Orphism or Orphicism is a secret religious movement in the classical Greek world. It began in the 6th century BC, and is attributed to the mythical Orpheus. The head of Orpheus, from an 1865 painting by Gustave Moreau. ...

Most of the sources to the teachings and practices of Orphism are late and ambiguous, and some scholars claim that Orphism is in fact a construction of a later date. However, inscriptions found in various parts of the Greek world testify the existence of a movement with certain beliefs which are later associated with the name of Orphism. Furthermore, the Derveni papyrus attests that the Orphic mythology can be dated back to the 4th century BC, and it is probably even older.

Mythology

The Orphic theogonies are geneological work like the Theogony of Hesiod, but the details are different. They are probably influenced by Near Eastern models. The main story is this: Dionysus is the son of Zeus and Persephone, he is murdered and boiled by the Titans. Sinful mankind is born out of the ashes. The heart of Dionysus is saved in implanted into the leg of Zeus; he then makes the mortal woman Semele pregnant with the re-born Dionysus. Many of these details are referred to sporadically in the classical authors. Theogony is a poem by Hesiod describing the origins of the gods of ancient Greek religion. ... Hesiod (Hesiodos, ), the early Greek poet and rhapsode, presumably lived around 700 BCE. Historians have debated the priority of Hesiod or of Homer, and some authors have even brought them together in an imagined poetic contest. ... Dionysus with a panther and satyr, in the Palazzo Altemps (Rome, Italy) Dionysus or Dionysos (Ancient Greek: Διώνυσος or Διόνυσος; also known as Bacchus in both Greek and Roman mythology and associated with the Italic Liber), the Thracian god of wine, represents not only the intoxicating power of wine, but also its... Statue of Zeus Phidias created the 12-m (40-ft) tall statue of Zeus at Olympia about 435 BC. The statue was perhaps the most famous sculpture in ancient Greece, imagined here in a 16th-century engraving. ... Persephone, the Maiden: the late Archaic Kore of Antenor from the Acropolis, Athens In Greek mythology, Persephone (Greek Περσεφόνη, Classical Greek Persephónē, Modern Greek Persefóni) was the queen of the Underworld, the Kore or young maiden, and the daughter of Demeter. ... In Greek mythology, the Titans (Greek Τιτάν, plural Τιτάνες) were a race of powerful deities that ruled during the legendary Golden Age. ... In Greek mythology, Semele, daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia, was the mother of Dionysus (the god and his votaries were both identified as Bacchus) by Zeus. ...

• The "Protogonos Theogony", lost, composed ca. 500 BC which is known through the commentary in the Derveni papyrus and references in classical authors (Empedocles and Pindar)
• The "Eudemian Theogony", lost, composed in the 5th cent. BC. It is the product of a syncretistic Bacchic-Kouretic cult.
• The "Rhapsodic Theogony", lost, composed in the Hellenistic age, incorporating earlier works. It is known through summaries in later neo-Platonist authors.
• Orphic hymns. 87 hexametric poems of a shorter length composed in the late Hellenistic or early Roman Imperial age.

Empedocles of Agrigentum Empedocles (c. ... Pindar Pindar (or Pindarus / Pindaros) (522 BC – 443 BC), considered the greatest of the nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, was born at Cynoscephalae, a village in Thebes. ... Bacchus is the name of: the Roman god Bacchus, known to the Greeks as Dionysus the Christian martyr Saint Bacchus, companion to Saint Sergius; see: Saint Sergius the asteroid 2063 Bacchus the Bacchus grape variety, grown predominantly in Germany the Bacchus (painting) by Leonardo da Vinci the comic book Bacchus... The Korybantes, called the Kurbantes in (Phrygia), are the crested dancers who worship the Phrygian goddess Cybele with drumming and dancing. ... The term Hellenistic (established by the German historian Johann Gustav Droysen) in the history of the ancient world is used to refer to the shift from a culture dominated by ethnic Greeks, however scattered geographically, to a culture dominated by Greek-speakers of whatever ethnicity, and from the political dominance... Neoplatonism (also Neo-Platonism) is a school of philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century A.D. Based on the teachings of Plato and the Platonists, it contained enough unique interpretations of Plato that some view Neoplatonism as substantively different from what Plato wrote and believed. ... The term Hellenistic (established by the German historian Johann Gustav Droysen) in the history of the ancient world is used to refer to the shift from a culture dominated by ethnic Greeks, however scattered geographically, to a culture dominated by Greek-speakers of whatever ethnicity, and from the political dominance... For other uses, see Roman Empire (disambiguation). ...

Eschatology

The epigraphical sources demonstrate that the "Orphic" mythology about Dionysus' death and resurrection was associated with beliefs in a blessed afterlife. Bone tablets found in Olbia (5th cent. BC) carry short and enigmatic inscriptions like: "Life. Death. Life. Truth. Dio(nysus). Orphics." The function of these bone tablets is unknown. Olbia, Ukraine is the site of Pontic Olbia in the Crimea, a colony founded from Miletus on the shores of the Bugh estuary, which lasted for a thousand years. ...

Gold leaves found in graves from Thurii, Hipponium, Thessaly and Crete (4th cent. BC) give instructions to the dead. When he comes to Hades, he must take care not to drink of Lethe, but of the pool of Mnemosyne, and he must say to the guards: Thurii, or Thueium, was a city of Magna Graecia on the Gulf of Taranto, near the site of the older Sybaris. ... Vibo Valentia is a town and comune (municipality) in the Calabria region of southern Italy, near the Tyrrhenian Sea. ... Map showing Thessaly periphery in Greece Thessaly (Θεσσαλια; modern Greek Thessalía; see also List of traditional Greek place names) is one of the 13 peripheries of Greece, and is further sub-divided into 4 prefectures. ... Crete (Greek Κρήτη Kriti; called Candia in the Venetian period and Turkish: Girit) is the largest of the Greek islands and the fifth largest in the Mediterranean Sea. ... In Classical Greek, Lethe literally means forgetfulness or concealment. The Greek word for truth is a-lethe-ia, meaning un-forgetfulness or un-concealment. In Greek mythology, Lethe is one of the several rivers of Hades. ... Mnemosyne (Greek , IPA in RP and in General American) (sometimes shortened to Mneme) was the personification of memory in Greek mythology. ...

"I am the son of Earth and Starry Heaven. I am thirsty, please give me something to drink from the fountain of Mnemosyne."

Other gold leaves say: Gaia (pronounced //[citation needed], sometimes also // or //) (land or earth, from the Greek ; variant spelling Gaea—see also Ge from ) is a Greek goddess personifying the Earth. ... Uranus is the Latinized form of Ouranos, Greek name of the sky. ...

"Now you are dead, and now you are born on this very day, thrice blessed. Tell Persephone, that Bacchus himself has redeemed you."

Persephone, the Maiden: the late Archaic Kore of Antenor from the Acropolis, Athens In Greek mythology, Persephone (Greek Περσεφόνη, Classical Greek Persephónē, Modern Greek Persefóni) was the queen of the Underworld, the Kore or young maiden, and the daughter of Demeter. ... Bacchus is the name of: the Roman god Bacchus, known to the Greeks as Dionysus the Christian martyr Saint Bacchus, companion to Saint Sergius; see: Saint Sergius the asteroid 2063 Bacchus the Bacchus grape variety, grown predominantly in Germany the Bacchus (painting) by Leonardo da Vinci the comic book Bacchus...

Literature

• Albinus, Lars. 2000. The House of Hades. Aarhus.
• Betegh, Gábor. 2006. The Derveni Papyrus. Cosmology, Theology and Interpretation. Cambridge.
• Burkert, Walter. 2004. Babylon, Memphis, Persepolis: Eastern Contexts of Greek Culture. Cambridge, MA.
• Graf, Fritz. 1974. Eleusis und die orphische Dichtung Athens. Berlin, New York.
• Guthrie, W. K. C. 1952. Orpheus and Greek religion. London.
• Pugliese Carratelli, Giovanni. 2001. Le lamine doro orfiche. Milano.
• West, Martin L. 1983. Orphic Poems. Oxford.