Orpheus – Beyond the Mythological Veil of the Kaos Series Wannabe Hero

Born in Greek mythology, Orpheus is an ancient Thracian prophet, the founder of religious-philosophical teaching Orphism, and according to ancient authors he was also a singer, musician, and poet. Numerous ancient authors call him the greatest singer and poet of antiquity. He was the founder of religious rites called orphic mysteries, which became popular in the Hellenistic world in the era after the conquests of Alexander III of Macedon, i.e., after 323 BC up to 30 BC.

Orpheus is credited with the authorship of a large number of hymns called Orphic, which praised the deities of nature. Through these hymns, Orpheus taught his countrymen to pay respects to the nature. His teaching was an attempt to ennoble the harsh manners very common at his time and to improve the culture of people.

Among the numerous variants of the Orphic legends, the most sustainable are those of his amazing gift as a musician and singer. His initial canonized image is the tamer of the wild world through music created by his miraculous lyre.

But the recovery of the biographical facts from life of the mythological figure of Orpheus is an uncommonly difficult and risky task, not immune to mistakes. However, a closer look over the ancient sources can help to recover at least partially the personality of the ancient prophet.

Where Did Orpheus Come From?

Let’s first focus on Orpheus’ origin and ethnicity. In Western scholarship it is accepted that Orpheus belongs to Greek history and culture. Orpheus had indeed a huge influence over ancient Greek culture, but his origin is not Greek, as evidenced by numerous ancient texts. There are straight statements in ancient sources written by respected ancient scholars that reveal unequivocally the origin and ethnicity of Orpheus.

Orpheus mosaic at Dominican Museum, Rottweil, Germany. (Public Domain)

The ancient Greek geographer and author of ‘Description of Greece’ Pausanias wrote:

“This Egyptian thought that Amphion and the Thracian Orpheus were clever magicians, and that it was through their enchantments that the beasts came to Orpheus.”

In another chapter of the same work, Pausanias mentions the following:

“Of the gods, the Aeginetans worship most Hecate, in whose honor every year they celebrate mystic rites which, they say, Orpheus the Thracian established among them.”

The ancient Greek historian Diodorus Siculus mentioned a brief biographical article of Orpheus in his work ‘Bibliotheca Historica’. Here is part of it:

“Since we have mentioned Orpheus, it will not be inappropriate for us in passing to speak briefly about him. He was the son of Oeagrus, a Thracian by birth, and in culture and song-music and poesy he far surpassed all men of whom we have a record. […] He journeyed to Egypt, where he further increased his knowledge and so became the greatest man among the Greeks both for his knowledge of the gods and for their rites as well as for his poems and songs.”

Orpheus with the lyre and surrounded by beasts. Byzantine & Christian Museum. (Ricardo André Frantz (Tetraktys)/CC BY-SA 3.0)

Diodorus Siculus specifically mentions that Orpheus was a Thracian by birth but also by culture. ​Therefore, it is important to clarify that the Thracians and the Greeks are two different ancient peoples who live in the Balkans but speak different languages ​​and each of them develops its own specific culture.

The Thracians first settled on the Balkan Peninsula around 3500 BC according to archaeological data. (For comparison, scholars believe that the Greeks settled in the Balkans around 1900 BC).

Unlike the Greeks, who were mostly a sea people, Thracian culture was associated with the land primarily. (According to some ancient sources the Thracians had their own fleet, but their culture developed mainly in the Balkan lands.)

The Thracians built solid stone fortresses even high in the mountains, produced very high-quality wine, but also cultivated wheat, oats, flax, hemp and other crops. The Thracians mined gold in the bowels of the Rhodope Mountains, and mastered metalworking, creating magnificent gold and silver works of art. They also raised numerous herds of large and small cattle. And they also bred horses, whose qualities were mentioned with admiration even by Homer in the Iliad.

The Thracians fought on the side of the Trojans in the Trojan War, according to the ancient epic text. Actually, both the horses and the chariots of the Thracians were so impressive that they were described by Homer in the Iliad with great admiration:

“There are the Thracians, who have lately come here and lie apart from the others at the far end of the camp; and they have Rhesus son of Eioneus for their king. His horses are the finest and strongest that I have ever seen, they are whiter than snow and fleeter than any wind that blows. His chariot is bedight with silver and gold, and he has brought his marvelous golden armor, of the rarest workmanship – too splendid for any mortal man to carry and meet only for the gods.” (Homer, The Iliad, Book X)

The ancient historian Pliny the Elder wrote that Orpheus descended from Thracian tribes as well:

“About the shores of the Euxine, the Moriseni and the Sithonii, the forefathers of the poet Orpheus dwell.”

The Moriseni and the Sithonii are Thracian tribes who originally lived on the shores of the Black Sea, later the Sithonis migrated southwest to the Halkidiki peninsula.

There is great controversy in the ancient texts about the birthplace of Orpheus. At least six different geographical locations claim to be the birthplace of Orpheus, according to the descriptions of the ancient authors. Here are just some of them:

1. Ancient city of Pimpleia, modern central Greece (according to Strabo, Geography)

2. Ancient city of Leibethra, modern central Greece (according to Suda Encyclopedia)

3. Ancient city of Maroneia and the lands of the Thracian tribe of Ciconians, modern Western Thrace (according to Pomponius Mela, Chorographia)

4. Lands of the Thracian tribe Bessoi, Western Rhodope Mountains, modern Bulgaria (according to Plutarch)

5. Lands of the Thracian tribe Odryssians, Northern Thrace, modern Bulgaria (according to Ioannis Tzetzes, Book of Histories, John Malalas, and other ancient authors)

6. The Black Sea coast north of Balkan Mountain, modern Bulgaria (according to Pliny the Elder, Natural History).

Orphic mosaics were found in many late-Roman villas. (Giovanni Dall’Orto/Wikimedia Commons)

When was Orpheus Around?

Identifying the era when Orpheus lived is a very difficult task. Restoring the exact year of birth of the ancient prophet is impossible based on the ancient sources that reached modern times.

The most precise source regarding the time when Orpheus lived is the Suda Encyclopedia. This is a medieval source probably from the 10th century AD. What is valuable in this source is that the authors of the encyclopedia had access to ancient written sources, which later were lost and are not available to modern research.

According to Suda Encyclopedia, Orpheus was born 11 generations before the Trojan War. Dating the Trojan War is a problem in itself. More than 10 ancient authors provide different dates regarding the time Trojan War took place. The sources did not coincide with each other.

In order to simplify the analysis, the present study refers to Plato’s dating. According to Plato, the Trojan War began in 1193 BC. Eleven generations is imprecise information that prevents calculation of the exact number of years. But if we assume that the average interval between two generations is about 25 years, then 11 generations before 1193 BC sends us in the middle of the 15th century BC. For a simplified presentation, it can be assumed that Orpheus was born around 1450 BC.

Important sites in the life and travels of Orpheus (MaryroseB54/CC BY-SA 4.0)

Orpheus the Heretic

Orpheus was a kind of heretic of his time. He interpreted the messages of the gods in violation of the religious dogmas of his epoch. This is a very characteristic feature of a Prophet-Reformer. Orpheus rejected the religious practices of his time and began to alter them. The ancient Alexandrian geographer and scholar Eratosthenes of Cyrene wrote the following:

 “Orpheus did not honor Dionysus but considered the Sun to be the greatest of the gods, whom also he called Apollo; and arising during the night, he ascended before dawn the mountain called Pangaion that he might first catch sight of the Sun, therefore Dionysus was enraged and sent the Bassaridae against him, and they tore him to pieces…”

Ancient historian Diodorus Siculus left the following information about Orpheus:

“Orpheus was a man of natural genius and superlative training, who introduced many changes into the rites of the Mysteries: hence they called the rites which had their origin in Dionysus, Orphic.”

It is obvious that Orpheus was a prophet of the religion of Light, a worshiper of the Spiritual Sun and a reformer of popular orgies, organized in honor of the god Dionysus by introducing mysterious worship into earlier rituals. The result is that Orpheus was killed by supporters of the older, dogmatized and probably degenerate cult of the god Dionysus.

Orpheus (left, with lyre) among the Thracians, from an Attic red-figure bell-krater (c. 440 BC (Metropolitan Museum of Art/CC BY 2.5)

Orphic Teachings

Orphic teaching gives other important information to its followers about the nature of the human soul. According to Orphic teachings, the body is a prison for the soul. For this reason, the Orphic followers identified Hades with the physical universe and linked him to the incarnation’s imprisonment. Orpheus therefore teaches people the mysteries in order for the human soul to be able to escape this bondage through catharsis or purification.

The Orphic doctrines of the pre-existence, the penance, the reincarnation and the final purification of the soul seem to have been amplified with considerable detail in the lost Orphic Manual entitled “The Descent into the Realm of Hades”, in which were described the vicissitudes endured by the immortal soul, preparatory to its final freedom by penance from the Cycle of Birth.

There is a scientific notion that Dionysus was the first god who gave people the opportunity to be saved from the bondage of Hades (the cycle of rebirth in a material body), but Orpheus’ refusal to worship the god Dionysus does not confirm such a hypothesis. Of course, Orpheus can be seen as a reformer of the already corrupt mysteries practiced in his age and a return to the original teaching of Dionysus, which probably existed many centuries before the appearance of Orpheus.

In conclusion – after removing the mythological veil from the numerous legends about Orpheus described in ancient texts, the following facts from the life of the ancient prophet can be summarized:

1. He was an ancient Thracian prophet, born in the family of the ancient Thracian king Oeagrus.

2. He was born in present-day southern Bulgaria or in present-day central Greece, but he traveled to many places in the Balkans, and probably to ancient Egypt.

3. He probably lived in the 15th century BC.

4. He was the most virtuoso musician of the ancient world since he is remembered as such.

5. He performed cardinal religious reforms in the much older mysteries of the god Dionysus.

6. After his death, Orpheus was deified, and his image was mythologized.

7. His religious reforms had an impact for at least 14 centuries after his death since the Orphic religion was practiced until the end of the Hellenistic period – around the middle of the first century BC.

Top image: Orpheus charming the animals, mosaic. Source: cascoly2 / Adobe Stock                     

By Daniel Ganchev