Orphic Fragments

44. Alexander Polyhistor, citing Artapanus the Jew (Christ, Reports of the Bavarian Academy XXI 1901, 464) as found in Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel IX 27 p. 432 a (I 499, 8 Dindorf edition): [It is said] that among the Greeks, after he had reached manhood, he Moses was addressed as Musaeus. And that this Moses became the teacher of Orpheus. Having reached manhood, he handed down many useful things to mankind, etc. This fragment represents a Hellenistic Jewish attempt to claim Greek culture's roots for Hebrew figures, identifying the prophet Moses with the legendary poet Musaeus.

45. Aeschylus’ The Bassarids (Jessen RE² III 104), the second tragedy of the Lycurgeia trilogy; Nauck FTG² p. 9; G. Haupt Archaeological Commentary on Aeschylus (Dissertation, Halle XIII 1896) 146; Kern Orphicorum Fragmenta 6; Robert Heldensage I 402; see number 113. The Bassarids famously depicted Orpheus's death at the hands of the Maenads because he preferred the sun-god Apollo over Dionysus.

46. Athenaeus, The Learned Banqueters XIV p. 632 c: In general, it seems that the ancient wisdom of the Greeks was especially devoted to music. And for this reason, they judged Apollo to be the most musical among the gods, and among the demigods, they judged Orpheus to be the most musical and the wisest original: "σοφώτατον" (sophōtaton).

47. Simonides, fragment 40 (PLG III⁴ p. 408): Above his head flew birds without number, and fish leapt straight up from the dark-blue water at his beautiful song.

48. Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1629: You have a tongue the opposite of Orpheus; for he led all things by the joy of his voice.

49. Euripides, The Bacchae 560: Perhaps in the wooded chambers of Olympus, where once Orpheus, playing the lyre, gathered the trees with his songs, and gathered the wild beasts. See number 38.

50. Euripides, Iphigenia at Aulis 1211: If I had the speech of Orpheus, O father, to persuade by singing so that the rocks would follow me, and to charm with my words whomever I wished, I would have come to that point. See Alcestis 357 and number 59; Stemplinger Plagiarism in Greek Literature 254.

51. Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica I 26: But they say that he charmed the stubborn rocks on the mountains with the sound of his songs, and the streams of rivers. And the wild oaks, still signs of that song, flourish upon Zone on the Thracian coast and stand in dense rows one after another, which he led down from Pieria, charmed by his lyre. original: "φόρμιγγι" (phormingi), referring to the phorminx, an early stringed instrument like a lyre. This is followed by Pomponius Mela II 28. Nicander, Theriaca 461: And the mountains of Zone, white with snow, and the oaks of the son of Oeagrus Orpheus.

52. Virgil, The Gnat 117: Orpheus all but held back the Hebrus river as it stayed within its banks and the forests [too] by his singing; compare the same work, line 278.