Orphic Fragments

...to those whom they had wronged with suspicions, shaking the king's kindness before them like a branch original: "θαλλὸν" (thallon), a green branch or shoot often used as a symbol of peace or supplication, he led them tame and manageable, almost as if leading them with their hands behind their backs; so that it was debatable whether he had conquered the men in war or won them over by conversation.

36. Himerius, Oration V 6, page 482 Wernsdorf (57, 15 Dübner):
Wherefore I find fault with the Thracian myth and complain that, having robbed this city (Thessaloniki) of Orpheus, it grants the son of Calliope The Muse of epic poetry and Orpheus's mother to the Thracian mountains. On account of this, through a lack of those who would listen to him, he makes his assembly consist of wild animals. Scholars noted: Maaß, Orpheus 143; Rohde, New Heidelberg Yearbooks VI 1895, 303 note 1.

37. Scholia Ancient marginal commentaries on Euripides’s Alcestis, 968 (volume II, 239, 10 Schwartz):
Orpheus was the first to transmit the mysteries Secret religious rites, such as the Eleusinian or Orphic mysteries of the gods; from which also religious worship original: "θρηισκεία" (threskeia) is named, after Orpheus the Thracian original: "Θραικὸς" (Thraikos). The Great Etymological Dictionary original: "Etymol. magn." 455, 10: Threskos pious or superstitious, one who holds different opinions; from "Thracian" (Thraix, Thraikos); and religious worship (threskeia), from the Thracians' diligence toward the divine and the sacred rites of Orpheus; for these men first discovered the concept of the divine. Or, it is from the "pleasing" or "appeasing" of the gods, which is to say, to win them over; and the Theologian Gregory of Nazianzus, a 4th-century Church Father says (Oration XXXIX): "Not the Thracian rites; from which the term 'to worship' original: "θρησκεύειν" (threskeuein) comes, as the story goes"; Gudian Etymology 264, 51; 536, 14. Orion 73, 26. The Suda A massive 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia under the entry "he worships" (threskeuei): for it is said that Orpheus the Thracian first systemized the mysteries of the Greeks, and they called honoring God "worshiping" (threskeuein) as the discovery was Thracian. See also number 41.

OLYMPUS AND PIERIA.

38. Euripides, Bacchae 560:
"In the thickly wooded coverts of Olympus" Referencing entry number 49; Scholia on Pindar, Pythian Odes IV (176) 313 a. Concerning the Pompeian painting, see Helbig, Wall Paintings 893, Atlas table X; see Rodenwaldt, Composition of Pompeian Wall Paintings 80 and Robert, Heroic Legends I 411. Orpheus was a king in Macedonia, see number 39. Apollonius, Argonautica I 32:
"Now Orpheus, such a one as he was, the son of Aeson [Jason] received as a helper for his labors on the advice of Chiron The wise centaur and tutor of heroes, as he [Orpheus] was ruling over Bistonion Pieria" original: "Πιερίηι Βιστωνίδι" (Pieriei Bistonidi). Pieria was a region near Mt. Olympus; the Bistones were a Thracian tribe. See numbers 23, 24, 80, 126 and Oberhummer, Realencyclopädie² III 504.

39. Conon, Fragment 45:
That Orpheus, the son of Oeagrus and Calliope, one of the Muses, ruled over the Macedonians and the land of the Odrysians A powerful Thracian kingdom; he practiced music and especially singing to the kithara An ancient Greek stringed instrument, similar to a lyre but larger and used by professional performers; and (for the race of Thracians and Macedonians is music-loving) he pleased the multitude exceptionally in these matters.