Orpheus
462 BCE Pindar Pythian Odes, 4.176
c. 420 BCE Roman marble bas-relief, copy of a Greek
original from the late 5th c.
c. 400 BCE Aristophanes, The Frogs 1032
3rd c. BCE Phanocles, Erotes e Kaloi, 15
c. 250 BCE Apollonios Rhodios, Argonautika, i.2
140 BCE Apollodorus Library and Epitome 1.3.2
1st c. BCE Diodorus Siculus Histories I.23, I.96,
III.65, IV.25
501 BCE Conon Narrations, 45
3730 BCE Virgil Georgics, IV.456
23 BCE Horace Odes, I.12; Ars Poetica 391-407
8 CE Ovid Metamorphoses X.1-85, XI.1-65
5th c. CE Anonymous Argonautiques Orphiques
1st c. CE Seneca Hercules Furens 569
2nd c. CE Hyginus Poetica Astronomica II.7 Lyre
143176 CE Pausanias Description of Greece 2.30.2, 9.30.4,
10.7.2
c. 400 CE Anonymous The Clementine Homilies
Homily V Chapter XV.-Unnatural Lusts.
c. 450 CE Stobaeus Anthologium
Second Vatican Mythographer, 44. Orpheus
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1: Orpheus may or may not have been a historical personage. The
ancients themselves were of two minds about him. They did agree that,
real or not, he was already an ancient figure in Classical times. That he
was primarily a priest of Dionysus, even an avatar of the god, is appar-
ent from the parallels between his life and that of the wine god. They
both traveled to Egypt, both descended to the Underworld to bring
back a woman, and both were torn to pieces by enemies. Incidentally,
Dionysus also resembles another, much later religious figure. He was a
son of the God of Heaven, fathered on a virgin, appointed by his
Father to be king over mankind, whom he came to liberate. Indeed one
of his epithets was "Father Liber."
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