User:Paul August/Zagreus

Zagreus

To Do

Read

• Dodds (in folder)
• LIMC VIII.1 1997 "Zagreus", R. Linder pp. 305–306 [in folder]
• Rose, H. J. 1936. “A Study of Pindar, Fragment 133 Bergk, 127 Bowra.” In C. Bailey et al.,eds., Greek Poetry and Life:Essays presented to Gilbert Murray,79–96. Oxford. [in folder]

Look at

• Bernabé and García-Gasco

"Nonnus and Dionysiac-Orphic Religion" in Brill's Companion to Nonnus

p. 102–104

• Harrison: [1]

• For Iaccus
  • Theoi
  • Grimal

• For the "Zagreus myth" controversy see:
  • Guthrie 1935, Orpheus and Greek Religion pp. 107–120
  • Linforth 1941, The Arts of Orpheus
  • Dodds 1951, The Greeks and the Irrational p. 155, p. 156, p. 177 [pp. 156, 157, 177 in folder] [2]
  • Edmonds 1999 Tearing Apart the Zagreus Myth [in folder]
    • Edmonds' abstract
  • Dillon 2002, pp. 80–87
  • Parker 2002, "Early Orphism" pp. 495–496. Get pp. 497, 506?
  • Edmonds 2008, "Recycling Laertes' Shroud: More on Orphism and Original Sin"
  • Jáuregui 2010, 23 pp. 23 ff.
  • Spineto 2011, pp. 33 ff., an account of the Edmonds-Bernabe debate
  • Edmonds 2011, "Orphic Mythology" pp. 86–88 in Dowden & Livingstone, A Companion to Greek Mythology
  • Redefining Dionysus 2013, Editors: Alberto Bernabé, Miguel Herrero de Jáuregui, Ana Isabel Jiménez San Cristóbal, Raquel Martín Hernández
  • Edmonds 2013, BU Online version
  • Bussanich 2013, "Rebirth Eschatology in Plato and Plotinus" p. 254
  • Parker 2014, BMCR 2014.07.13: Review of Radcliffe G. Edmonds III, Redefining Ancient Orphism: A Study in Greek Religion. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. xii, 451. ISBN 9781107038219. xii, 451. BU Online version

• Philochorus FGH 328 fr. 7a-b; Plutarch Moralia 364-365a, 996c. (See Ogden p. 30)

• Walter Otto, Dionysus p. 107, pp. 191-92; see also [3]
• Karl Kerenyi, Dionysos: Archetypal image of indestructible life (Princeton University Press) 1976 [in folder]
• West 1983, The Orphic Poems p. 154 (cited by Gantz, p. Ixii n. 75: That Kallimachos probably did call the child Zagreus is endorsed by West (1983). 154), who argues for a verbal borrowing of fr. 43. 117 Pf by Nonnus at 6.165. [in folder]
• The Orphic Hymns [in folder]
• Kerenyi, "Dionysos in Classical Athens" [in folder]
• Harrison, p. 480
• Ogden, p. 80
• Other sources at Grimal p. 515
• Other sources at Ogden p. 80 n. 64

Get

• Pfeiffer, Rudolf, Callimachus, Oxonii, E Typographeo Clarendoniano, 1949-1953. Mugar

frs. 43, 517, 643

Other

• Fix, link, copy cites for
  • Nonn
  • Orphic Hymns

• Sabazius?
  • Ogden, p. 80
  • Suda s.v. Sabazius
  • Theoi

New text

The sparagmos

Resurrection / rebirth

Later Orphic sources have Apollo receive Dionysus' remains from Zeus, rather than the Titans, and it was Apollo who reassembled Dionysus, rather than Rhea or Demeter.

Other stuff

• look at The Orphic Hymns, p. 151

• Diodorus: "tore to pieces the god, who was a son of Zeus and Demeter, and boiled him"
• Plutarch: "tasted his blood"
• Arnobius: "cut up limb by limb by them also, and thrown into pots that he might be cooked"
• Clement: "casting the limbs of Dionysus into [the cauldron] first boiled them down; then, piercing them with spits [and roasted them]"
• Firmicus: "Cooked the boy's members in various ways and devoured them"
• Olympiodorus: "eat his flesh"

Allegorical accounts

• Look at and cite Linforth, pp. 213–214

The anthropogony

• Look at Johnston, pp. 66ff.
• See Linforth pp. 325–326
• Add section on humans divinity?

• A few texts mention the Titans being struck by Zeus' thunderbolt as punishment for the sparagmos. (Clement, Plutarch, Arnobius)
• Add Proculus' account (OF 224)?

Sources

http://www.loebclassics.com -> https://www-loebclassics-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org

Ancient

Aeschylus

fr. 5 Nauck

Zαγρεὐς

fr. 228 Sommerstein [= fr. 228 Radt = fr. 124 Smyth]

ΣΙΣΥΦΟΣ

Ζαγρεῖ τε νῦν μοι καὶ πολυξένῳ <πατρὶ>

χαίρειν

Etymologicum Gudianum s.v. Ζαγρεύς (578.9–10 de Stefani) (Αἰσχύλος ἐν Σισύφῳ [Fiorillo: σκύφῳ codd.]); Anecdota Oxoniensia 2.443.11 (Αἰσχύλος)

1 <πατρί> add. Hermann, cf. context in and (τινές δὲ τὸν Ζαγρέα υἱὸν Ἅιδου φασίν)

Sisyphus

I now bid farewell to Zagreus and his ever-hospitable father.¹

1 [Clicking on the superscript 1 in the online version links in error to fr. 227 n. 1; to see fr 228 n. 1 you need to click on : "View all footnotes" (or consult the printed book)] Hades-Pluto. Zagreus was a chthonic god, whom in Egyptians Aeschylus actually identified with Hades; starting with Euripides (fr. 472) he tends to become partly syncretized with Dionysus.

Smyth, p. 459

124 (228)

Etymologicum Gudianum 227. 40, Cramer, Anecdota Graeca Oxoniensia ii. 443. 11.

Now [I came] to bid farewell to Zagreus and to his sire, the hospitaler.

Sisyphus describes his departure from the lower world. Dionysus, viewed by the Orphics as the child of Zeus and Persephone, received the name Zagreus, the “great hunter.” At times he was thus identified with Hades, at times made the son of the “hospitaler of the dead” (Suppliant Maidens 157).

Gantz, p. 118

Aischylos in one of his Sisyphos plays seems to have made him a personage of the Underworld with Hades (quite possibly his son: fr 228 R)

Alcmeonis

fr. 3 West [= Etymologicum Gudianum s.v. Ζαγρεύς]

3 Et. Gud. s.v. Ζαγρεύς

ὁ μεγάλως ἀγρεύων, ὡς·

“πότνια Γῆ, Ζαγρεῦ τε θεῶν πανυπέρτατε

πάντων”,

ὁ τὴν Ἀλκμαιωνίδα γράψας ἔφη.

Cf. Ἐκλογαὶ διαφόρων ὀνομάτων, Anecd. Ox. ii 443.8.

3 Etymologicum Gudianum

Zagreus: the one who greatly hunts, as the writer of the Alcmeonis said:

“Mistress Earth, and Zagreus highest of all the

gods.”¹⁷

17 The etymologist falsely explains Zagreus’ name from za- “very” and agreuein “hunt.” In Aeschylus (frs. 5, 228) he is a god of the underworld. The line perhaps comes from a prayer in which Alcmaon called upon the powers of the earth to send up his father Amphiaraus.

Arnobius

Adversus Gentes (also called Adversus Nationes)

3.10 (p. 157)

Cerses nursing Iaccus,¹

¹ Cererem ab Iaccho, either as above or "loved by Iacchus." Cf. Lucret. iv. 1160: At tumida et mammosa Ceres est ipsa ab Iaccho.

5.19 (p. 242)

... But those other Bacchanalia also we refuse to proclaim, in which there is revealed and taught to the initiated a secret not to be spoken; how Liber, when taken up with boyish sports, was torn asunder by the Titans; how he was cut up limb by limb by them also, and thrown into pots that he might be cooked; how Jupiter, allured by the sweet savour, rushed unbidden to the meal, and discovering what had been done, overwhelmed the revellers with his terrible thunder, and hurled them to the lowest part of Tartarus. As evidence and proof of which, the Thracian bard handed down in his poems the dice, mirror, tops, hoops, and smooth balls, and golden apples taken from the virgin Hesperides.

hellenicgods.org:

sed et illa desistimus Bacchanalia altera praedicare, in quibus arcana el tacenda res proditur insinuaturque sacratis, ut occupatus puerilibus ludicris distractus ab Titanis Liber sit, ut ab isdem membratim sectus atque in ollulas coniectus ut coqueretur, quemadmodum Iuppiter suavitate odoris inlectus, invocatus advolarit ad prandium compertaque re gravi grassatores obruerit ful mine atque in imas Tartari praecipitaverit sedes. 5. Cuius rei testimonium argumentumque fortunae suis prodidit in carminibus Thracius talos speculum turbines, volubiles rotulas et teretis pilas et virginibus aurea sumpta ab Hesperidibus mala.

= fr. 306 II (I p. 250) Bernabé = 588 II (II p. 169) Bernabé

sed et illa desistimus Bacchanalia altera praedicare, in quibus arcana el tacenda res proditur insinuaturque sacratis, ut occupatus puerilibus ludicris distractus ab Titanis Liber sit ... Cuius rei testimonium argumentumque fortunae suis prodidit in carminibus Thracius talos speculum turbines, volubiles rotulas et teretis pilas et virginibus aurea sumpta ab Hesperidibus mala.

⊃ fr. 312 III Bernabé (I p. 256)

ut occupatus puerilibus ludicris distractus ab Titanis Liber sit, ut ab isdem membratim sectus atque in ollulas coniectus ut coqueretur, quemadmodum Iuppiter suavitate odoris inlectus, invocatus advolarit ad prandium.

⊃ fr. 318 VII Bernabé (I p. 261)

compertaque re gravi grassatores obruerit ful mine atque in imas Tartari praecipitaverit sedes.

⊂ fr. 34 Kern

Athenagoras of Athens

Legatio

20 [= Orphic fr. 58]

Pratten

...of the daughter of Zeus, whom he begat of his mother Rhea; or of Demeter, as having two eyes in the natural order, and two in her forehead, and the face of an animal on the back part of her neck, and as having also horns, so that Rhea, frightened at her monster of a child, fled from her, and did not give her the breast (θηλή), whence mystically she is called Athêlâ, but commonly Phersephoné and Koré, though she is not the same as Athênâ,[65] who is called Koré from the pupil of the eye; ... how he [Zeus] persecuted his mother Rhea when she refused to wed him, and, she becoming a she-dragon, and he himself being changed into a dragon, bound her with what is called the Herculean knot, and accomplished his purpose, of which fact the rod of Hermes is a symbol; and again, how he violated his daughter Phersephoné, in this case also assuming the form of a dragon, and became the father of Dionysus. In face of narrations like these, I must say at least this much, What that is becoming or useful is there in such a history, that we must believe Kronos, Zeus, Koré, and the rest, to be gods? Is it the descriptions of their bodies? Why, what man of judgment and reflection will believe that a viper was begotten by a god (thus Orpheus:—

“But from the sacred womb Phanes begat

Another offspring, horrible and fierce,

In sight a frightful viper, on whose head

Were hairs: its face was comely; but the rest,

From the neck downwards, bore the aspect dire

Of a dread dragon”[67]);

or who will admit that Phanes himself, being a first-born god (for he it was that was produced from the egg), has the body or shape of a dragon, or was swallowed by Zeus, that Zeus might be too large to be contained? For if they differ in no respect from the lowest brutes (since it is evident that the Deity must differ from the things of earth and those that are derived from matter), they are not gods. How, then, I ask, can we approach them as suppliants, when their origin resembles that of cattle, and they themselves have the form of brutes, and are ugly to behold?

Summary

Zeus ... sleeps with his own mother Rhea (both in the form of serpents), and begats the son Dionysus by his own daughter Persephone.

Callimachus

fr. 43b.34 Clayman [= fr. 43b.34 Harder = fr. 43.117 Pfeiffer = Orphic fr. 34 Bernabé (I pp. 51–52) = fr. 210 p. 230 Kern]

υἷα Δ⌞ιώνυσον Ζαγρέα γειναμένη (?)

[34] a son Dionysus Zagreus

LSJ

s.v. γείνομαι: to be born

s.v. υἱός: generally, child

Harder 2012b, p. 368 on line 34

43b,34 This line may overlap with EtGen. AB s.v. Ζαγρεύς (quoted in app.). The letter after υἶα is just visible in the papyrus and looks like the lower part of δ, so υἶα Δ[ιώνυςον seems possible.

... For his birth from Zeus and Persephone, to which this line seems to refer, cf. D.S.5,75.4 ... Nonn.D.5,565 f.; 6,155 ff.; Hsch. ζ 9 s.v. Ζαγρεύς. ...; Σ Lyc.355; Sud. ζ 4 s.v. Ζαγρεύς.

Gantz, p. 118

Kallimachos, who somewhere refers to the birth of Dionysos Zagreus (fr 43.117 Pf and apparatus);

fr. 643 Clayman [= fr. 643 Pfeiffer]; cf. Euphorion fr. 14 Lightfoot [= Tzetzes on Lycophron, Alexandra 207 (Scheer, p. 98 lines 5–10) = Orphic fr. 36 Bernabé (I pp. 52–53) = fr. 210 pp. 230–231 Kern]

643 Schol. (s⁴, Tzetzes) ad Lyc. Alex. 207

643 Tzetzes on Lycophron, Alexandra

To the Βull god once in the innermost sanctum of Apollo Delphinius . . . he will commence secret rites; and even Dionysus was honored in this way in Delphi with Apollo. The Titans, after they pulled apart the limbs of Dionysus, offered them to Apollo, his own brother, putting them in a cauldron. And he placed it beside his tripod, as Callimachus says, and Euphorion.¹

1 Fr. 14 Lightfoot.

Zacharia, p. 115

For the limbs of Dionysus preserved close to the tripod see Callimachus fr. 643 Pfeiffer, cf. 517.

Gantz, pp. 118–119

we know in fact that he did relate the tale of the dismemberment (fr. 643 Pf; so too Euphorion).^{75 [That Kallimachos probably did call the child Zagreus is endorsed by West (1983, p. 154), who argues for a verbal borrowing of fr. 43.117 Pf by Nonnos at 6.165.]}

West 1983, p. 151

Callimachus and Euphorion are cited as witnesses to an account closely related to the Orphic: the Titans tore Dionysus apart, boiled the pieces in a pan, and presented them to Apollo, who hid them away beside the tripod.³³

Linforth, p. 309

The statement of Euphorion in which the story [of the dismembered child] is told. The same poem of Euphorion, or another in which the story is referred to, is quoted by the scholiast on Lycophron. Furthermore, this scholiast mentions also a poem of Callimachus containing the story.

Clement of Alexandria

Protrepticus

Exhortation to the Greeks, Harvard University Press

2.17.2–18.1 (Butterworth, pp. 36–39 15 P.) [= Orphic frr. 306 I (I p. 249), 588 I (II p. 169) Bernabé = fr. 34 Kern]

... Τὰ γὰρ Διονύσου μυστήρια τέλεον ἀπάνθρωπα· ὃν εἰσέτι παῖδα ὄντα ἐνόπλῳ κινήσει περιχορευόντων Κουρήτων, δόλῳ δὲ ὑποδύντων Τιτάνων, ἀπατήσαντες παιδαριώδεσιν ἀθύρμασιν, οὗτοι δὴ οἱ Τιτᾶνες διέσπασαν, ἔτι νηπίαχον ὄντα, ὡς ὁ τῆς Τελετῆς ποιητὴς Ὀρφεύς φησιν ὁ Θρᾴκιος·

κῶνος καὶ ῥόμβος καὶ παίγνια καμπεσίγυια,

μῆλά τε χρύσεα καλὰ παρ᾿ Ἑσπερίδων λιγυφώνων.

[2.18.1] καὶ τῆσδε ὑμῖν τῆς τελετῆς τὰ ἀχρεῖα σύμβολα οὐκ ἀχρεῖον εἰς κατάγνωσιν παραθέσθαι· ἀστράγαλος, σφαῖρα, στρόβιλος, μῆλα, ῥόμβος, ἔσοπτρον, πόκος. ...

The mysteries of Dionysus are of a perfectly savage character. He was yet a child, and the Curetes were dancing around him with warlike movement, when the Titans stealthily drew near. First they beguiled him with childish toys, and then,—these very Titans—tore him to pieces, though he was but an infant. Orpheus of Thrace, the poet of the Initiation, speaks of the

Top, wheel and jointed dolls, with beauteous fruit

Of gold from the clear-voiced Hesperides.

And it is worth while to quote the worthless^b symbols of this rite of yours in order to excite condemnation the knuckle-bone, the ball, the spinning-top, apples, wheel, mirror, fleece!

2.18.1–2 (Butterworth, pp. 38, 39 15 P.) [= Orphic frr. 312 I (I p. 256), 315 I (I p. 257), 318 I (I p. 260), 322 I (p. 265) Bernabé = fr. 35 Kern]

Ἀθηνᾶ μὲν οὖν τὴν καρδίαν τοῦ Διονύσου ὑφελομένη Παλλὰς ἐκ τοῦ πάλλειν τὴν καρδίαν προσηγορεύθη· οἱ δὲ Τιτᾶνες, οἱ καὶ διασπάσαντες αὐτόν, λέβητά τινα τρίποδι ἐπιθέντες καὶ τοῦ Διονύσου ἐμβαλόντες τὰ μέλη, καθήψουν πρότερον· ἔπειτα ὀβελίσκοις [2.18.2] περιπείραντες “ὑπείρεχον Ἡφαίστοιο.” Ζεὺς δὲ ὕστερον ἐπιφανείς (εἰ θεὸς ἦν, τάχα που τῆς κνίσης τῶν ὀπτωμένων κρεῶν μεταλαβών, ἧς δὴ τὸ “γέρας λαχεῖν” ὁμολογοῦσιν ὑμῶν οἱ θεοί) κεραυνῷ τοὺς Τιτᾶνας αἰκίζεται καὶ τὰ μέλη τοῦ Διονύσου Ἀπόλλωνι τῷ παιδὶ παρακατατίθεται καταθάψαι. ὁ δέ, οὐ γὰρ ἠπείθησε Διί, εἰς τὸν Παρνασσὸν φέρων κατατίθεται διεσπασμένον τὸν νεκρόν.

Now Athena made off with the heart of Dionysus, and received the name Pallas from its palpitating.^a But the Titans, they who tore him to pieces, placed a caldron upon a tripod, and casting the limbs of Dionysus into it first boiled them down; then, piercing them with spits, they “held them over Hephaestus.”^b Later on Zeus appeared; perhaps, since he was a god, because he smelt the steam of the flesh that was cooking, which your gods admit they “receive as their portion.”^c He plagues the Titans with thunder, and entrusts the limbs of Dionysus to his son Apollo for burial. In obedience to Zeus, Apollo carries the mutilated corpse to Parnassus and lays it to rest.

^a Pallas from pallein.

^b Homer, Iliad ii. 426. Over Hephaestus, i.e. the fire.

^c Iliad iv. 49.

PDF

2.17

2.17.2 ... Τὰ γὰρ ∆ιονύσου μυστήρια τέλεον ἀπάνθρωπα· ὃν εἰσέτι παῖδα ὄντα ἐνόπλῳ κινήσει περιχο ρευόντων Κουρήτων, δόλῳ δὲ ὑποδύντων Τιτάνων, ἀπατή σαντες παιδαριώδεσιν ἀθύρμασιν, οὗτοι δὴ οἱ Τιτᾶνες διέσπασαν, ἔτι νηπίαχον ὄντα, ὡς ὁ τῆς Τελετῆς ποιητὴς Ὀρφεύς φησιν ὁ Θρᾴκιος· κῶνος καὶ ῥόμβος καὶ παίγνια καμπεσίγυια, μῆλά τε χρύσεα καλὰ παρ' Ἑσπερίδων λιγυφώνων.

Harrison, p. 14

'The mysteries of Dionysos are wholly inhuman, for while he was still a child and the Kouretes were dancing round him their armed dance the Titans came stealthily upon him and lured him with childish toys and toew him limb from limb while he was yet a babe. Thus does the Thracian Orpheus, the poet of the Rite recount.

The cones, the rhombos and limb-bending toys,

And the fair gold apples of the Hesperides.'

PDF

2.18

2.18.1 Καὶ τῆσδε ὑμῖν τῆς τελετῆς τὰ ἀχρεῖα σύμβολα οὐκ ἀχρεῖον εἰς κατάγνωσιν παραθέσθαι· ἀστράγαλος, σφαῖρα, στρόβιλος, μῆλα, ῥόμβος, ἔσοπτρον, πόκος. Ἀθηνᾶ μὲν οὖν τὴν καρδίαν τοῦ ∆ιονύσου ὑφελομένη Παλλὰς ἐκ τοῦ πάλλειν τὴν καρδίαν προσηγορεύθη· οἱ δὲ Τιτᾶνες, οἱ καὶ διασπά σαντες αὐτόν, λέβητά τινα τρίποδι ἐπιθέντες καὶ τοῦ ∆ιονύσου ἐμβαλόντες τὰ μέλη, καθήψουν πρότερον· ἔπειτα ὀβελίσκοις 2.18.2 περιπείραντες "ὑπείρεχον Ἡφαίστοιο." Ζεὺς δὲ ὕστερον ἐπιφανείς (εἰ θεὸς ἦν, τάχα που τῆς κνίσης τῶν ὀπτωμένων κρεῶν μεταλαβών, ἧς δὴ τὸ "γέρας λαχεῖν" ὁμολογοῦσιν ὑμῶν οἱ θεοί) κεραυνῷ τοὺς Τιτᾶνας αἰκίζεται καὶ τὰ μέλη τοῦ ∆ιονύσου Ἀπόλλωνι τῷ παιδὶ παρακατατίθεται κατα θάψαι. Ὃ δέ, οὐ γὰρ ἠπείθησε ∆ιί, εἰς τὸν Παρνασσὸν φέρων κατατίθεται διεσπασμένον τὸν νεκρόν.

See Pagan Regeneration: A Study of Mystery Initiations in the Graeco-Roman World

Cornutus

Theologiae Graecae Compendium [= De Natura Deorum]

30

p. 62, 10–11 Lang

10 ... μυθολογεῖται [tell mythic tales] δ' ὅτι διασπασθεὶς [tear asunder] ὑπὸ τῶν Τιτά-

11 νων [Titans] συνετέθη πάλιν ὑπὸ τῆς Ῥέας [Rhea], ...

Translation: Boys-Stones, p. 20 [In folder]

There is a myth that Dionysus was torn apart by the Titans and [put] back together again by Rhea.

Meisner, p. 254

Likewise, Lucius Annaeeus Cornutus (first century AD) mentions a story in which Dionysus "was put together again by Rhea."

Linforth, p. 315

Cornutus, who represents the myth of dismemberment and reunion as as allegory of the vine, gives Rhea as the agent of the restoration (30, p. 62, 11 Lang συνετέθη πάλιν ὑπὁ τῆς 'Ρέας).

Johnson, p. 76

Cornutus reports that "according to myth" Rhea revived Dionysus after he had been torn apart by the Titans.²⁸

p. 62, 12–16 Lang

11 ... αἰνιττομένῶν τῶν

12 παραδόντων τὸν μῦθον [myth] ...

...

16 ἀπετέλεσε. ...

Boys-Stones, p. 20 [In folder]

The tradition through which this myth comes is hinting that farmers, who are sons of the soil, gathered in the grapes and separated out the different parts (“of Dionysus”) in them. They are all brought back together when the must is poured back in, and a single body is made of them again.

• Torres, José B., Lucius Annaeus Cornutus: Compendium de Graecae Theologiae traditionibus, Bibliotheca Teubneriana, Berlin, De Gruyter, 2018. Online version at De Gruyter.

Orphic fr. 59 IV (I pp. 67–68) Bernabé

CORNUT. Nat. deor. 30 (58, 6 Lang) λέγεται δέ δια πυρός λοχευθήναι (sc.ιόνυσος) ... έρραφθείς δ' εις τόν ηρόν του ιός έκεί τελεσφορηθηναι ... (62, 10) υθολογεΐται δ' δτι διασπασθείς ύπό τών Τιτάνων συνετέθη πάλιν ὑπὸ τῆς Ῥέας

Meisner, p. 254

Likewise, Lucius Annaeeus Cornutus (first century AD) mentions a story in which Dionysus "was put together again by Rhea." He adds that "those who transmit the myth say allegorically that the farmers, being creatures of the earth , mix up the grapes." The putting together of Dionysus' limbs represents the "flowing together of new wine".^{81 [Cornutus, Nat. deor. 30 (62.10–16).]}

Linforth pp. 316–317

Cornutus (p. 315) repeats a similar interpretation, though with him the dismemberment is the crushing of the grapes, and the pouring of all the juice into a single container is the reunion of the parts of a single body.

Diodorus Siculus

1.21.1–3

Although the priests of Osiris had from the earliest times received the account of his death as a matter not to be divulged, in the course of years it came about that through some of their number this hidden knowledge was published to the many. [2] This is the story as they give it: When Osiris was ruling over Egypt as its lawful king, he was murdered by his brother Typhon, a violent and impious man; Typhon then divided the body of the slain man into twenty-six pieces and gave one portion to each of the band of murderers, since he wanted all of them to share in the pollution and felt that in this way he would have in them steadfast supporters and defenders of his rule. [3] But Isis, the sister and wife of Osiris, avenged his murder with the aid of her son Horus, and after slaying Typhon and his accomplices became queen over Egypt.

1.23.2–8 [⊃ Orphic test. 95 Kern]

[2] ... For they say that Orpheus, upon visiting Egypt and participating in the initiation and mysteries of Dionysus, adopted them and as a favour to the descendants of Cadmus, since he was kindly disposed to them and received honours at their hands, transferred the birth of the god to Thebes; and the common people, partly out of ignorance and partly out of their desire to have the god thought to be a Greek, eagerly accepted his initiatory rites and mysteries. [3] What led Orpheus to transfer the birth and rites of the god, they say, was something like this. ... [6] ... Now at a later time Orpheus, who was held in high regard among the Greeks for his singing, initiatory rites, and instructions on things divine, was entertained as a guest by the descendants of Cadmus and accorded unusual honours in Thebes. [7] And since he had become conversant with the teachings of the Egyptians about the gods, he transferred the birth of the ancient Osiris to more recent times, and, out of regard for the descendants of Cadmus, instituted a new initiation, in the ritual of which the initiates were given the account that Dionysus had been born of Semelê and Zeus. And the people observed these initiatory rites, partly because they were deceived through their ignorance, partly because they were attracted to them by the trustworthiness of Orpheus and his reputation in such matters, and most of all because they were glad to receive the god as a Greek, which, as has been said, is what he was considered to be. [8] Later, after the writers of myths and poets had taken over this account of his ancestry, the theatres became filled with it and among following generations faith in the story grew stubborn and immutable.

3.62.5

Furthermore, the early men have given Dionysus the name of "Dimetor,"​3 reckoning it as a single and first birth when the plant is set in the ground and begins to grow, and as a second birth when it becomes laden with fruit and ripens its clusters, the god, therefore, being considered as having been born once from the earth and again from the vine.

3.62.6–8 [= Orphic fr. 301 Kern]

[6] And though the writers of myths have handed down the account of a third birth as well, at which, as they say, the Sons of Gaia⁴ tore to pieces the god, who was a son of Zeus and Demeter, and boiled him, but his members were brought together again by Demeter and he experienced a new birth as if for the first time, such accounts as this they trace back to certain causes found in nature. [7] For he is considered to be the son of Zeus and Demeter, they hold, by reason of the fact that the vine gets its growth both from the earth and from rains and so bears as its fruit the wine which is pressed out from the clusters of grapes; and the statement that he was torn to pieces, while yet a youth, by the [p289] "earth-born"⁵ signifies the harvesting of the fruit by the labourers,⁶ and the boiling of his members has been worked into a myth by reason of the fact that most men boil the wine and then mix it, thereby improving its natural aroma and quality. Again, the account of his members, which the "earth-born" treated with despite, being brought together again and restored to their former natural state, shows forth that the vine, which has been stripped of its fruit and pruned at the yearly seasons, is restored by the earth to the high level of fruitfulness which it had before. For, in general, the ancient poets and writers of myths spoke of Demeter as Gê Meter (Earth Mother). [8] And with these stories the teachings agree which are set forth in the Orphic poems and are introduced into their rites, but it is not lawful to recount them in detail to the uninitiated.

3.64.1–2

[1] The second Dionysus, the writers of myths relate, was born to Zeus by Persephonê, though some say it was Demeter. He is represented by them as the first man to have yoked oxen to the plough, human beings before that time having prepared the ground by hand. Many other things also, which are useful for agriculture, were skilfully devised by him, whereby the masses were relieved of their great distress; [2] and in return for this those whom he had [p295] benefited accorded to him honours and sacrifices like those offered to the gods, since all men were eager, because of the magnitude of his service to them, to accord to him immortality. And as a special symbol and token the painters and sculptors represented him with horns, at the same time making manifest thereby the other nature of Dionysus and also showing forth the magnitude of the service which he had devised for the farmers by his invention of the plough.

4.4.1–2

[1] Some writers of myths, however, relate that there was a second Dionysus who was much earlier in time than the one we have just mentioned. For according to them there was born of Zeus and Persephonê a Dionysus who is called by some Sabazius and whose birth and sacrifices and honours are [p351] celebrated at night and in secret, because of the disgrace resulting from the intercourse of the sexes. [2] They state also that he excelled in sagacity and was the first to attempt the yoking of oxen and by their aid to effect the sowing of the seed, this being the reason why they also represent him as wearing a horn.

4.4.5

He [Dionysus born of Semele] was also called Dimetor,¹⁶ they relate, because the two Dionysi were born of one father, but of two mothers. The younger one also inherited the deeds of the older, and so the men of later times, being unaware of the truth and being deceived because of the identity of their names thought there had been but one Dionysus.

4.5.2

He was thought to have two forms, men say, because there were two Dionysi, the ancient one having a long beard because all men in early times wore long beards, the younger one being youthful and effeminate and young, as we have mentioned before.¹⁸

4.6.3

[3] But Egyptians in their myths about Priapus say that in ancient times the Titans formed a conspiracy against Osiris and slew him, and then, taking his body and dividing it into equal parts among themselves, they slipped them secretly out of the house, but this organ alone they threw into the river, since no one of them was willing to take it with him.²² But Isis tracked down the murder of her husband, and after slaying the Titans and fashioning the several pieces of his body into the shape of a human figure,²³ she gave them to the priests with orders that they pay Osiris the honours of a god, but since the only member she was unable to recover was the organ of sex she commanded them to pay to it the honours of a god and to set it up in their temples in an erect position.²⁴

5.75.4 [= Orphic frr. 283 I (I p. 235), 311 XII Bernabé = fr. 303 Kern]

This god was born in Crete, men say, of Zeus and Persephonê, and Orpheus has handed down the tradition in the initiatory rites that he was torn in pieces by the Titans. And the fact is that there have been several who bore the name Dionysus, regarding whom we have given a detailed account at greater length in connection with the more appropriate period of time.²

2. On the three of that name, cp. Book 3. 63 ff..

Etymologicum Genuinum

s.v. Ζαγρεύς

Harder 2020a, p. 190 on line 34

34 EtGen AB s.v. Ζαγρεύc· ὁ Διόνυcοςc, παρὰ τοῖς ποιηταῖc· δοκεῖ γὰρ ὁ Ζεὺc μιχθῆναι τῇι Περcεφόνηι, ἐξ ἧc χθόνιοc ὁ Διόνυcοc. ῥητορικόν (om. B). Καλλίμαχοc 'υἷα - γειναμένη (vide etiam Massimilla 1990b, 187); ≅ EM 406, 46 sqq et EtSym. V apud Gaisford ad EM l.c.

Etymologicum Gudianum

s.v. Ζαγρεύς [= Alcmeonis fr. 3 West]

3 Et. Gud. s.v. Ζαγρεύς

ὁ μεγάλως ἀγρεύων, ὡς·

“πότνια Γῆ, Ζαγρεῦ τε θεῶν πανυπέρτατε

πάντων”,

ὁ τὴν Ἀλκμαιωνίδα γράψας ἔφη.

Cf. Ἐκλογαὶ διαφόρων ὀνομάτων, Anecd. Ox. ii 443.8.

3 Etymologicum Gudianum

Zagreus: the one who greatly hunts, as the writer of the Alcmeonis said:

“Mistress Earth, and Zagreus highest of all the

gods.”¹⁷

17 The etymologist falsely explains Zagreus’ name from za- “very” and agreuein “hunt.” In Aeschylus (frs. 5, 228) he is a god of the underworld. The line perhaps comes from a prayer in which Alcmaon called upon the powers of the earth to send up his father Amphiaraus.

Etymologicum Magnum

s.v. Zagreus

Ζαγρεύς, ὁ Διόνυσος‎, παρὰ τοῖς ποιηταῖς. δοχεῖ γὰρ ὁ Ζεὺς μιγῆναι τῇ Περσεφόνη, ἐξ ἧς χθόνιος ὁ Διόνυσος.‎ Καλλίμαχος, Ύἷα ...

Linforth, p. 310

The last text offers the occasion for some remarks about the name Zagreus. It is said that Zagreus was a name for Dionysus which was used by the poets; and a line of Callimachus is quoted as an example of the usage. Furthermore, this Dionysus-Zagreus is represented as the son of Zeus and Persephone.

Euphorion of Chalcis

fr. 14 Lightfoot [= fr. 13 Powell = fr. 12 Scheidweiler = Tzetzes on Lycophron, Alexandra 207 (Scheer, p. 98 lines 5–10) = Orphic fr. 36 Bernabé (I pp. 52–53) = fr. 210 pp. 230–231 Kern]; cf. Callimachus fr. 643 Clayman [= fr. 643 Pfeiffer]

14 Tzetzes ad Lyc. Al. 207, p. 98.5 Scheer

ἐτιμᾶτο δὲ καὶ Διόνυσος ἐν Δελφοῖς σὺν Ἀπόλλωνι οὑτωσί· οἱ Τιτᾶνες τὰ Διονύσου μέλη σπαράξαντες Ἀπόλλωνι ἀδελφῷ ὄντι αὐτοῦ παρέθεντο ἐμβαλόντες λέβητι, ὁ δὲ παρὰ τῷ τρίποδι ἀπέθετο, ὥς φησι Καλλίμαχος [fr. 643 Pf.] καὶ Εὐφορίων λέγων·

ἐν πυρὶ Βάκχον δῖον ὑπερφίαλοι ἐβάλοντο.

14 Tzetzes on Lycophron, Alexandra

Dionysus, too, was honoured in Delphi together with Apollo, in the following way. The Titans tore asunder Dionysus’ limbs, threw them into a cauldron, and set it before his brother Apollo. Apollo stowed it away beside his tripod, as we learn from Callimachus and Euphorion, who says:

In(to) the fire those arrogant beings cast divine

Bacchus.¹⁶

16 See also 40. This story was told of Dionysus’ third incarnation as Zagreus, son of Zeus and Persephone. It figured in the Orphic poems (59 F Bernabé), in which Dionysus seems to have been boiled, then reassembled by Rhea.

Linforth, p. 310

Now though the scholiast on Lycophron neither uses the name Zagreus nor mentions the parentage of Dionysus, it is not unlikely that both he and the Etymologicum Magnum are referring to the same poem of Callimachus, because the name Zagreus is sometimes used for the god who was torn to pieces by the Titans. This fact is stated explicitly in another scholium on Lycophron (355), where, after certain derivations for the [cont.]

fr. 40 Lightfoot [= fr. 36 Powell = Philodemus, On Piety 192–193 = Orphic fr. 59 I (I pp. 66–67) Bernabé = Orphic fr. 36 Kern]

40 Philodemus, περὶ Εὐσεβείας, 192–3 (ll. 4956–4969) ed. Obbink

πρώτην τού]||των τὴν ἐκ τῆς μ[ητρός]|, ἑτέραν δὲ τ[ὴν ἐκ]| τοῦ μηροῦ [Διός, τρί]|4960την δὲ τὴ[ν ὅτε δι]|ασπασθεὶς ὑ[πὸ τῶν]| Τιτάνων Ῥέ[ας τὰ]| μέλη συνθε[ίσης]| ἀνεβίω{ι}. κἀ [τῆι]|4965 Μοψοπία[ι] δ᾿ Εὐ[φορί]|ω [ὁ]μολογεῖ [τού]|τοις, [οἱ] δ᾿ Ὀρ[φικοὶ]| καὶ παντά[πασιν]| ἐνδιατρε[ίβουσιν]| [59 F Bernabé].

40 Philodemus, On Piety

The first of these (sc. births) is the one from his mother, the second from Zeus’ thigh, the third when he was torn apart by the Titans, reassembled by Rhea, and brought back to life. In the Mopsopia Euphorion agrees on these matters (or, with these people⁷³); the Orphics as a whole dwell on (these myths).

⁷³ If so, authorities for the multiple births and deaths of Dionysus cited in the lost preceding column. Henrichs (1975, 35–38) argues that Philodemus’ source probably also named Callimachus, who dealt with the dismemberment of Dionysus (fr. 643 Pf., cited together with 14) and with Dionysus’ third incarnation as Zagreus, son of Persephone and Zeus (fr. 43.117 Pf.).

Linforth, pp. 309–310

fr. 130 Lightfoot [= fr. 88 Powel, fr. 29 de Cuenca, fr. 92 van Groningen]

130 Herodian, On unique word-formation

Euphorion, in forming an adverb from a noun in –us, made the stem vowel not u, but ē:

His face was all cadaverously pale.¹⁷²

¹⁷² Or “her face”. It could refer to a face covered by chalk (cf. Nonn. D. 6. 169–170, 29.274) or pale in terror (Nietzsche’s interpretation, of the murderers of Hesiod when they discovered the innocence of their victim).

West 1983, p. 154 n. 45

If, as seems likely, the Titans were the subject of Euph. fr. 88, 'and all their faces appeared ghostly white' (πάντα δέ οἱ νεκυηδὸν ἐλευκαίνοντο πρόσωπα;

Euripides

fr. 472 Collard and Cropp (Cretan Men)

472¹

CHORUS

Pure is the life I have led since I became an initiate of Idaean Zeus and a servitor [10] of night-ranging Zagreus,⁴ performing his feasts of raw flesh; and raising torches high to the mountain Mother among the Curetes, I was consecrated and named a celebrant.⁵ In clothing all of white I shun the birthing of men, [15] and the places of their dead I do not go near;⁶ against the eating of animal foods I have guarded myself.

4 In v. 11 Porphyry’s apparent reading ‘thunders’ (instead of ‘a servitor’) is defended by some editors as alluding to thunder imitated during the rites of Zagreus-Dionysus, on whose birth amid lightning see Bacchae 3, 6–8. The reading creates very great further problems in the text.

5 Vv. 9–15 refer to the cult of Zeus at his birthplace on Mt. Ida in Crete. The Curetes (Kourētes) were ‘(guardians) of the boy (kouros)’, i.e. Zeus, both divinities themselves and worshippers impersonating them. But Euripides brings in elements from other cults: Zagreus (‘The Great Hunter’) was a son of Zeus and seemingly merged with Dionysus; ‘mountain Mother’ here seems to be Rhea, Zeus’ own mother, merged with an original Phrygian fertility goddess Cybele (cf. Palamedes F 586). Their rites were ecstatic, often nocturnal, sometimes involving dismemberment and ingestion of animals, literally or symbolically (historical at Plutarch, Moralia 417c; poetic cf. Eur. Bacchae 734–47). ‘Initiate’, ‘servitor’ (lit. ‘herdsman’, a metaphor from an outdoor cult) and ‘celebrant’ are loosely synonymous.

6 White clothing and the avoidance of birth (e.g. IT 380–3) and death were widespread religious purities. The apparent contradiction between flesh-eating (12) and vegetarianism (18–19, cf. F 1004 below) shows reality subordinated to the poetic; the latter practice was associated with Orphism (e.g. Hippolytus 952–4).

Firmicus Maternus

De errore profanarum religionum ("The Error of Pagan Religions") 6.1–5 [= fr. 214 Kern]

6.1

Forbes p. 54

But there are superstitions whose secrets must be revealed: those of Liber ...

Well then, Liber was the son of Jupiter—I mean the Jupiter who was king of Crete, In spite of being the progeny of an adulterous mother ... the murder of the child.

=⊂ fr. 304 III (I p. 248) Bernabé

sed adhuc supersunt aliae superstitiones, quarum secreta pandenda sunt: Liberi et Liberae, quae omnia sacris sensibus vestris specialiter intimanda sunt, ut et in istis profanis religionibus sciatia mortes esse hominum consecratas. Liber itaque Iovis fuit filius, regis scilicet Cretici hic cum fuisset adultera matre progenitus, nutriebatur apud patrem studiosius quam decebat. uxor Iovis cui Iunoni fuit nomen, novercalis animi furore commota ad necem infantis omnifariam parabat insidias.

6.2

Forbes p. 54

When the father was ... going abroad ... had handed over the throne ... she [Juno] stationed her minions, called Titans, ... With a rattle and mirror of ingenious workmanship ... so she beguiled the boy. First she corrupted the guards with bribes and gifts; ... let his [cont.]

Forbes p. 55

childish desires lead him to a place of ambush.

=⊂ fr. 304 III (I p. 248) Bernabé

proficiscens peregre pater quia indignationes tacitas sciebat uxoris, ne quid ab irata muliere dolo fieret, idoneis sicut sibi videbatur custodibus tutelam credidit filii. tunc Iuno opportunum insidiarum nancta tempus, et ex hoc fortius inflammata, quia proficiscens pater et sellam regni puero tradiderat et sceptrum, custodes primum regalibus praemiis muneribusque corrupit.

+ fr. 309 VII (I p. 253) Bernabé

deinde satellites suos qui Titanes vocabantur in interioribus regiae locat partibus, et crepundiis ac speculo adfabre facto ánimos ita pueriles inlexit, ut desertis regiis sedibus ad insidiarum locum puerilis animi desiderio duceretur.

6.3

Forbes p. 55

There he was intercepted and killed; and to ensure that no trace of the murder ... chopped his members up into pieces ... [the Titans] cooked the boys members in various ways and devoured them (membra consumunt) ... The boys sister Minerva (for she too was a party to the crime) saved his heart, ... When Jupiter returned, his daughter unfolded the tale of the crime.

= fr. 313 III (I p. 256) Bernabé

illic interceptus trucidatur, et ut nullum possit necis inveniri vestigium, particulatim membra concisa satellitum sibi dividit turba. tunc ut huic facinori aliud facinus adderetur, quia vehementer tyranni crudelitas timebatur, decocta variis generibus pueri membra consumunt, ut humani cadaveris inauditis usque in illum diem epulis vescerentur.

+ fr. 314 IV (I p. 257) Bernabé

cor divisum sibi soror servat, — cui Minerva fuit nomen —, quia et ipsa sceleris fuit particeps, et ut manifestum delationis esset indicium, et ut haberet unde furentis patris impetum mitigaret. reverso Iovi filia ordinem facinoris exponit.

6.4

Forbes p. 55

Thereupon the father [Jupiter], infuriated by ... and by his bitter grief, put the Titans to all manner of torture and killed them. ... he had a statue ... and the artist placed the heart ... a temple in lieu of a tomb, and as priest he appointed the boy's paedagogus.

= fr. 318 V (I p. 261) Bernabé

tunc pater funesta calamitate cladis et acerbi luctus atrocitate commotus Titanas quidem vario genere excruciatos necat, nec praetermissum est in ultione filii aut tormentum aliquod aut poena, sed per omnia poenarum genera bacchatus necem qualiscumque filii vindicavit, affectu quidem patris sed tyrannica potestate.

+ fr. 325 (I p. 267) Bernabé

tunc quia diutius pater ferre lugentis animi tormenta non poterat, et quia dolor ex orbitate veniens nullis solaciis mitigabatur, imaginem eius ex gypso plastico opere perfecit et cor pueri ex quo facinus fuerat sorore deferente detectum, in ea parte plastes conlocat qua pectoris fuerant liniamenta formata.

+⊂ fr. 332 (I p. 274) Bernabé

post haec pro tumulo exstruit templum et paedagogum pueri constituit sacerdotem.

6.5

Forbes p. 55

The latter's name was Silenus. Now the Cretans, wishing to allay the savage passion of their furious despot, established the anniversary of the death as a holiday, and arranged recurring sacred rites ... They tear a live bull with their teeth ... they howl ... feigning the insanity ... borne the basket in which ... concealed the heart, ... the tootling of flutes ... din of cymbals ... unable to have any burial and made him into a god.

= fr. 332 (I p. 274) Bernabé (⊃ 572 (II p. 137) Bernabé)

huic Silenus fuit nomen. Cretenses ut furentis tyranni saevitiam mitigarent festos funeris dies statuunt et annuum sacrum trieterica consecratione componunt, omnia per ordinem facientes quae puer moriens aut fecit aut passus est. vivum lani- ant dentibus taurum, crudeles epulas annuis commemorationibus excitantes, et per secreta silvarum clamoribus dissonis eiulantes fingunt animi furentis insaniam, ut illud facinus non per fraudem factum, sed per insaniam crede- rete. praefertur cista in qua cor soror latenter absconderat tibiarum cantu et cymbalorum tinnitu crepundia, quibus puer deceptus fuerat, metiuntur, sic in honorem tyranni a serviente plebe deus factus est qui habere non potuit sepulturam.

Linforth, p. 313

Hesychius

s.v. ζάγρη

βόθρος. λάπαθον

s.v. Ζαγρεύς.

<Ζαγρεύς>· Διόνυσος <παρὰ ποιηταῖς> ..... δοκεῖ γὰρ <ὁ Ζεὺς> μιγῆναι τῇ Περσεφόνῃ, ἐξ ἧς χθόνιος Διόνυσος

Hyginus

• Hyginus, Gaius Julius, Fabulae, in The Myths of Hyginus, edited and translated by Mary A. Grant, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1960. Online version at ToposText.

Fabulae

155 Jupiter's Children

Liber [Dionysus] by Proserpina; the Titans ripped him apart.

167 Liber

Liber, the son of Jupiter and Proserpina, was ripped apart by the Titans. Jupiter ground up his heart, put it in a potion, and gave it to Semele to drink. When she became pregnant from this, Juno took the form of Beroe, Semele's nurse, and said to her, "dear child, ask Jupiter to come to come to you as he comes to Juno, so that you may know how great a pleasure it is to lie with a god." Prodded in this fashion, she asked Jupiter to do so and was struck by a thunderbolt. Jupiter took Liber out of her whomb and gave him to Nysus to raise. This is why he is called Dionysus and twice mouthered.

Nonnus

Dionysiaca

1-15

4.268

5.562–70

Semele was kept for a more brilliant union, for already Zeus ruling on high intended to make a new Dionysos grow up, a bullshaped copy of the older Dionysos; since he thought with regret of the illfated Zagreus.^a This was a son born to Zeus in dragonbed by Persephoneia, the consort of the blackrobed king of the underworld; when Zeus put on a deceiving shape of many coils, as a gentle drakon twining around her in lovely curves, and ravished the maidenhood of unwedded Persephoneia;

^a Zagreus, a diety of unknown origin (the name pretty certainly is not Greek, possibly Phrygian), appears first in connection with Orphism, a cult which arose probably in the sixth century B.C. The son of Zeus and Persephone, he was murdered as described by Nonnos in bk. vi. No early account survives, but Pindar maifestly alludes to it, see Rose in Greek Poetry and Life, pp. 79-96. At this early period he had probably had nothing whatever to do with Dionysos, but later the idea grew up that the two were somehow identical, and Nonnos makes this identification the basis of his poem.

6.155–231

Ah, maiden Persephoneia! You could not find how to escape your mating! No, a Drakon (Dragon-Serpent) was your mate, when Zeus changed his face and came, rolling in many a loving coil through the dark to the corner of the maiden's chamber, and shaking his hairy chaps he lulled to sleep as he crept the eyes of those creatures of his own shape who guarded the door. He licked the girl's form gently with wooing lips. By this marriage with the heavenly Drakon, the womb of Persephone swelled with living fruit, and she bore Zagreus the horned baby, who by himself climbed upon the heavenly throne of Zeus and brandished lightning in his little hand, and newly born, lifted and carried thunderbolts in his tender fingers [i.e. Zeus marked him as his heir]. But he did not hold the throne of Zeus for long. By the fierce resentment of implacable Hera, the Titanes (Titans) cunningly smeared their round faces with disguising chalk, and while he contemplated his changeling countenance reflected in a mirror they destroyed him with an infernal knife. There where his limbs had been cut piecemeal by the Titan steel, the end of his life was the beginning of a new life as Dionysos. He appeared in another shape, and changed into many forms : now young like crafty Kronides (Cronides) [Zeus] shaking the aegis-cape, now as ancient Kronos (Cronus) heavy-kneed, pouring rain. Sometimes he was a curiously formed baby, sometimes like a mad youth with the flower of the first down marking his rounded chin with black. Again, a mimic lion he uttered a horrible roar in furious rage from a wild snarling throat, as he lifted a neck shadowed by a thick mane, marking his body on both sides with the self-striking whip of a tail which flickered about over his hairy back. Next, he left the shape of a lion's looks and let out a ringing neigh, now like an unbroken horse that lifts his neck on high to shake out the imperious tooth of the bit, and rubbing, whitened his cheek with hoary foam. Sometimes he poured out a whistling hiss from his mouth, a curling horned serpent covered with scales, darting out his tongue from his gaping throat, and leaping upon the grim head of some Titan encircled his neck in snaky spiral coils. Then he left the shape of the restless crawler and became a tiger with gay stripes on his body; or again like a bull emitting a counterfeit roar from his mouth he butted the Titanes with sharp horn. So he fought for his life, until Hera with jealous throat bellowed harshly through the air--that heavy-resentful step-mother! And the gates of Olympos rattled in echo to her jealous throat from high heaven. Then the bold bull collapsed: the murderers each eager for his turn with the knife chopt piecemeal the bull-shaped Dionysos [Zagreus]. After the first Dionysos had been slaughtered, Father Zeus learnt the trick of the mirror with its reflected image. He attacked the mother [Gaia the Earth] of the Titanes with avenging brand, and shut up the murderers of horned Dionysos within the gate of Tartaros [after a long war]: the trees blazed, the hair of suffering Gaia (Earth) was scorched with heat. He kindled the East: the dawnlands of Baktria (Bactria) blazed under blazing bolts, the Assyrian waves est afirethe neighbouring Kaspion (Caspian) Sea and the Indian mountains, the Red Sea rolled billows of flame and warmed Arabian Nereus. The opposite West also fiery Zeus blasted with the thunderbolt in love for his child; and under the foot of Zephyros (the West Wind) the western brine half-burn spat out a shining stream; the Northern ridges--even the surface of the frozen Northern Sea bubbled and burned: under the clime of snowy Aigokeros (Aegocerus) the Southern corner boiled with hotter sparks. Now Okeanos (Oceanus) poured rivers of tears from his watery eyes, a libation of suppliant prayer. Then Zeus clamed his wrath at the sight of the scorched earth; he pitied her, and wished to wash with water the ashes of ruin and the fiery wounds of the land. Then Rainy Zeus covered the whole sky with clouds and flooded all the earth [i.e. in the Great Deluge]."

10.294–297

you [Zeus] gave lightning to Zagreus, the first Dionysos, before he could speak plain—gave him your fiery lance and rattling thunder and showers of rain out of the sky, and he was another Rainy Zeus while yet a babbling baby!

16-35

24.43

31.28

36-48

36.119

38.206

39.71–73

I have heard how Zeus once gave his throne and the sceptre of Olympos as prerogative to Zagreus the ancient Dionysos--lightning to Zagreus, vine to wineface to Bacchos!".

44.255–257

Persephone was arming her Erinyes (Furies) [against Pentheus] for the pleasure of Dionysos Zagreus, and in wrath helping Dionysos his late born brother.

48.41

48.962

Bernabé and García-Gasco

"Nonnus and Dionysiac-Orphic Religion" in Brill's Companion to Nonnus

p. 102–104

Olympiodorus

In Plato Phaedon

1.3

HellenicGods.org

παρὰ τῶι Ὀρφεῖ τέσσαρες βασιλεῖαι παραδίδονται· πρώτη μὲν ἡ τοῦ Οὐρανοῦ, ἣν ὁ Κρόνος διεδέξατο ἐκτεμὼν τὰ αἰδοῖα τοῦ πατρός· μετὰ δὲ τὸν Κρόνον ὁ Ζεὺς ἐβασίλευσεν καταταρταρώσας τὸν πατέρα· εἶτα τὸν Δία διεδέξατο ὁ Διόνυσος, ὅν φασι κατ’ ἐπιβουλὴν τῆς Ἥρας τοὺς περὶ αὐτὸν Τιτᾶνας σπαράττειν καὶ τῶν σαρκῶν αὐτοῦ ἀπογεύεσθαι. καὶ τούτους ὀργισθεὶς ὁ Ζεὺς ἐκεραύνωσε, καὶ ἐκ τῆς αἰθάλης τῶν ἀτμῶν τῶν ἀναδοθέντων ἐξ αὐτῶν ὕλης γενομένης γενέσθαι τοὺς ἀνθρώπους. οὐ δεῖ οὖν ἐξάγειν ἡμᾶς ἑαυτούς, οὐχ ὅτι, ὡς δοκεῖ λέγειν ἡ λέξις, διότι ἔν τινι δεσμῶι ἐσμεν τῶι σώ|^{3 Norv} ματι, τοῦτο γὰρ δῆλόν ἐστι, καὶ οὐκ ἂν τοῦτο ἀπόρρητον ἔλεγεν, ἀλλ' ὅτι οὐ δεῖ ἐξάγειν ἡμᾶς ἑαυτοὺς ὡς τοῦ σώματος ἡμῶν Διονυσιακοῦ ὄντος· μέρος γὰρ αὐτοῦ ἐσμεν, εἴ γε ἐκ τῆς αἰθάλης τῶν Τιτάνων συγκείμεθα γευσαμένων τῶν σαρκῶν τούτου.

Edmonds 1999, p. 40

Then Dionysus succeeds Zeus. Through the scheme of Hera, they say, his retainers, the Titans, tear him to pieces and eat his flesh. Zeus, angered by the deed, blasts them with his thunderbolts, and from the sublimate of the vapors that rise from them comes the matter from which men are created. Therefore we must not kill ourselves, not because, as the text appears to say, we are in the body as a kind of shackle, for that is obvious, and Socrates would not call this a mystery; but we must not kill ourselves because our bodies are Dionysiac; we are, in fact, a part of him, if indeed we come about from the sublimate of the Titans who ate his flesh.¹²

12. ... (Olympiodorus In Phaed. 1.3 = OF 220).

⊃ fr. 320 I Bernabé (I p. 262)

= fr. 220 Kern

Linforth

p. 326

This portion of the story is told with more circumstantial detail by Olympiodorus in a passage which has been used as one of the foundation stones in the reconstruction of Orphism. The passage is the one in which he discusses the argument of Socrates against suicide (In Plat. Phaedon. 61 C, p. 1, 7 Norvin = Fragm. 220).

p. 327

[according to Olympiodorus] The real reason why we should not take our lives is that our body is Dionysiac; we must be a part of Dionysus if we are made of the soot from the Titans who tasted his flesh

Burkert, p. 463 n. 15

the anthropogony only occurs in Olypiod. In. Plat. Phd. p. 41 Westernick = OF 220, a text not derived from the Rhapsodies; Titans as man's ancestors in DIon Or. 30.10. and already in Hymn. Apoll. 336, cf. Plat. Leg. 701 c.

Kerenyi, p. 242

"Our body is Dionysian," Olympiodorus added; "we are part of him, since we sprang from the soot of the Titans who ate his flesh."

Spineto

p. 34

Orphic cosmogony, like Hesiod's, is partially identifiable with theogony; however, the Orphic version, unlike that of Hesiod, culminates in an anthropogony, according to a quite widely shared, common view. Orphic anthropogony is commonly considered a focal point of the doctrine, but raises general interpretive problems to the extent that there is actual explicit testimony to the latter only in one source, whose exegesis is, to a great degree, subject to debate. At issue here is a passage from a commentary of Plato's Pheado attributed to Olympiodorus, which is thought to refer to the theogony of the Sacred Discourses in 24 Rhapsodies, which probably appeared at the end of the first or the beginning of the 2nd century C.E.

p. 37

The value of the passage from Olympiodorus—the only source in which there is explicit reference to the birth of the humans from the ashes of the Titans who had fed on Dionysus—as an attestation to an Orphic belief has recently been questioned by Luc Brisson and Radcliff Edmonds.

p. 38

The conclusion [of Brisson] is that the anthropogony of Olympiodorus is not really Orphic. Edmonds's reading, a powerfully deconstructive one, confirms Brisson's but further radicalizes it to the point of considering the myth of the birth of humanity as a construction elaborated much later (in the 19th century) on the basis of Christian models. This hypothesis has been the pivotal issue in a debate, in which Alberto Bernabé has defended the traditional interpretation by arguing that the arguments for attributing an alchemical meaning to the term used by ...

West 1983, p. 164

Olympiodorus, who records this as Orpheus' story, goes on to find a deep theological significance in it. It means, according to him, that we are part of Dionysus, because the Titans had eaten of his flesh; ... This is merely Neoplatonist interpretation and is not attributed to the Orphic poet.

67 C, p. 43, 14 Norvin

=? Orfic fr. 211 Kern

Linforth, p. 315

Pausanias

7.18.4

The stories told of Dionysus by the people of Patrae, that he was reared in Mesatis and incurred there all sob of perils through the plots of the Titans,

8.37.5

From Homer the name of the Titans was taken by Onomacritus, who in the orgies he composed for Dionysus made the Titans the authors of the god's sufferings.

Philodemus

On Piety 192–3 (ll. 4956–4969) ed. Obbink

Pindar

fr. 133 Bergk [apud Plato, Meno 81bc] [= fr. 127 Bowra]

"For from whomsoever Persephone shall accept requital for ancient wrong [ποινὰν παλαιοῦ πένθεος],¹ the souls of these she restores in the ninth year to the upper sun again; from them arise” “glorious kings and men of splendid might and surpassing wisdom, and for all remaining time are they called holy heroes amongst mankind.” Pind. Fr. 133 Bergk

¹ πένθος (“affliction”) in mystic language means something like “fall” or “sin.” These lines are probably from one of Pindar's Dirges (Bergk, fr. 133).

Dodds 1951

p. 155–156

the Pindar quotation in Plato's Meno, where "the penalty of an ancient grief" is most naturally explained as referring to human responsibility [p. 156] for the slaying of Dionysus.¹³¹

Burkert 1985

p. 298

Pindar finally speaks of Persephone accepting 'requital for ancient grief' from the dead before she allows them to rise to higher existence; This grief of the goddess for which men bear the guilt can only be the death of her child Dionysos.

Edmonds 1999

p. 47

One other important piece of evidence was added to Comparetti’s original argument: a fragment, presumably from Pindar, quoted in Plato’s Meno. H. J. Rose introduced this fragment into the debate to prove the existence of an Orphic doctrine of original sin from the late Archaic age.³²

³². Rose 1936.

p. 48

“Those from whom Persephone receives the penalty of ancient grief, in the ninth year she sends back their souls to the sun above, and from them grow glorious kings and men swift with strength and great in wisdom; at the last they are called sacred heroes among men.”³³

³³ ... (Pindar fr. 133 from Plato Meno 81bc, not in Kern).

Parker 2002, "Early Orphism"

p. 496

In a fragment quoted from a 'lament', Pindar declares that the best roles in future incarnations will fall to thoes 'from whom Persephone accepts compensation for ancient grief. No myth is known which really explains the allusion except that of the murder of Persephone's son Dionysus by man's ancestors.

Rose 1936 [in folder]

Plato

Laws

3.701bc [= Orphic fr. 9 Kern]

Next after this form of liberty would come that which refuses to be subject to the rulers; and, following on that, the shirking of submission to one's parents and elders and their admonitions; then, as the penultimate stage, comes the effort to disregard the laws; while the last stage of all is to lose all respect for oaths or pledges or divinities,—wherein men display and reproduce the character of the Titans [Τιτανιχὴν φύσιν] of story, [701c] who are said to have reverted to their original state, dragging out a painful existence with never any rest from woe.

Linforth 1941

p. 339

A passage in the Laws of Plato in which a comparison is made bewtween the conduct of certain men and the conduct of the Titans has often been supposed to contain an allusion to the myth of the dismemberment.

p. 342

The lines, thus construed and interpreted, may be translated as follows: those in the last stage of degeneracy "exhibit and imitate the essential character of the Titans of old, which we hear of in story—having arrived at a state where they reproduce their behavior, they lead a life of wretchedness and unbroken misery."

Dodds 1951, p. 156

Thirdly, in one passage of Laws Plato refers to people who "show off the old Titan nature"

Edmonds 1999

p. 43

Many scholars argue that the evidence of a reference in Plato’s Laws to a Titanic nature, Τιτανιχὴν φύσιν, places the doctrine of an inherited original sin (and thus, necessarily, an anthropogony) back into the Classical era:

Next on this path to liberty would be the wish not to submit to the rulers; and, following this, to flee the service and authority of father and mother and the elders; and, near the end, to seek not to obey the laws, and, at the end itself, to pay no mind to oaths and promises and the entirety of the gods, displaying and imitating the fabled ancient Titanic nature, wherein they return to the same things, experiencing a savage time, never to cease from evils.²⁴

p. 44

In this passage, Plato describes a progressive degeneration of society, culminating in the disregard of oaths and lack of respect for the gods—in short, behavior just like that of the Titans, a return to the savage state of those early mythic times.

Bussanich 2013, "Rebirth Eschatology in Plato and Plotinus" p. 254

The punishment alluded to here and in related Platonic passages (Crat. 400c and Laws³³) has usually been interpreted in terms of Orphic anthropogony embedded in the myth of Zagreus, which is first attested in the third century BCE

Parker 2002, "Early Orphism"

p. 496

Again Plato speaks of decadant individuals as 'displaying the so-called ancient Titanic nature';

Edmonds 2013, pp. 326–334

Parker 2013

Edmonds does not counter Dodds’ point (The Greeks and the Irrational, 176 n. 132) that in Laws 701b-c Plato speaks of men reverting to ‘the so-called old Titanic nature’, as if it were originally theirs; Cicero’s view (Leg. 3.2.5 ) that the reference is to the Titanomachy, not to a myth of our descent from the Titans, cannot, pace p. 329, determine what Plato intended.

Plutarch

Moralia

The E at Delphi (de E apud Delphos)

389 A

And as for his turning into winds and water, earth and stars, and into the generations of plants and animals, and his adoption of such guises, they speak in a deceptive way of what he undergoes in his transformation as a tearing apart, as it were, and a dismemberment. They give him the names of Dionysus, Zagreus, Nyctelius, and Isodaetes; they construct destructions and disappearances, followed by returns to life and regenerations—riddles and fabulous tales quite in keeping with the aforesaid transformations.

On the Eating of Flesh (de esu carnium) I

996 B–C

[B] ... οὐ χεῖρον δ᾿ ἴσως καὶ προανακρούσασθαι καὶ προαναφωνῆσαι τὰ τοῦ Ἐμπεδοκλέους· . . . ἀλληγορεῖ γὰρ ἐνταῦθα τὰς ψυχάς, ὅτι φόνων καὶ βρώσεως σαρκῶν καὶ ἀλληλοφαγίας Cδίκην τίνουσαι σώμασι [~C] θνητοῖς ἐνδέδενται. καίτοι δοκεῖ παλαιότερος οὗτος ὁ λόγος εἶναι· τὰ γὰρ δὴ περὶ τὸν Διόνυσον μεμυθευμένα πάθη τοῦ διαμελισμοῦ καὶ τὰ Τιτάνων ἐπ᾿ αὐτὸν τολμήματα, κολάσεις τε τούτων καὶ κεραυνώσεις γευσαμένων τοῦ φόνου, ᾐνιγμένος5 ἐστὶ μῦθος εἰς τὴν παλιγγενεσίαν· τὸ γὰρ ἐν ἡμῖν ἄλογον καὶ ἄτακτον καὶ βίαιον οὐ θεῖον ἀλλὰ δαιμονικὸν ὂν1 οἱ παλαιοὶ Τιτᾶνας ὠνόμασαν, καὶ τοῦτ᾿ ἔστι κολαζομένους καὶ δίκην διδόντας. . . .

Yet perhaps it is not unsuitable to set the pitch and announce the theme by quoting some verses of Empedocles.^d . . . By these lines he means, though he does not say so directly, that human souls are imprisoned in mortal bodies as a punishment for murder, the eating of animal flesh, and cannibalism. This doctrine, however, seems to be even older, for the stories told about the sufferings and dismemberment of Dionysus^e and the outrageous assaults of the Titans upon him, and their punishment and blasting by thunderbolt after they had tasted his blood—all this is a myth which in its inner meaning has to do with rebirth. For to that faculty in us which is unreasonable and disordered and violent, and does not come from the gods, but from evil spirits, the ancients gave the name Titans,^a that is to say, those that are punished and subjected to correction. . . .^b

^d The verses have fallen out, but may be, in part, those quoted infra, 998 C, or a similar passage.

^e See I. M. Linforth, The Arts of Orpheus, chapter 5, “The Dismemberment of Dionysus,” and especially pp. 334 ff., on this passage. A good illustration is the fragment of Dionysius in D. L. Page, Greek Literary Papyri, i (L.C.L.), pp. 538–541.

^a See Hesiod’s etymology, Theogony, 209 f. For this “Greek equivalent of original sin” see Shorey on Plato, Laws, 701 c (What Plato Said, p. 629), Mor. 975 b supra; and Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational, pp. 155 and 177.

^b The first discourse breaks off at this point

≅ fr. 318 II Bernabé (I p. 260)

... τὰ γὰρ δὴ περὶ τὸν Διόνυσον μεμυθευμένα πάθη τοῦ διαμελισμοῦ καὶ τὰ Τιτάνων ἐπ᾿ αὐτὸν τολμήματα, [sans "κολάσεις τε τούτων καὶ κεραυνώσεις"] γευσαμένων τοῦ φόνου, ᾐνιγμένος5 ἐστὶ μῦθος εἰς τὴν παλιγγενεσίαν· ...

~⊃ fr. 313 I Bernabé (I p. 256)

τὰ γὰρ δὴ περὶ τὸν Διόνυσον μεμυθευμένα πάθη τοῦ διαμελισμοῦ καὶ τὰ Τιτάνων ἐπ᾿ αὐτὸν τολμήματα, [sans "κολάσεις τε τούτων καὶ κεραυνώσεις"] γευσαμένων χαι [vs. τοῦ]

⊃ fr. 210 p. 231 Kern

Edmonds, p. 45

It would perhaps not be wrong to begin and quote lines of Empedokles as a preface. . . . For here he says allegorically that souls, paying the penalty for murders and the eating of flesh and cannibalism, are imprisoned in mortal bodies. However, it seems that this account is even older, for the legendary suffering of dismemberment told about Dionysos and the outrages of the Titans on him, and their punishment and their being blasted with lightning after having tasted of the blood, this is all a myth, in its hidden inner meaning, about reincarnation. For that in us which is irrational and disorderly and violent and not divine but demonic, the ancients used the name, “Titans,” and the myth is about being punished and paying the penalty.²⁷

Linforth 1941, pp. 334 ff.

Proclus

Hymn to Athena

13–24

Once by thy care, as sacred poets sing,

The heart of Bacchus, swiftly-slaughter’d king,

Was sav’d in æther, when, with fury fir’d, 15

The Titans fell against his life conspir’d;

And with relentless rage and thirst for gore,

Their hands his members into fragments tore:

But ever watchful of thy father’s will,

Thy pow’r preserv’d him from succeeding ill, 20

Till from the secret counsels of his sire,

And born from Semele through heav’nly fire,

Great Dionysius to the world at length

Again appear’d with renovated strength.

On Plato, Cratylus

396B (Duvick, p. 58)

Presumably because, while the regal series of gods originates with Phanes, but extends as far as our lord Dionysus and hands down the same sceptre from above all the way to the lowest kingdom (Orph. fr. 154) [= Orphic fr. 151 Kern?]

396B (Duvick, p. 59)

Also Dionysus, the last King of the gods, receives it thus from Zeus. For the Father seats him on the regal throne, puts the sceptre in his hand and makes him King of all the encosmic gods together.

Listen, gods: I give you this King (Orph. fr. 208), [= Orphic fr. 208]

406c (Duvick p. 104)

182 'The theologians often call our lord Dionysus "wine" (oinos) specifically after his lowest gifts. Orpheus says, for example,

Instead of one, they imposed a triple root on Wine (fr. 216),

and again,

Take all parts of Wine in the cosmos and bring them to me (ibid.),

and in turn,

She was indignant with Wine, the son of Zeus (ibid.). [= Orphic fr. 216c]

On Plato, Rebublic

2.338, 10-14 [= Orphic fr. 224]

Spineto, p. 36

"All this is given to us by Orphic theology. Or maybe it isn't true that Orpheus clearly enunciates his doctrines when, after the punishment of the Titans, he speaks of the manner in which the living are derived from the Titans.?"

On Plato, Timaeus

Taylor 1820a, p. 145 (= Orphic fr. 215)

[24e] but through that of the Atlantics, to the Titanic Gods. For the mighty Atlas was one of the Titans. Theologists also after the laceration of Bacchus which manifests the divisible progression into the universe under Jupiter from the impartible fabrication, say that the other Titans had different allotments, but that Atlas was established in the western parts, sustaining the heavens.

Taylor 1820a, pp. 344–345 (= Orphic fr. 199)

[30b] Nor does Plato speak after this manner, and Orpheus after another;713 but if it be requisite to give my opinion, the conceptions of the theologist become manifest through what is here said. For Ippa who is the soul of the universe, and is thus called by the theologist, perhaps because her intellectual conceptions are essentialized in the most vigorous motions, or perhaps on account of the most rapid lation of the universe, of which she is the cause, placing a testaceous vessel on her head, and encircling the fig leaves that bind her temples, with a dragon, receives Dionysius [or Bacchus]. For with the most divine part of herself, she becomes the receptacle of an intellectual essence, and receives the mundane intellect, which proceeds into her from the thigh of Jupiter. For there it was united with Jupiter, but proceeding from thence and becoming participable by her, it elevates her to the intelligible, and to the fountain of her nature. For she hastens to the mother of the Gods, and to mount Ida,714 from which all the series of souls is derived. Hence also, Ippa is said to have received Dionysius when he was brought forth from Jupiter. For as Plato before observed,715 it is impossible for intellect to accede to any thing without soul. But this is similar to what is asserted by Orpheus; by whom also Dionysius is called "the sweet offspring of Jupiter." This however, is the mundane intellect, which proceeds into light conformably to the intellect that abides in Jupiter. Thus too, the divinely delivered theology [of the Chaldeans] says, that the world derives its completion from these three things [viz. from intellect, soul and body]. Soul therefore says [in the Chaldean Oracles,716] concerning Jupiter fabricating the universe: "I soul reside after the paternal conceptions, hot, and animating all things. For the father of Gods and men placed our intellect in soul, but soul he deposited in sluggish body." Plato likewise, bears testimony to the Oracles, when he calls the Demiurgus father, and represents him generating souls, and sending them into the generation of men according to the first life.717 And thus much concerning these particulars. Since however, as we have said, both soul and intellect give completion to one animal, Plato appears to me to use very appropriately the words to constitute and co-fabricate, through the common preposition syn in both, [p.345] exhibiting the union of the universe. For by always making diviner to be more comprehensive than less excellent natures, he causes the world to become one; but through the forms in each he manifests in the one composition, but in the other demiurgic art.

Taylor 1820b, pp. 37–38 (= Orphic fr. 210 pp. 228–229 Kern) (= II 145 18 Diehl) See also

[35a] He says, however, that all the other fabrications of the God, were distributed into parts by the deities who are of a dividing characteristic; but that the heart alone was undivided through the providence of Minerva. For since he constituted intellects, souls, and bodies, but souls and bodies receive much division and separation into parts in themselves, and intellect remains united and indivisible, being all things in one, and comprehending intelligible wholes in one intellection; hence he says, that the intellectual essence alone, and the intellectual number, were left preserved by Minerva. For he says,

The intellectual heart alone remain'd.

Clearly calling it intellectual. If therefore the undivided heart is intellectual, it will evidently be intellect and an intellectual number, yet not every intellect, but that which is mundane. For this is the undivided heart; since of this also [p.38] the divided God was the Demiurgus. Orpheus, therefore, calls the intellect of Bacchus, the impartible essence of the God. But he denominates his genitals, the life which is divisible about body; this being physical and productive of seeds. This also he says Diana, who presides over all the generation in nature,86 and obstetricates physical reasons, extends as far as to the subterranean realms, distributing the prolific power of Bacchus. But all the remaining body of the God, forms the psychical composition, this likewise being divided into seven parts.

All the seven parts they scatter'd of the boy;

says the theologist concerning the Titans; just as Timaeus also divides the soul into seven parts. Perhaps too he reminds us of the Orphic Titanic distribution into parts, when he says that the soul is extended through the whole world; through which the soul not only circularly covers the universe as with a veil, but likewise is extended through the whole of it. Hence, Plato very properly calls the essence which is proximately above soul, impartible. And, in short, he thus denominates the intellect which is participated by the soul, following the Orphic fables, and wishing to be as it were, the interpreter of arcane and mystical assertions.

Taylor 1820b, pp. 37–38

[35b] For the hebdomad (group of seven) is a number common to both these divinities, since theologists also say that Bacchus (Διόνυσος) was divided into seven parts:

‘Into seven parts the Titans cut the boy.’

And they refer the heptad (group of seven) to Apollo, as containing all symphonies (harmonies, συμφωνίας). For the duple (two beats) diapason (grand burst of harmony) first subsists in the monad (1), duad (2), and tetrad (4), of which numbers the hebdomad consists.

Orphic fr. 207

[42d] For theologists give this appellation to Bacchus,886 who is the monad of all the second fabrication. For Jupiter established him the king of all the mundane Gods, and distributed to him the first honours,

Tho' young the God, and but an infant guest.887

Orph. fr. 191

On this account also, theologists are accustomed to call the sun a recent God, and Heraclitus says that the sun is a diurnal youth, as participating of Dionysiacal power.

Orphic fr. 218

[42e] For what Orpheus says of the monad of the junior Gods,

Though all things by the father Jove were form'd,

Yet their completion they to Bacchus owe;

Fr. 192

Suda

s.v. Ζαγρεύς (Zagreus)

Ζαγρεύς: ὁ Διόνυσος παρὰ ποιηταῖς. δοκεῖ γὰρ ὁ Ζεὺς μιχθῆναι τῇ Περσεφόνῃ, ἐξ ἧς χθόνιος Διόνυσος.

[Another name for] Dionysos in poets. For Zeus, it seems, had intercourse with Persephone, and she gave birth to chthonic Dionysos.

Notes:

Same entry in Hesychius and Photius.

LSJ s.v.: 'son of Zeus and Persephone, slain by the Titans and resuscitated as Dionysius'. The lexicographers' 'poets' include Alcmaeon, Aeschylus, Euripides, Callimachus and Nonnus.

The epithet Zagraios is also attested.

Tzetzes

Scholiast on Lycophron Alexandra (= Cassandra) 355 p. 553 Müller

Scheer, p. 137

Linforth, p. 310–311

Now though the scholiast on Lycophron neither uses the name Zagreus nor mentions the parentage of Dionysus, it is not unlikely that both he and the Etymologicum Magnum are referring to the same poem of Callimachus, because the name Zagreus is sometimes used for the god who was torn to pieces by the Titans. This fact is stated explicitly in another scholium on Lycophron (355), where, after certain derivations for the name Pallas have been mentioned, another possible one is offered, thus: ῆ παρὰ τὸ παλλομένην ...

Xenocrates

fr. 20 Heinze [= Damascius, In Phaedo 1.2 (formerly attributed to Olympiodorus)]

Linforth, pp. 337–339

If the statement is to be trusted, Xenocrates interpreted φρονρά as in some sense Titanic. The exact sense of the condensed phrase εὶς Διόνυσον ἀποκορυφοῦται is obscure. It seems to mean that the full significance of the Titanic prison is to be discovered in the myth of Dionysus. In any case, there can be no doubt that there is an allusion to [p. 338] to the myth of the dismemberment.

Dodds 1951

p. 156

And fourthly we are told that Plato's pupil Xencrates somehow connected the notion of the body as a "prison" with Dionysus and the Titans.¹³⁴

West 1983, pp. 21–22

p. 21

Plato's pupil Xenocrates, however is cited for information that the imprisonment [mentioned by Plato] was 'Titanic', in other words, analogous to the imprisonment of the Titans.⁵³

⁵³ Fr. 20 Heinze, I see no reason to regard the phrase that follows Τιτανική ἐστι in 'Olympiodorus', καὶ εὶς Διόνυσον ἀποκορυφοῦται, as part of the citation from Xenocrates.

Burkert 1985, p. 298

No indisputable evidence leads back into the pre-Hellenistic epoch, yet there are numerous indirect indications that the myth was well known. Xenocrates, Plato's disciple, reffered to Dionysus and the Titans to explain a famous passage from Plato's Phaedo.

Seaford 1986

pp. 8–9

Xenocrates, who appears to have held the view, or at least to have adduced it in explanation of Plato Phaedo [p. 9] 62b, that the Titans are imprisoned in mankind,³¹

³¹Fr. 20 Heinze (the reference to Dionysos is not necessarily Xenocarates': see West [above, n. 14] 21 n. 53).

Edmonds 1999, p. 46

"We are in some kind of custody (φρούρα): Using these principles, we shall easily prove that ‘the custody’ is not the Good, as some say, nor pleasure, as Noumenios would have it, nor the Demiurge, as Paterios says, but rather, as Xenokrates has it, that it is Titanic and culminates in Dionysos."³⁰ Xenokrates apparently made some connection between the φρούρα of Plato and the myth of the Titans and Dionysos. Damascius’ summary of Xenokrates’ idea gives no clue as to what the connection might have been, but it seems likely that Xenokrates, like Plutarch, was explaining the myth as an allegory of the punishment of a human soul that eats meat. Linforth comments, “In any case, the idea that men were born from Titans is clearly avoided by Plutarch; and that it was also avoided by Xenocrates is made the more likely by the fact that according to his view (fr. 59 Heinze), as we learn from Censorinus, the human race had existed forever.”³¹

³¹ Linforth 1941:339. Brisson 1992:497 concurs: “ Or, la version de la the ́ogonie orphique, connue par Xe ́nocrate et par Platon, ne se terminait pas sur une anthropogonie, comme semble le laisser supposer l’analyse du passage de Plutarque qui y fait allusion.”

Parker 2002, "Early Orphism"

p. 496

Xenocrates, commenting on his master's allusion to the Orphic doctrine of the body as prison-house, explained—a little obscurely, it is true—that the prison was "Titanic and culminated in Dionysus'.⁶⁰

p. 508

⁶⁰ Pindar fr. 123 Snell; Plato, Laws 701c (cf. 854b); Xenokrates fr. 20 Heinze: for details (and for the sceptics), see Dodds, Greek and the Irrational, 155-6, with notes, whom I follow closely; also see A. Cameron, AJA 46 (1942), 457-8. Other views of these passages continue to be expressed, however: see West, Orphic Poems 21. n. 53; Alderink, Creation and Salvation in Ancient Orphism, 65-74; R. Seaford, HSPb 90 (1986), 7-8; but cf. Casadio, Orpheus 1987, 393; SMSR 1986, 296.

Modern

Brill's New Pauly

s.v. Zagreus

(Ζαγρεύς/Zagreús). The name Z. (or 'Dionysus Z.') is used as a useful if also problematic term for Dionysus, the son of Zeus (and the daughter of Zeus Persephone) who, according to the Orphic anthropogony (Orphism), had been killed and eaten as a small child by the Titans. Ancient lexica cite Callimachus's Aítia (fr. 43,177) as the sole source for the epiclesis of Dionysus Z.; but this is not used until the 6th cent. AD (in Ps.-Nonnus, Commentaria in Greg. Naz. Serm. 5,30 Nimmo Smith) in the context of the Z. myth. The name, which does not occur in surviving orphic texts, was evidently also ignored by the most important later Orphic-theogonic text, the 'Rhapsodia' (Orphism II A; 1st/2nd cent. AD). However, in the context of dismemberment by gods, Plutarch cites Z. as another name for Dionysus in his connection with Delphic theology (Plut. De E 9,389a).

On the original nature of Z., there can, as there could in Antiquity, only be speculation. Lexica interpret the name as 'great hunter'; the Greek word ζάγρη/zágrē means 'pitfall'. It is possible that Z. was a local master of animals who was identified with Hades [3]/Pluto: Both the Alcmaeonis (fr. 3 Bernabé, c. 600 BC) and Aeschylus (fr. 5 and 228 Radt) portray Z. as an Underworld deity. Euripides associated a ritual of Z. Nuktipólos, 'night-bird', connected with the consumption of raw meat, with the ecstatic cult of Idaean Zeus (Eur. Kretes TGF 472 Z. 9 = Porph. De abstinentia 4,19 Patillon-Segonds; [1]).

The Orphic Z. myth has been interpreted as a neo-Platonic or even modern fiction [2]. Even if it should rather be described as a 'myth of the murdered child Dionysus' there is no cause for such a Pyrrhic conclusion [3].

Gordon, Richard L. (Ilmmünster)

Bibliography

1 G. Casadio, I Cretesi di Euripide e l'ascesi orfica, in: V. F. Cicerone (ed.), Didattica del classico, 1990, 278-310

2 R. Edmonds, Tearing Apart the Zagreus Myth, in: Classical Antiquity 18, 1999, 35-73

3 A. Bernabé, La toile de Pénélope, in: RHR 219, 2002.

W. Fauth, s. v. Z., RE 9 A 2, 2221-2283

T. Gantz, Early Greek Myth, 1993, 118 f.

H. Jeanmaire, Dionysos, 1951, 272 f.

Edmonds 2013

p. 297

Scolars weave together four strands into this central mythic narrative: the dismemberment of Dionysos Zagreus by the Titans, the punishment of the Titans by Zeus, the generation of human beings from the ashes of the lightening-blasted Titans, and the burden of guilt that human beings inherited from their titan ancestors because of original sin. I argue to the contrary that this "Zagreus myth" (as I will refer to this construct of the four elements) is a modern fiction ...

Edmonds 2015

s.v. Zagreus

The ancient lexica (Etymologicum Magnum, Photius, Hesychius, Suda) identify Zagreus as a poetic name for Dionysus in a chthonic aspect, χθόνιος Διόνυσος‎, and he is invoked along with Gē (Earth), in the early, lost epic Alkmaionis (fr. 3 Bernabé). Other early evidence identifies Zagreus as an underworld deity, Plouton or the son of Hades. In the Sisyphos (fr. 228 TrGF), he is the son of Hades, while the fragment from Aeschylus’s Aigyptioi identifies him as the savage Zeus of the deceased (fr. 5 TrGF, cp. Supp. 157). The name “Zagreus” here seems to be understood as the “mighty hunter” (ὁ μεγάλως ἀγρεύων‎ in Etymologicum Gudianum) who snatches away mortals into the kingdom of the dead, hence the application of the euphemistic epithet of the lord of the dead, the “host of many,” πολυξενώτατος‎.

In other sources, Zagreus is chthonic because of his mother, Persephone, queen of the underworld, a genealogy first attested in a fragment of the Hellenistic poet Callimachus (Aetia fr. 43.117). When Persephone is mentioned as his mother, Zeus is generally named as the father, rather than Hades, and the god is identified as a form of Dionysus. The scholiast to Clement of Alexandria (schol. Clem. Al., Protr. 3.18, 21) identifies Zagreus with Sabazius, another form of ecstatic Dionysus often associated with the Mother of the Gods and the Curetes or Corybantes, noting that he is called “bull-formed” because of his extreme wildness. Such a figure may be the one mentioned in a fragment of Euripides quoted by Porphyry (De abstinentia 4.19.16 = Eur. Fr. 472 TrGF). The Chorus proclaims the purity of its life after having partaken of mystery rituals involving Idaian Zeus, the Mountain Mother, the Kouretes, and night-wandering Zagreus, rituals that involve the savage feast of raw flesh, a motif that appears in other Dionysiac contexts.

While Zagreus appears in the company of Mother Earth and the Mountain Mother in some sources, in others he is associated with Demeter, the mother of his mother Persephone. The scholiast to Pindar’s 7th Isthmian ode identifies the Dionysus who sits beside Demeter as Zagreus, the child of Persephone, whom others call Iacchus (schol.vet. I.7 3a). Iacchus appears in the Eleusinian context as a Dionysiac figure in attendance upon the goddesses Demeter and Persephone. The scholia on Aristophanes’s Frogs note that some identify Iacchus with Zagreus and some with Dionysus. So too, some call the child of Persephone “Iacchus,” and some “Dionysus” (schol. vet. Ran. 398, Tzetz. ad Ran. 316).

In all this evidence, then, Zagreus appears as a Dionysiac figure most often associated with a chthonic mother figure, whether his own mother Persephone, or her mother Demeter, or even the Mother of the Gods, the Mountain Mother or Mother Earth (Gē). The scholiast to Pindar, like the Byzantine scholiast Tzetzes, explains the association of Dionysus Zagreus with Demeter in terms of the pairing of liquid wine with the dry food of Demeter, an allegorical explanation of the two deities that appears as early as the 5th-century bce sophist Prodicus. Diodorus Siculus (3.62.6) preserves an account of the multiple births of Dionysus and his association with Demeter as an allegory for the process of making wine from the fruit of the vine that grows from the earth, an account that incorporates the myth of the dismemberment of Dionysus as part of the process by which grapes are transformed into wine.

The tale of the dismemberment of Dionysus was also understood, in the Platonic tradition, as an allegory for diakosmesis, the process by which the One divine substance becomes divided into many different things, creating the entire cosmic order. Although this dismemberment myth becomes a favorite among the Neoplatonists, Plutarch (de E apud Delphos 389a) is the only source ever to mention the name of Zagreus in connection with this story before the 6th-century ce epic of Nonnus (cf. also brief summaries of the tale in the scholia on the 5th Oration of Gregory Nazianzus, attributed to Nonnus, historia 30, and on Lycophron 355.6). In his Dionysiaca, Nonnus attempts to bring together all the stories in the Greek mythic tradition about Dionysus, so, in order to eliminate the inconsistencies and contradictions, he makes Zagreus the first Dionysus, who, after he is dismembered by the Titans, is reborn as the child of Semele. Other systematizing mythographers arrange the lives and deaths of Dionysus in different orders, and the very problem with this systematization shows that the different myths about Dionysus and his vicissitudes were not consistent with one another. However, Nonnus’s version, which preserves a more complete telling of the dismemberment story than any other extant version (and which mentions the name of Zagreus more than all of the rest of the sources for the name combined), becomes the basis for the reception of the dismemberment story in 19th- and 20th- century scholarship.

In this scholarship, Zagreus is transformed from an obscure epithet to the central redemptive figure in Orphism, imagined as a kind of proto-Christianity, to the extent that some scholars even imagine rituals commemorating the death of Dionysus Zagreus by partaking of the dismembered flesh and blood of the slain god. The importance of the dismemberment story to the Neoplatonic discussions of diakosmesis and their reliance on the authority of Orphic poetry for the tale is misinterpreted in terms of a supposed myth of the sufferings of Dionysus Zagreus at the hands of the Titans and his rebirth, which is imagined to provide the crucial doctrine of the origin of mankind stained with the crime of the Titans. Although the name of Zagreus never appears in any text attributed to Orpheus or discussions of his poems by other ancient sources, Nonnus’s choice of the name for the dismembered Dionysus dominates 20th-century scholarship on Orphism, and Zagreus becomes known as the “Orphic Dionysus.” The figure of Zagreus (and the construct of Orphism he represents) played an important part in the debates over the history of religion in early 20th-century scholarship, but the excesses of this scholarship have since been discredited. Although some scholars still retain the idea of Orphism as a coherent religious movement centred on the idea of mankind stained with Titanic guilt, the name of Zagreus is no longer associated with Orphism.

Gantz

p. 118

Zagreus, a figure also at times identified with Dionysus, is a more complicated matter. His name survives first in the epic Alkmaionis, where he is paired with Gaia as a powerful god (fr 3 PEG). Aischylos in one of his Sisyphos plays seems to have made him a personage of the Underworld with Hades (quite possibly his son: fr 228 R), but in the Aigyptioi (or Hiketides?) Hades himself (fr 5 R). In his Kretes Euripides offers a chorus of Kretan mystaia ("initiates") who have become mystai of Idaian Zeus and herdsman of "night-wandering Zagreus, celebrating the feasts of raw flesh," so that, holding up torches for the mountain mother, they acquire the title "Bakchos" (fr 79 Aus, revised from 472 N²; this and the rest of the context may suggest some fusion with Dionysos. That link would seem definite by the time of Kallimachos, who somewhere refers to the birth of Dionysos Zagreus (fr 43.117 Pf and apparatus); the Byzantine sources for this quote add that "Zagreus" is the poets' name for Dionysos, Zeus having mated with Persephone to create a Dionysos who is chthonios. One might suppose such an alter ego of the wine god ideally suited to the Orphic notion of the child torn apart by Titans and reborn, since it provides a separate identity for Dionysos born of Persephone. But in fact the Orphic sources preserved seem not to use the name "Zagreus" in this (or any other) context. Kallimachos, on the other hand may well have done so, given that the Byzantine works in question clearly refer that child before quoting his line on Dionysus-Zagreus' birth; we know in fact that he did relate [cont.]

p. 119

The tale of the dismemberment (fr. 643 Pf; so too Euphorion).^{75 [That Kallimachos probably did call the child Zagreus is endorsed by West (1983, p. 154), who argues for a verbal borrowing of fr. 43.117 Pf by Nonnos at 6.165.]} Certain in any case are Nonnos (5.563–67; 6.206–10) and the Lyko[hron scholia (at 355) as places where the child's name (or one of the names, together with Dionysos) is Zagreus. From such evidence it seems likely that the fusion of Zagreus with Dionysus-as-dismembered-child is a secondary development, and that originally he may well have been a son of Hades and Persephone (though Hades’ identity as Zeus’ ‘’katachthonios’’ alter ego might lead us back to Zeus after all).

Guthrie

p. 82

By Rhea (identified in the Orphic poem with Demeter: 'Aforetime Rhea, but when she came to be called mother of Zeus she became Demeter' (145)) he has a daughter Kore-Persephone ... to Zeus she bore Dionysos, the last to rule over the gods. (See App. 2, pp. 133 ff. below.) To him Zeus handed over power, 'for all he was young and but a greedy infant' (207). He set him on his throne and put his own sceptre in his hand, and said to the new generation of gods: 'Give ear ye gods; this one I have made your king.' (208). But the Titans, who of course had also found life again in the new order created by Zeus (210), were jealous of the child, and plotted against him. According to some authorities they were incited by Hera, the lawful wife of Zeus, to attack the son of another mother. With mirror and other playthings they distracted his infant mind, and while he played slew him and tore his body in pieces. His limbs were collected by Apollo at Zeus's orders and taken to Delphi (210, 211). The heart was saved by Athena, who brought it to Zeus that Zeus might cause Dionysus to be reborn. Alive again, he remains for the Orphics the supreme object of worship. We remember too that Phanes himself was also called Dionysos, so that in reality he has existed from the begining of all, one god thrice-born, Dionysos-Phanes, DIonysos-Zagreus (as Titan's victim is sometimes called, though not frequently in the extant authorities), and Dionysus the resurrected.

p. 83

[when the Titan's] had slain the infant Dionysos, they tasted of his flesh. In wrath at the outrage Zeus launched a thunderbolt at them and burned them up, and from ...

p. 107

We come now to what must have been for a worshipper the central point of Orphic story, the tales of Dionysos son of Zeus and his sufferings. ...

pp. 108–120

Hard

p. 35

Kerrenyi

p. 82

In Greek, a hunter who catches living animals is called zagreus. Later Greek scholars interpret the name as "great hunter" by analogy with zatheos, "thoroughly divine."¹⁰⁰ But the Ionian word zagre,¹⁰¹ signifying "pit for the capture of live animals," proves that the name contains the root zoë and zoön, "life" and "living thing." An exact translation of "Zagreus" would be "catcher of game."

¹⁰⁰ Etymologicum Gudianum s.v. Ζαγρεύς.

¹⁰¹ In Hescyhios the ending is Ionic: Ζαγρη, βόθρος, λάπαθον.

p. 83

We may justifiably ask," observes Kerényi, "why was this great mythical hunter, who in Greece became a mysterious god of the underworld, a capturer of [cont.]

p. 84

wild animals and not a killer?"

p. 238

p. 242

Thus it is not simply stated as a "central dogma of Orphic theology,"¹⁶³ that the human race rose from the ashes of the Titans.

¹⁶³ Kern, Orpheus, p. 43: Orphiker auf Kreta, p. 554.

Kern

"The Orphic Fragments of Otto Kern" HellenicGods.org

test. 95

⊂ Diodorus Siculus 1.23.2–8

= fr. 327 IV (I pp. 268–269) Bernabé

HellenicGods.org

frr. 9-209

fr. 9

= Plato, Laws 3.701bc

HellenicGods.org

fr. 34

= Clement of Alexandria, Protrepticus 2.17.2–18.1 (Butterworth, pp. 36–39 15 P.)

+ Arnobius, Adversus Gentes 5.19 (p. 242)

= frr. 306 I, II (I pp. 249–250) Bernabé

⊃ frr. 312 III (I p. 256), 318 VII (I p. 261), 588 I, II (II p. 169) Bernabé

HellenicGods.org

fr. 35

= Clement of Alexandria, Protrepticus 2.18.1–2 (Butterworth, pp. 38, 39 15 P.)

= frr. 312 I (I p. 256), 315 I (I p. 257), 318 I (I p. 260), 322 I (p. 265) Bernabé

HellenicGods.org

fr. 36

= Philodemus, On Piety 192–193

= Euphorion fr. 40 Lightfoot

= Orphic fr. 59 I (I pp. 66–67) Bernabé

HellenicGods.org

Wedderburn, p. 194 n. 5

Euphorion ... knew of Rhea's puttiing the limbs together, as did Philodemus (De pietata 44=Orph. Fr. 36). Diod. S. 3.62.6 tells of Dionysus' third γένεσις when Demeter gathered his limbs. (Philodemus also seems to know of an Orphic tradition that Dionysus remained in Hades: Orph. Fr. ibid.; Clem. Alex., Prot. 2.18.2 and Eus., Praep. ev. 2.3.25 speak of Dionysus' remains being given to Apollo to bury — hence presumably the tradition of his burial at Delphi; cf. Jeanmaire, Dionysos 381).

fr. 58

= Athenagoras of Athens, Legatio 20

HellenicGods.org

Pratten

...of the daughter of Zeus, whom he begat of his mother Rhea; or of Demeter, as having two eyes in the natural order, and two in her forehead, and the face of an animal on the back part of her neck, and as having also horns, so that Rhea, frightened at her monster of a child, fled from her, and did not give her the breast (θηλή), whence mystically she is called Athêlâ, but commonly Phersephoné and Koré, though she is not the same as Athênâ,[65] who is called Koré from the pupil of the eye; ... how he [Zeus] persecuted his mother Rhea when she refused to wed him, and, she becoming a she-dragon, and he himself being changed into a dragon, bound her with what is called the Herculean knot, and accomplished his purpose, of which fact the rod of Hermes is a symbol; and again, how he violated his daughter Phersephoné, in this case also assuming the form of a dragon, and became the father of Dionysus. In face of narrations like these, I must say at least this much, What that is becoming or useful is there in such a history, that we must believe Kronos, Zeus, Koré, and the rest, to be gods? Is it the descriptions of their bodies? Why, what man of judgment and reflection will believe that a viper was begotten by a god (thus Orpheus:—

“But from the sacred womb Phanes begat

Another offspring, horrible and fierce,

In sight a frightful viper, on whose head

Were hairs: its face was comely; but the rest,

From the neck downwards, bore the aspect dire

Of a dread dragon”[67]);

or who will admit that Phanes himself, being a first-born god (for he it was that was produced from the egg), has the body or shape of a dragon, or was swallowed by Zeus, that Zeus might be too large to be contained? For if they differ in no respect from the lowest brutes (since it is evident that the Deity must differ from the things of earth and those that are derived from matter), they are not gods. How, then, I ask, can we approach them as suppliants, when their origin resembles that of cattle, and they themselves have the form of brutes, and are ugly to behold?

fr. 199 [= Proclus On Plato, Timaeus [4]]

... Nor does Plato speak after this manner, and Orpheus after another;713 but if it be requisite to give my opinion, the conceptions of the theologist become manifest through what is here said. For Ippa who is the soul of the universe, and is thus called by the theologist, perhaps because her intellectual conceptions are essentialized in the most vigorous motions, or perhaps on account of the most rapid lation of the universe, of which she is the cause, placing a testaceous vessel on her head, and encircling the fig leaves that bind her temples, with a dragon, receives Dionysius [or Bacchus]. For with the most divine part of herself, she becomes the receptacle of an intellectual essence, and receives the mundane intellect, which proceeds into her from the thigh of Jupiter. For there it was united with Jupiter, but proceeding from thence and becoming participable by her, it elevates her to the intelligible, and to the fountain of her nature. For she hastens to the mother of the Gods, and to mount Ida,714 from which all the series of souls is derived. Hence also, Ippa is said to have received Dionysius when he was brought forth from Jupiter. For as Plato before observed,715 it is impossible for intellect to accede to any thing without soul. But this is similar to what is asserted by Orpheus; by whom also Dionysius is called "the sweet offspring of Jupiter." This however, is the mundane intellect, which proceeds into light conformably to the intellect that abides in Jupiter. Thus too, the divinely delivered theology [of the Chaldeans] says, that the world derives its completion from these three things [viz. from intellect, soul and body]. Soul therefore says [in the Chaldean Oracles,716] concerning Jupiter fabricating the universe: "I soul reside after the paternal conceptions, hot, and animating all things. For the father of Gods and men placed our intellect in soul, but soul he deposited in sluggish body." Plato likewise, bears testimony to the Oracles, when he calls the Demiurgus father, and represents him generating souls, and sending them into the generation of men according to the first life.717 And thus much concerning these particulars. Since however, as we have said, both soul and intellect give completion to one animal, Plato appears to me to use very appropriately the words to constitute and co-fabricate, through the common preposition syn in both, [p.345] exhibiting the union of the universe. For by always making diviner to be more comprehensive than less excellent natures, he causes the world to become one; but through the forms in each he manifests in the one composition, but in the other demiurgic art.

fr. 207 [= Proclus On Plato, Timaeus 42d]

... For theologists give this appellation to Bacchus,886 who is the monad of all the second fabrication. For Jupiter established him the king of all the mundane Gods, and distributed to him the first honours,

Tho' young the God, and but an infant guest.887

Orph. fr. 191

On this account also, theologists are accustomed to call the sun a recent God, and Heraclitus says that the sun is a diurnal youth, as participating of Dionysiacal power.

fr. 208 [= Proclus On Plato, Cratylus 369b]

Also Dionysus, the last King of the gods, receives it thus from Zeus. For the Father seats him on the regal throne, puts the sceptre in his hand and makes him King of all the encosmic gods together.

Listen, gods: I give you this King (Orph. fr. 208),

fr. 209

HellenicGods.org

frr. 210, 211

fr. 210

= HellenicGods.org

⊃ Proclus On Plato, Timaeus 35a (pp. 228–229)

⊃ Proclus On Plato, Timaeus 35b (p. 229)

⊃ Tzetzes on Lycophron, Alexandra 207 (Scheer, p. 98 lines 5–10) (pp. 230–231)

= Euphorion fr. 14 Lightfoot

= Orphic fr. 36 Bernabé (I pp. 52–53)

⊃ Plutarch On the Eating of Flesh (de esu carnium) I C (p. 231)

fr. 211

= HellenicGods.org

frr. 214-203

fr. 214

⊃ Fabula de Zagrei morte mutata et amplificata [The myth concerning the death of Zagréfs altered and extended: Λόγος 9.4 Ἱμερίου (Himerius, Oratio IX 4) p. 560 Wernsd. p. 66 Duebn]

⊃~ Firmicus Maternus, De errore profanarum religionum 6.1–5 pp. 54–56 Forbes [= frr. 304 III (I p. 248), 304 III (I p. 248), 309 VII (I p. 253), 313 III (I p. 256), 314 IV (I p. 257), 318 V (I p. 261), 325 (I p. 267), 332 (I p. 274) Bernabé]]

fr. 215 [= Proclus On Plato, Timaeus 24e]

... but through that of the Atlantics, to the Titanic Gods. For the mighty Atlas was one of the Titans. Theologists322 also after the laceration of Bacchus323 which manifests the divisible progression into the universe under Jupiter from the impartible fabrication, say that the other Titans had different allotments, but that Atlas was established in the western parts, sustaining the heavens.

fr. 216c [= Proclus On Plato, Cratylus 406c]

182 'The theologians often call our lord Dionysus "wine" (oinos) specifically after his lowest gifts. Orpheus says, for example,

Instead of one, they imposed a triple root on Wine (fr. 216),

and again,

Take all parts of Wine in the cosmos and bring them to me (ibid.),

and in turn,

She was indignant with Wine, the son of Zeus (ibid.).

fr. 218 [= Proclus On Plato, Timaeus 42e]

... For what Orpheus says of the monad of the junior Gods,

Though all things by the father Jove were form'd,

Yet their completion they to Bacchus owe;

Fr. 192

Parker, p. 495

So father Zeus brought all things to fulfilment, and after him Bacchos brought them to full fulfilment.

fr. 220

= Olympiodorus, In Plato Phaedon 61 c (3, 21)

⊃ fr. 320 I Bernabḗ (I p. 262)

HellenicGods.org

fr. 224 [= Proclus, On Plato's Rebublic" 2.338, 10-14]

Spineto, p. 36

"All this is given to us by Orphic theology. Or maybe it isn't true that Orpheus clearly enunciates his doctrines when, after the punishment of the Titans, he speaks of the manner in which the living are derived from the Titans.?"

fr. 301 [= Diodorus Siculus 3.62.2–8]

fr. 303

= Diodorus Siculus 5.75.4

= fr. 283 I (I p. 235), 311 XII Bernabé

Linforth

p. 307

This myth [of the dismemberment] is commonly regarded as essentially and peculiarly Orphic and the very core of the Orphic religion.¹

¹ ... "the tales of Dionysus son of Zeus and his sufferings," says Guthrie (Orpheus and the Greek Religion, p. 107), "must have been for a worshipper the central point of Orphic story." Nilsson ("Orphism and Kindred Movements," Harv. Theol. Rev., XXVIII [1935], 202) speaks of "the cardinal myth of Orphism, the dismemberment of Dionysus-Zagreus."

p. 309

The statement of Euphorion in which the story [of the dismembered child] is told. The same poem of Euphorion, or another in which the story is referred to, is quoted by the scholiast on Lycophron. Furthermore, this scholiast mentions also a poem of Callimachus containing the story.

p. 310

The last text offers the occasion for some remarks about the name Zagreus. It is said that Zagreus was a name for Dionysus which was used by the poets; and a line of Callimachus is quoted as an example of the usage. Furthermore, this Dionysus-Zagreus is represented as the son of Zeus and Persephone. Now though the scholiast on Lycophron neither uses the name Zagreus nor mentions the parentage of Dionysus, it is not unlikely that both he and the Etymologicum Magnum are referring to the same poem of Callimachus, because the name Zagreus is sometimes used for the god who was torn to pieces by the Titans. This fact is stated explicitly in another scholium on Lycophron (355), where, after certain derivations for the [cont.]

p. 311

According to the scholiast on Lycophron, the story in both Callimachus and in Euphrion seems to have been this: the Titans tore Dionysus limb from limb, threw the pieces into a caldron and boiled them, and then [cont.]

p. 312

gave them into the keeping of Apollo, who stowed them away beside his own tripod at Delphi. ... According to Callimachus and Euphorion, the limbs of [cont.]

p. 313

the god were thrown into a caldron before they were given to Apollo for burial, and Euphoriaon adds that they were placed over a fire. It is expressly said by Diodorus (p. 124) and by Arnobius (Adv. natones v, 19 = Fragm. 34) that the limbs were boiled, and Clement of Alexandria (Proptrept. ii, 18, I = 'Fragm. 35) adds that ater boiling them the Titans pierced them with spits and roasted them over fire. No one of these writers, though their accounts ...

p. 315

Cornutus, who represents the myth of dismemberment and reunion as as allegory of the vine, gives Rhea as the agent of the restoration (30, p. 62, 11 Lang συνετέθη πάλιν ὑπὁ τῆς 'Ρέας).

p. 316

Cornutus (p. 315) repeats a similar interpretation, though with him the dismemberment is the crushing of the grapes, [cont.]

p. 317

and the pouring of all the juice into a single container is the reunion of the parts of a single body.

LSJ

s.v. βόθρος

A.hole, trench, or pit dug in the ground, “βόθρον ὀρύξαι” Od. 10.517; βόθρου τ᾽ ἐξέστρεψε [τὴν ἐλαίαν] Il.17.58; trough, Od.6.92: generally, hollow, X.An.4.5.6; grave, IG14.238 (Aerae); ritual pit for offerings to “ὑποχθόνιοι θεοί, β. καὶ μέγαρα” Porph.Antr.6.

s.v. ζωή

A ... 2. after Hom., life, existence, opp. death,

s.v ζῷον

A.living being, animal,

s.v. λάπαθον

A.monk's rhubarb, Rumex Patientia, Epich.161, Thphr.HP7.1.2, al.; λ. ἄγριον dock, Rumex conglomeratus, ib.7.6.1, Dsc.2.114:—also λάπαθος , ὁ or ἡ, Thphr.HP1.6.6, al., EM57.17 (fem. in Steph.in Rh.311.32); and λαπάθη , ἡ, EM551.15.

II. pitfall for wild beasts, Phot., Suid.:—also λάπαθος , ὁ, Democr.122 (pl.).

March

s.v. Zagreus (p. 788)

Meisner

p. 238

Over the last two centuries, many scholars have consiered this narrative of Dyonysus and the Titans to have been The central, defining myth of Orphism. The "Orphic myth of Dionysus," as some have called it, or the "Zagreus myth,"³ remains one of the central points in the debate over the nature and meaning of Orphism.

Nimmo Smith [in folder]

p. 89

30

and the gods who have mutilated themselves in madness or have been torn apart ... (Sermon 5.32)

...

Persephone bore Dionysus Zagreus, after conceiving him from Zeus. Once he was born, the Titans (these are an order of demons) who envied Dionysus his descent from Zeus, tor him apart. ...

Nilsson

p. 202

Finally we come to the passage of Pausanias mentioned above. He says⁸² ... This passage is of the greatest importance, for it contains the cardinal myth of Orphism, the dismemberment of Dionysus-Zagreus, and raises the question of the relation of Orphism to the cult of Dionysus.

Ogden

p. 80

Parker

2002

p. 495

This is why it has been seen as the Orphic "arch-myth': it founds Orphism's claim to be a religion of salvation, a religion which, by treating our present condition as a consequence of guilt, offers the hope that if we can efface that guilt we can accede to a condition which is altogether superior.

Sommerstein

fr. 228 n. 1

1 [Clicking on the superscript 1 in the online version links in error to fr. 227 n. 1; to see fr 228 n. 1 you need to click on :View all footnotes" (or consult the printed book] Hades-Pluto. Zagreus was a chthonic god, whom in Egyptians Aeschylus actually identified with Hades; starting with Euripides (fr. 472) he tends to become partly syncretized with Dionysus.

Spineto

p. 34

"Orphic cosmogony, like Hesiod's, is partially identifiable with theogony; however, the Orphic version, unlike that of Hesiod, culminates in an anthropogony, according to a quite widely shared, common view. Orphic anthropogony is commonly considered a focal point of the doctrine.

West 1983

p. 151

Callimachus and Euphorion are cited as witnesses to an account closely related to the Orphic: the Titans tore Dionysus apart, boiled the pieces in a pan, and presented them to Apollo, who hid them away beside the tripod.³³

p. 152

The differences between the Orphic myth and the version for which Callimachus and Euphorion are cited anot fundamental, but they are not trivial. According to Orpheus, Apollo did not receive the remains from the Titans but from Zeus, who interrupted the Titans in their cookery (Athena having brought the news, with Dionysus' heart) and blasted them to Tartarus. It was Apollo, not Rhea, who puut Dionysus together again.^{37 [Frr. 209-11; a slightly abridged version is given by Clement and Arnobius in frr. 35, 34, without the mediation of Athenia.]} ...

Zagreus

There is another sign of his [Callimachus'] independence in his use of the name Zagreus for the 'chthonic Dionysus who was the son of Zeus and [cont.]

p. 153

Persephone (fr. 43.117). The name was probably not used in the Orphic narrative, for there is no trace of it in the fragments, the Orphic hymns, or the many references to the myth in the Neoplatonists.

The most plausible etymology for Zagreus makes him literally—and not inappropriately, one may think as one reviews the history of Orphic studies—the god of pitalls. It derives him from zāgrē, properly a pit for catching animals, but perhaps also one used for depositing animal remains or offerings to a chthonic deity. If this etymology is correct, the vocalism, Zā- for Zō-, points to a Doric or North-west Greek home for the god.²⁹ In the epic Alcmaeonis someone invoked him as 'very highest of all the gods' together with Ge. It has been conjectured that this was Alcmaeon addresing the gods of Delphi when he visited the oracle.^40, In Aescylus too, Zagreus has chthonic connections, for he is associated with Hades, perhaps as his son. In Euripides' Cretans the chorus-leader tells of the pure life he has led:

ever sinnce I became an initiate of Idaean Zeus, and after celebrating the thunder of night-roaming Zagreus and the raw feast, and holding up torches for the Mountain Mother, and being consecrated (in the armed dances) of the Kouretes, I received the title of bacchos.⁴¹

Here Zagreus is a god of nocturnal mystery-rites, associated with a sacramental feast of raw flesh (and thus with the dismemberment of an animal victim) and at the same time with the Cretan Kouros and Kouretes and the Mountain Mother. It would be unsafe to infer from this passage that Zagreus played a part in Cretan cult; the inference should be rather [cont.]

p. 154

that he played a part in mysteries which claimed a Cretan origin. ... In any case Euripides' Zagreus invites equation with Dionysus, ...

Nonnus applies the name Zagreus freely to the Dionysus of the Orphic myth, the Dionysus who is dismembered by Titans.⁴³ For the details of the story he clearly used the Orphic Rhapsodies. But he probably took Zagreus' name from Callimachus, whose phrase Ζαγρέα γειναμένη he reproduces at D. 6.165. This raises the suspicion that Callimachus had used the name in the context of Dioysus' dismemberment as well as in the context of his birth—and did so knowing both the name and the story from Delphi.⁴⁴

p. 160

Butcchery and cookery

Dionysus is cut ...

p. 161

At a normal Greek sacrifice the meat was roasted ...

The explanation may be ... If so, the association between the initiand and the victim is strongly underlined

Dionysus renovated

There appears to have been a significant difference between the Orphic narrative and the non-Orphic account followed by Diododorus, Philodemus, and Cornutus (p. 151) over the manner [cont.]

p. 162

in which Dionysus was restored to life. ...

His heart was beating ...

There are two different accounts of what was done with the heart ... It is designed to reconcile the [cont.]

p. 163

story that Dionysus ...

Imagine, for instance, a nocturnal ceremony ...

West 2003

p. 11

The work [the Alcmeonis] is never ascribed to a named author. The importance it gives to the Delphic oracle, its concern with Acarnania, which was an area of Corinthian settlement in the time of Cypselus and Periander, and its mention of Zagreus (fr. 3, otherwise first heard of in Aeschylus) suggest a sixth-century or even early fifth-century date.

p. 61 n. 17

The etymologist falsely explains Zagreus’ name from za- "very" and agreuein "hunt." In Aeschylus (frs. 5, 228) he is a god of the underworld. The line perhaps comes from a prayer in which Alcmaon called upon the powers of the earth to send up his father Amphiaraus. The line perhaps comes from a prayer in which Alcmaon called upon the powers of the earth to send up his father Amphiaraus.