Orphic Fragments

AGE AND ANCESTRY. original Latin: AETAS ET GENUS

7. Proclus, Life of Homer 26, 14 Wilamowitz. Hellanicus a 5th-century BCE Greek historian; see Fragments of the Greek Historians (FHG) I 46 fragment 6; in The Phoronis fragment 5; and Proclus's commentary on Hesiod's Works and Days 631, Damastes FHG II 66 fragment 10; see also Erwin Rohde in Rheinisches Museum XXXVI 1881, 384, or Short Works I 6 note 1, and Pherecydes FHG IV 639 trace Homer's lineage back to Orpheus. For they say that Maion traditionally considered the father of Homer and Dios the father of Hesiod were born to Apellis, the son of Melanopus, the son of Epiphrades, the son of Chariphemus, the son of Philoterpes, the son of Idmonidas, the son of Eucles, the son of Dorion, who was the son of Orpheus.

8. The Contest of Homer and Hesiod a Greek text describing a legendary poetic competition 436, 41 Rzach; 36, 8 Wilamowitz. They say that Linus a mythical master of song was born to Apollo and Thoosa some versions suggest 'Aethousa,' daughter of Poseidon; Linus was the father of Pierus, and Pierus, by the nymph Methone, was the father of Oeagrus; and from Oeagrus and the Muse Calliope came Orpheus. From Orpheus came Ortes variants include Dres or Tres, then Harmonides, then Philoterpes, then Euphemus, then Epiphrades, then Melanopus, and from him came Dios and Apelles. From Dios and Pycimede the daughter of Apollo came Hesiod and Perses; from Apelles came Maion, and from Maion's daughter and the river Meles came Homer.

9. Charax an historian and priest as cited in the Suda a massive 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia under the entry Homer FHG III 641 fragment 20; 33, 4 Wilamowitz. The sequence of the lineage according to the historian Charax is this: Aethousa the Thracian bore Linus, he bore Pierus, he bore Oeagrus, he bore Orpheus, he bore Dres, he bore Eucles, he bore Idmonides, he bore Philoterpes, he bore Euphemus, he bore Epiphrades, he bore Melanopus, he bore Apelles, and he bore Maion. This Maion came to Smyrna with the Amazons, and by marrying Eumetis the daughter of Eupepes, son of Melesigenes he fathered Homer. See also the Suda under the entry for Orpheus number 223; Lobeck, Aglaophamus I 323; Rohde in the place cited above, 386; Gruppe in Roscher's Lexicon III 1075; and A. de Blumenthal, Hellanicea (On the descendants of Atlas), dissertation, Halle 1913, 16.

10. Herodotus, Histories II 53. "For I believe that Hesiod and Homer lived four hundred years before my time, and no more. These are the men who composed a theogony an account of the origins and genealogies of the gods for the Greeks, gave the gods their epithets, distributed their honors and crafts among them, and described their physical forms. But the poets who are said to have come before these men referring to figures like Orpheus and Musaeus, in my opinion, actually lived after them. Of these matters, the priestesses at Dodona the oldest Greek oracle, dedicated to Zeus speak first, and the later things regarding Hesiod and..."