onies intended
to mitigate spiritual terrors. Greece was becoming more intimately
acquainted with Egypt and with Asia, and was comparing her own religion
with the beliefs and rites of other peoples. The times and the minds of
men were being prepared for the clear philosophies that soon "on Argive
heights divinely sang". Just as, when the old world was about to accept
Christianity, a deluge of Oriental and barbaric superstitions swept
across men's minds, so immediately before the dawn of Greek philosophy
there came an irruption of mysticism and of spiritual fears. We may
suppose that the Orphic poems were collected, edited and probably
interpolated, in this dark hour of Greece. "To me," says Lobeck, "it
appears that the verses may be referred to the age of Onomacritus,
an age curious in the writings of ancient poets, and attracted by the
allurements of mystic religions." The style of the surviving fragments
is sufficiently pure and epic; the strange unheard of myths are unlike
those which the Alexandrian poets drew from fountains long lost.(2) But
how much in the Orphic myths is imported from Asia or Egypt, how much is
the invention of literary forgers like Onomacritus, how much should be
regarded as the first guesses of the physical poet-philosophers, and
how much is truly ancient popular legend recast in literary form, it is
impossible with certainty to determine.

(1) Lobeck, Aglaophamus, i. 317; Grote, iii. 86.

(2) Aglaophamus, i. 611.

We must not regard a myth as necessarily late or necessarily foreign
because we first meet it in an "Orphic composition". If the myth be one
of the sort which encounter us in every quarter, nay, in every obscure
nook of the globe, we may plausibly regard it as ancient. If it bear
the distinct marks of being a Neo-platonic pastiche, we may reject it
without hesitation. On the whole, however, our Orphic authorities can
never be quoted with much satisfaction. The later sources of evidence
for Greek myths are not of great use to the student of cosmogonic
legend, though invaluable when we come to treat of the established
dynasty of gods, the heroes and the "culture-heroes". For these the
authorities are the whole range of Greek literature, poets, dramatists,
philosophers, critics, historians and travellers. We have also the
notes and comments of the scholiasts or commentators on the poets and
dramatists. Sometimes these annotators only darken counsel by their
guesses. Sometimes per