop of Gloucester* speaks no more doubtfully of the existence of Orpheus than of Homer and Hesiod, with whom he ranks him, not only as a poet, but also as a theologian, and founder of religion.

The family of Orpheus is traced by Sir Isaac Newton for several generations: "Sefac passing over the Hellespont, conquers Thrace; kills Lycurgus, king of that country; and gives his kingdom and one of Orpheus's flinging-women to Cæaer, the son of Tharops, and father of Orpheus; hence Orpheus is said to have had the muse Calliope for his mother."

He is allowed by most ancient authors to have excelled in poetry and music, particularly the latter; and that to such a degree, that he is represented as taming the most ferocious animals, changing the course of the winds by his melody, and as causing the trees of the forest to dance in concert with his lyre. This account, though we must suppose it fabulous, yet proves his excellence to have been great before it could have given rise to such fictions. He is said to have early cultivated the lyre, in preference to every other instrument: so that all those who came after him were contented to be his imitators; whereas, according to Plutarch, he adopted no model; for before his time no other music was known, except a few airs for the flute. Music was so closely connected in ancient times with the most sublime sciences, that Orpheus united it not only with philosophy, but with theology and legislation. He abstained from eating animal food; and held eggs in abhorrence as aliment, being persuaded that the egg subsisted before the chicken, and was the principle of all existence: both his knowledge and prejudices, it is probable, were acquired in Egypt, as well as those of Pythagoras many ages after.

With respect to his abstaining from the flesh of oxen, Gessner supposes it may have proceeded from the veneration shown to that animal so useful in tillage, in the Eleusinian mysteries instituted in honour of Ceres, the goddess of agriculture. He might have added, that as these mysteries were instituted in imitation of those established in Egypt in honour of Osiris and Isis, this abstinence from animal food was of the like origin, and a particular compliment to Apis. But Able Fragnier, in an ingenious dissertation upon the Orphic Life, gives still more importance to the prohibition; for as Orpheus was the legislator and humanizer of the wild and savage Thracians, who were cannibals, a total abolition of eating human flesh could only be established by obliging his countrymen to abstain from everything that had life.

With respect to theology, Diodorus Siculus tells Diot. Sic., that his father Cæaer gave him his first instructions in religion, imparting to him the mysteries of Bacchus, as they were then practised in Thrace. He became afterwards a disciple of the Idaean Dactyls in Crete, and there acquired new ideas concerning religious ceremonies. But nothing contributed so much to his skill in theological matters, as his journey into Egypt; where being initiated into the mysteries of Isis and Osiris, or of Ceres and Bacchus, he acquired a knowledge concerning initiations, expiations, funeral rites, and other points of religious worship, far superior to any one of his age and country. And being much connected with the descendants of Cadmus, the founder of Thebes in Boeotia, he resolved, in order to honour their origin, to transport into Greece the whole fable of Osiris, and apply it to the family of Cadmus. The credulous people easily received this tale, and were much flattered by the institution of the ceremonies in honour of Osiris. Thus Orpheus, who was held in great veneration at the Grecian Thebes, of which he became a citizen, admirably adapted this Orpheus this fable, and rendered it respectable, not only by his beautiful verses and manner of singing them, but by the reputation he had acquired of being profoundly skilled in all religious concerns. Diodorus Siculus also says that he was a most attentive student in all kinds of literature, whether sacred or profane.

At his return into Greece, according to Pausanias, he was held in the highest veneration by the people, as they imagined he had discovered the secret of expiating crimes, purifying criminals, curing diseases, and appeasing the angry gods. He formed and promulgated an idea of a hell, from the funeral ceremonies of the Egyptians, which was received throughout all Greece. He instituted the mysteries and worship of Hecate among the Eginetæ, and that of Ceres at Sparta.

Justin Martyr says, that he introduced among the Greeks near 365 gods; Hesiod and Homer pursued his labours, and followed the same clue, agreeing in the like doctrines, having all drank at the same Egyptian fountain.

Proflane authors look upon Orpheus as the inventor of that species of magic called evocation of the manes, or raising ghosts; and indeed the hymns which are attributed to him are mostly pieces of incantation, and real conjuration. By all accounts he was an admirable musician: he is said to have received a lyre from Apollo, or according to some from Mercury, upon which he played with such a masterly hand, that even the most rapid rivers ceased to flow, the savage beasts of the forest forgot their wildness, and the mountains came to listen to his song. All nature seemed charmed and animated, and the nymphs were his constant companions. Eurydice was the only one who made a deep impression on the melodious musician, and their nuptials were celebrated. Their happiness, however, was but short; for Aristaeus became enamoured of her; and as she fled from her pursuer, a serpent that was lurking in the grass bit her foot, and she died of the poisoned wound. Her loss was severely felt by Orpheus, and he resolved to recover her or perish in the attempt. With his lyre in his hand, he entered the infernal regions, and gained an easy admission to the palace of Pluto. The king of hell was charmed with the melody of his strains; and according to the beautiful expressions of the poets, the wheel of Ixion stopped, the stone of Sisyphus stood still, Tantalus forgot his perpetual thirst, and even the furies relented. Pluto and Proserpine were moved with his sorrow, and consented to restore him Eurydice, provided he forbore looking behind him till he had come to the extreme borders of hell. The conditions were gladly accepted, and Orpheus was already in sight of the upper regions of the air, when he forgot his promises, and turned back to look at his long lost Eurydice.

All dangers past, at length the lovely bride In safety goes, with her melodious guide; Longing the common light again to share, And draw the vital breath of upper air: He first, and close behind him followed she: For such was Proserpine's severe decree. When strong desires th' impatient youth invade; But little caution, and much love betrayed:

A fault which easy pardon might receive, Were lovers judges, or could hell forgive. For near the confines of ethereal light, And longing for the glimmering of a sight, Th' unwary lover cast a look behind, Forgetful of the law, nor master of his mind. Straight all his hopes exhale in empty smoke; And his long toils were forfeit for a look.

Dryden's Virgil.

He saw her, but she instantly vanished from his eyes: He attempted to follow her, but he was refused admission; and the only comfort he could find was to soothe his grief at the sound of his musical instrument in grottoes or on the mountains. He totally separated himself from the society of mankind; and the Thracian women, whom he had offended by his coldness to their amorous passion, or, according to others, by his unnatural gratifications and impure indulgences, attacked him while they celebrated the orgies of Bacchus; and after they had torn his body to pieces, they threw his head into the Hebrus, which still articulated the words Eurydice! Eurydice! as it was carried down the stream into the Aegean sea. Others think, that, as he attempted to conjure his wife from the dead, which they undertook by the story of his going down to hell, he thought he saw her; and when afterwards, on looking back, he missed her, he died of grief. There is certainly some reason for supposing this to be the case: for there were persons and temples publicly appointed for the purpose; and Pausanias really speaks of that temple which was in Thespia, where Orpheus went to call up the ghost of Eurydice. Poets often mention this subject; and instances of it occur in history both sacred and profane. The witch of Endor is well known to those who read the historical part of the Bible. But to particularise instances, whether sacred or profane, would be endless. Some maintain that he was killed by a thunder-bolt. He was buried at Pieria in Macedon, according to Apollodorus. The inhabitants of Dion boasted that his tomb was in their city, and the people of Mount Libethrus in Thrace claimed the same honour; and farther observed that the nightingales which built their nests near his tomb, sang with greater melody than all other birds. Orpheus, as some report, after death received divine honours; the muses gave an honourable burial to his remains, and his lyre became one of the constellations in the heavens.

Tzetzes explains the fable of his drawing his wife Eurydice from hell, by his great skill in medicine, with which he prolonged her life, or, in other words, snatched her from the grave. Asclepius, and other physicians, have been said to have raised from the dead those whom they had recovered from dangerous diseases.

The bishop of Gloucester, in his learned, ample, and admirable account of the Eleusinian mysteries, says, "While these mysteries were confined to Egypt their native country, and while the Grecian lawgivers went thither to be initiated, as a kind of delegation to their office, the ceremony would be naturally described in terms highly allegorical. This way of speaking..." Orpheus speaking was used by Orpheus, Bacchus, and others; and continued even after the mysteries were introduced into Greece, as appears by the fables of Hercules, Castor, Pollux, and Theseus's descent into hell; but the allegory was so circumstantial, as to discover the truth concealed under it. So Orpheus is said to get to hell by the power of his harp:

*Threicius fretus cithara, fidibusque canoris.*

Virg. Æn. vi. ver. 119.

That is, in quality of lawgiver; the harp being the known symbol of his laws, by which he humanized a rude and barbarous people.—Had an old poem, under the name of Orpheus, intitled *A descent into Hell*, been now extant, it would perhaps have shown us that no more was meant than Orpheus's initiation.*

See Mysteries.

Many ancient writers, in speaking of his death, relate, that the Thracian women, as hinted at above, enraged at being abandoned by their husbands, who were disciples of Orpheus, concealed themselves in the woods, in order to satiate their vengeance; and, notwithstanding they postponed the perpetration of their design some time through fear, at length, by drinking to a degree of intoxication, they so far fortified their courage as to put him to death. And Plutarch assures us, that the Thracians stigmatized their women, even in his time, for the barbarity of this action.

Our venerable bard is defended by the author* of the *Divine Legislation*, from some infirmities to his disadvantage in Diogenes Laertius. "It is true (says he), if uncertain report was to be believed, the mysteries were corrupted very early; for Orpheus himself is said to have abused them. But this was an art the debauched mystæ of later times employed to varnish their enormities; as the detected praireracks of after-ages scandalized the blameless Socrates. Besides, the story is so ill laid, that it is detected by the surest records of antiquity: for in consequence of what they fabled of Orpheus in the mysteries, they pretended he was torn in pieces by the women; whereas it appeared from the inscription on his monument at Dium in Macedonia, that he was struck dead with lightning, the envied death of the reputed favourites of the gods."

This monument at Dium, consisting of a marble urn on a pillar, was still to be seen in the time of Pausanias. It is said, however, that his sepulchre was removed from Libethra, upon Mount Olympus, where Orpheus was born, and from whence it was transferred to Dium by the Macedonians, after the ruin of Libethra by a sudden inundation which a dreadful storm had occasioned. This event is very minutely related by Pausanias.

Virgil bestows the first place in his Elysium upon the legislators, and those who brought mankind from a state of nature into society:

*Magnanimi heroïs, nati melioribus annis.*

At the head of these is Orpheus, the most renowned of the European lawgivers, but better known under the character of a poet: for the first laws being written in measure, to allure men to learn them, and, when learnt, to retain them, the fable would have it, that by the force of harmony Orpheus softened the savage inhabitants of Thrace:

*Threicius longa cum vele facerdos* *Oloquitur numeris septem discrimina vocum:* *Jamque eadem digitis, jam pettine pulset uberno.*

Æn. lib. vi. ver. 645.

The seven strings given by the poet in this passage to the lyre of Orpheus, is a circumstance somewhat historical. The first Mercurean lyre had, at most, but four strings. Others were afterwards added to it by the second Mercury, or Amphion: but, according to several traditions preserved by Greek historians, it was Orpheus who completed the second tetrachord, which extended the scale to a heptachord, or seven sounds, implied by the *septem discrimina vocum*. For the assertion of many writers, that Orpheus added two new strings to the lyre, which before had seven, clashes with the claims of Pythagoras to the invention of the octachord, or addition of the sound *proflambanomenos* to the heptachord, of which almost all antiquity allows him to have been the inventor. And it is not easy to suppose, that the lyre should have been represented in ancient sculpture with four or five strings only, if it had had nine so early as the time of Orpheus, who flourished long before sculpture was known in Greece. See the article Lyre.

With respect to the writings of Orpheus, he is mentioned by Pindar as author of the Argonautics, and Herodotus speaks of his Orphics. His hymns, says Pausanias, were very short, and but few in number: the Lycomides, an Athenian family, knew them by heart, and had an exclusive privilege of singing them, and those of their old poets, Muizus, Onomacritus, Pamphus, and Olen, at the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries; that is, the priesthood was hereditary in this family.

Jamblicus tells us, that the poems under the name of Orpheus were written in the Doric dialect, but have since been transdialected, or modernized. It was the common opinion in antiquity that they were genuine; but even those who doubted of it, gave them to the earliest Pythagoreans, and some of them to Pythagoras himself, who has frequently been called the *follower of Orpheus*, and has been supposed to have adopted many of his opinions.

Of the poems that are still subsisting under the name of Orpheus, which were collected and published at Nuremberg 1702, by Andr. Christ. Eschenbach, and which have been since reprinted at Leipzig 1764, under the title of *Orpheus*; several have been attributed to Onomacritus, an Athenian, who flourished under the Pythistratidæ, about 500 years before Christ. Their titles are, 1. The Argonautics, an epic poem. 2. Eighty-six hymns; which are so full of incantations and magical evocation, that Daniel Heinlius has called them *veram Satanae liturgiam*, "the true liturgy of the devil." Pausanias, who made no doubt that the hymns subsisting in his time were composed by Orpheus, tells us, that though less elegant, they had been preferred for religious purposes to those of Homer. 3. *Delapidibus*, a poem on precious stones. 4. Fragments, collected by Henry Stevens. Orpheus has been called the *inventor*, or at least the *propagator*, of many arts and doctrines among the Greeks. 1. The combination of letters, or the art of writing. 2. Magic, the Orpheus, the lyre, or cithara, of seven strings, adding three to that of Mercury. 3. Hexameter verse. 4. Mysteries and theology. 5. Medicine. 6. Magic and divination. 7. Astrology. Servius upon the fifth Æneid, p. 459, says Orpheus first instituted the harmony of the spheres. 8. He is said likewise to have been the first who imagined a plurality of worlds, or that the moon and planets were inhabited.

Orpheus, in ichthyology, the name of a fish caught in the Archipelago. It is of a broad and flat figure, and of a fine purple colour; its eyes are large and prominent, and its teeth serrated; it has only one fin on the back, and the anterior rays of that are prickly, the others soft to the touch; its anus is small, and is said to have no passage for the semen.

This was the fish called orpheus by the ancients, but the modern Greeks call another fish by that name. It is a species of the sparos, of a flat figure, but very thick, has a small mouth, and is covered with small but very rough scales, which adhere very firmly to the flesh; the tail is not forked; it has fleety lips, and very small teeth; its back and sides are black; its belly white; it has a large black spot at the root of the tail; its head is reddish, and its fins are very elegantly diversified with various colours; it has only one back-fin, and that has the anterior ray prickly, the hinder ones not at all so. It grows sometimes to 20 pounds weight, and is much esteemed among the modern Greeks.