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Orphism or Popular Philosophy?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 August 2011

Arthur Darby Nock
Arthur Darby Nock
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Harvard University
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Extract

The exploration of the Greek settlements in South Russia has produced a fair number of epitaphs in verse, which for the most part repeat poetic commonplaces: but a find of 1931 from around Kertch, the ancient Panticapaeum, has distinct interest. It is a stele, broken off at the top and bottom: traces suggest that the top was decorated with a relief representing a man and his young attendant; his name and patronymic may have accompanied this relief. The epitaph, preserved entire, in lettering assigned by the editor to the end of the first century B.C. or the beginning of the first century A.D. and by Dr. Sterling Dow to ca. 40–ca. 100 A.D., runs as follows:

οὐ λόγον ἀλλὰ βίον σοφίης ἐτυπώσαο δόξαν,

αὐτοδαὴς ἱερῶν γινόμενος κριμάτων.

εὕδων οὖν, ‘Εκαταῖε, μεσόχρονος ἴσθ’ ὅτι θᾶσσον

κύκλον ἀνιηρῶν ἐξέφυγες καμάτων.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 33 , Issue 4 , October 1940 , pp. 301 - 315
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1940

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References

1 B. Latyschev, Inscriptiones antiquae orae septentrionalis Ponti Euxini Graecae et Latinae; G. von Kieseritzsky–C. Watzinger, Griechische Grabreliefs aus Südrussland.

2 J. J. Marti in V. F. Gaidukewich–B. N. Grakoff–S. A. Jebeleff–T. N. Knipovitch–J. J. Marti, Iz istorii Bospora (Publications of the Academy for the History of Material Culture, 104, Leningrad, 1934), 76 ff. fig. 13. I am much indebted to Mr. F. J. Whitfield for his kindness in translating Marti's remarks, as also to Professors Campbell Bonner and J. H. Finley, and Dr. G. M. A. Hanfmann for aid.

3 Journal of the Warburg Institute 2, 368 ff.

4 A. Boulanger, Bull. Assoc. G. Budé 22, Jan. 1929, 38, says of later Orphic writings ‘De l'orphisme religieux ils n'ont gardé que juste ce qu'il faut pour ne pas donner un démenti éclatant à leurs titres.'

5 As Bikerman remarks p. 369.

Hymn 87 is most instructive — an invocation to Death, as bringing the eternal sleep, and unjust to some: he is prayed to come late. The parallels noted by M. A. Koops, Observations in Hymnos Orphicos (Diss. Leiden, 1932), 85 ff. and K. Preisendanz, Pauly-Wissowa xix 1765.53 do not involve Orphic asceticism or otherworldliness: Diels-Kranz, Vorsokrat. ed. 5, I 15 on l. 26 notes a parallel between Hymn 13.6 and the ‘Guide for the dead,' but the application is different.

6 R. Harder, Philol. 85, 1930, 243 ff.

7 Nock, Class. Rev. 41, 1927, 169 ff.: 43, 1929, 60 f.

8 O. Kern, Orphicorum fragmenta, 105 no. 32b, 107 no. 32d (106 IV does not seem to me at all Orphic): I quote Nilsson's judicious phrase, Harv. Theol. Rev. 28, 1935, 183.

9 L.c., 371.

10 M. Rostovtzeff, Antique Decorative Painting in South Russia: with summary by E. H. Minns, J.H.S. xxxv (1915), 143 ff. The general significance of this is its parallelism to the utilization on sarcophagi under the Empire of (individually older) significant art types. Kieseritzky-Watzinger, op. cit., 71 f. pl. xxviii (cf. E. H. Minns, Scythians and Greeks, 304), has however a stele probably of the beginning of the second century B.C. with a warrior being crowned by Nike: his wife is represented as a goddess (Aphrodite?).

11 So in Aesch. Pers. 337.431; Eurip. I. A. 1005; Aristophan. Ach. 325, Nub. 829; Xen. Cyr. 8.3.44, and all examples in Ast's Lexicon Platonicum, and Schenkl's index verborum to Epictetus.

12 Cf. Iamblich. ap. Stob. III 3.26 p. 202.9 ἔργων τε προσηκόντων κρίσις καὶ κατόρθωσις δι᾽ αὐτῆς (sc. τῆς φρονήσεως κατευθύνεται. On ‘judging,’ cf. Epictet. I 18.2, Sallustius 10 p. 20.18, [Aristot.] p. 1250 a 30.

13 Polyaen. ap. Stob. II 15.44 p. 192 ὄταν μὲν γὰρ τῆ σεμνότητι τῶν λόγων καὶ ἡ πεῖρα τῶν ἔργων ἓπηται, τοῦτό τοι χρὴ καλεῖν δόγμα φιλοσόφου: Sen. Ep. 95.44 infigi debet persuasio ad totam pertinens uitam. For δόγμα in M. Aurelius, cf. A.-J. Festugière, L'idéal religieux des grecs, 267 n. 3: for its Latin equivalent, J. S. Reid on Cic. Acad. 2.27; for its use in general, the two articles by A. Deneffe, Scholastik 6, 1931 (which require to be supplemented by an analysis of the usage of Plato and Aristotle: Dio Prus. 72.12 has δόγματα of the sayings of the Seven Wise Men as inscribed at Delphi).

14 On James 3.16, p. 236.

15 To the material collected by Ropes, op. cit., and G. Kittel, Die Probleme der palästinischen Spätjudentums und das Urchristentum, 159 ff., the following additions may be made. A. H. Gardiner, The Admonitions of an Egyptian Sage, 27 ‘Forsooth, the land turns round as does a potter's wheel. The robber is a possessor of riches. (The rich man?) is [become?] a plunderer': Diod. Sic. XVIII 59.6 (of the alternations of human life under divine guidance, as in Plato Politic.; κυκλεῖται πάντα τὸν αἰῶνα); Polyb. VI 9.10 αὔτη πολιτειῶν ἀνακύκλωσις; Hippodam. ap. Stob. IV 34.71 p. 847.6 ff. (cf. probably Corp. Herm. III 4) of cyclical processes in nature; R. Harder, Ocellus Lucanus, 72, 80 ff.; W. Theiler Gnomon II, 1926, 590 ff.; Epict. II 1.18 ἴνα ἡ περίοδος ἀνύηται τοῦ κόσμου; Vettius Valens IX 7 p. 344.2 Kroll (ἡ φύσις) εἰς μακρὸν αἰῶνα κυκλοστρεφουμένη Tatian 6 p. 6.17 Schwartz of Stoic cycles; Cassius Dio XLIV 29.1 κύκλος τις ἐξ ἀνάγκης ἀεὶ τῶν κακῶν γἰγνεται Porphyr. de regressu p. 40.16 (in J. Bidez, Vie de Porphyre), falso igitur a quibusdam est Platonicis creditus quasi necessarius orbis ille ab eisdem abeundi et ad eadem reuertendi: a different sense in Iambl. myst. III 31 p. 177.10; also A. B. Cook, Zeus, II 120 n. 1, A. Delatte, Vie de Pythagore, 177 f., R. Eisler, Orphisch-dionysische Mysteriengedanken (Vortr. Bibl. Warburg 1922–3, II), 86 ff., Büchsel in G. Kittel, Theol. Wörterb. z. N.T., I 682 f. and L. Ginzberg in Independence, Convergence and Borrowing (Harvard Tercentenary Publications), 93.

16 Cf. H. Lewy, Sobria ebrietas, 59 n. 2. Socrates in Plato Phaedr. 275A makes Ammon say that people who gain their information from books without teaching, ἄνευ διδαχῆς will think that they are learned, and (276A) himself speaks of written books as ‘incapable of teaching the truth in an adequate way’: but the implication is that books were normally thought capable of conveying instruction, and in 230 D–E he implies that the speech of Lysias, about to be read to him, would teach him something. The claim of Katrarios to have learned an accomplishment wholly of himself (W. Kroll-P. Viereck, Hermippus p. vi) may be rhetorical.

17 Cf. the oft quoted φθέγξομαι οἷς θέμις ἐστί· θύρας δ᾽ ἐπίθεσθε βέβηλοι (Kern p. 257 f.). The words of Orpheus correspond to the Didache of the Twelve Apostles: they are quite different from ‘listen’ as addressed to the man to whom a book is dedicated, e.g. in Empedocles.

18 Or possibly ‘You put the impress of the glory of wisdom not on your words but on your life,’ as Professor Campbell Bonner suggests, pointing to the occasional use of the middle for the active in later Greek (cf. L. Radermacher, Neutestamentliche Grammatik, ed. 2, 147: also Philo Spec. leg. IV 140, Preisendanz, P. mag. gr. VII, 562, with ἐν).

19 To Bikerman's illustrations of this (370 n. 7) add an epitaph from Cyrene published by D. M. Robinson A.J.A. 2nd Ser. 17, 1913, 170 no. 35.8 f. and emended by Wilhelm, A., Jahresh, . XVII (1914), 53.Google Scholar It might be argued that ‘sleeping’ is ill-suited to an Orphic conception of the hereafter: but to press this point would be to ignore the widespread tendency of language about the afterlife to admit inconsistencies.

20 ἀνιηρῶν: cf. its use in Vettius Valens (Kroll's index s. v., p. 389), a point possibly of interest in view of Bikerman's explanation of μεσὁχρονος from the astrological use of μεσοχρὀνιος; but cf. n. 35.

21 So of δόγματα M. Aurel. X 9.1. Cf. A. Delatte, Vie de Porphyre, 180.

22 Possibly with an allusion to Virg. Georg. II 490: but cf. Philo Spec. leg. IV 115 μακἀριοι δ᾽ οἷς ἐξεγένετο, De somniis I 50, Quod omnis probus liber 96: it was probably a common type of phrase.

23 Pearson on Sophocl. frag. 101.

24 But note that the mark of Isaac, as the self-taught man, is an instinctive cheerfulness (Praem. poen. 31–5).

25 For this contrast on the wider scale cf. Stob. II 15 (p. 185 ff.) passim; James 3.13; Diog. Laert. VII 10 (on Zeno); Muson. ap. Stob. II 31.125 (p. 244); Anth. Pal. VII 470.8 (Meleager); Domitian ap. Plin. ad Trai. 58.6; Inscr. gr. ad r., Rom. III 733.13 ποιητὴν ἔργων ἰατρικῆς καὶ φιλοσοφίας. The wisdom of Agesilaus was seen in all his actions, says Xen. Ages. 6.4.

26 Diogenes ap. Stob. III 1.55 p. 21 is made to answer the question how a man could become his own teacher by saying ‘If he should reproach himself most for the things for which he reproaches others.’

27 Schramm, H. Diels-E., Abh. Berlin, 1918, ii, 5.Google Scholar

28 Ant. Rom. V 12.3.

29 LXVIII 7: Dio is probably thinking of eloquence.

30 Virt. 65. Here the gain is knowledge of the First Cause. Note also the definition of the φιλόσοφος ψυχἠ in a fragment of Philo published by Lewy, H., Sitzungsb. Berlin, 1932, 84.Google Scholar

31 E. Norden, Antike Kunstprosa, 519 n., with Nachträge (ed. 3) 4: K. Kalbfleisch, Festschr. f. Gomperz, 96 f.

32 Latyschev I (ed. 1) 24 = (ed. 2) 42. Dio Prus. XXXVI 8 speaks of a man esteemed at Olbia for his philosophy. Cf. τὸν ὄντως φιλόσοφον in an epitaph at Aphrodisias in Caria, published by W. Kubitschek — W. Reichel, Anz. Wien, 1893, 102 (K. Buresch, Rh. Mus. XLIX, 1894, 432 argues well that the phrase was added by the man's wife to the terms of praise in the city's decree in his honor); ἤθει τε φιλοσόφῳ, IG Vi 563; also philosophi moribus in W. Gundel, Neue astrologische Texte (Abl. München, N.F. 12, 1936), 71.13.

33 Cf. Vett. Val. V 9 p. 220.19. παιδεία, ‘education,’ often had harsh associations, like those of ‘discipline’; cf. H.-I. Marrou, Archivum latinitatis medii aevi, 9, 1934, 21 ff. For bearing ills well, cf. Stob. IV 44 p. 957 ff., III 1, 109 p. 58 (ps.-Archyt.), 103 p. 53 (Eusebius).

34 H. W. Parke, A History of the Delphic Oracle, 387 f.; Fr. Wehrli, ΛΑϴΕ ΒΙΩΣΑΣ, 30 ff.; Latyschev IV, ed. 1, 136 = I ed. 2, 519 (dating as not earlier than 2nd cent. A.D.) = v. Kieseritzky-Watzinger 55 no. 319 (dating as 1st cent. A.D. (?)) quotes Pytho as saying that the golden race goes first to Hades, which uses the Hesiodic scheme of Ages to convey this meaning: ἦ ῥα τόδ᾽ ἐσθλὸν ἐτήτυμον ἀνδράσι Πυθώ, χρύσεον ὄττι γένεθλον ἐς Ἄϊδα πρῶτον ὁδεύ[ε] ιν.

35 ἐξέφυγεν τὰ ἀνιαρὰ τοῦ βίου p. 122 Bursian (Abh. München, 1882).

36 Cf. K. Buresch, Leipz. Stud. z. class. Phil. IX, 1886, 3 ff.

37 Latyschev I (ed. 1), 21 (ed. 2), 39, etc.; Dittenberger, Syll. inscr. gr. ed. 3, 796 B n. 6; K. Buresch, Rh. Mus. XLIX (1894) 424 ff. These texts stress the inevitability of death.

38 Cf. also Epictet. I 27.5.

39 Cf. Nock, Sallustius, xxix ff.

40 Cic. Ad famil. IV 5.1: cf. Ad Brut. I 9 (whether genuine or not: G. L. Hendrickson, Am. J. Phil. LX, 1939, 412 n. 8). For consolation addressed to the dead man, cf. Latyschev II 182 i p. 303 (Kertch: Roman period), 5 εἰ δέ σε νοῦσος ἔμα[ρ]ψε, φέρ᾽ ὡς βροτός. ἔστι παρ᾽ ἡμεῖν ⃒ τοῖα κατ᾽ ἀν[θρ]ώπους πολλάκις ὀλλυμένους.

41 Cf. 47.13 summum nec metuas diem nec optes.

42 Cf. Epict. I 11.39 ‘You must become a student, this creature at which all laugh’; II 11 on the necessity of philosophy, and its roots in man's sense of weakness and impotence in respect to essentials — a noteworthy contrast with Aristotle's view that it had its roots in wonder: Seneca Ep. 95 on the need for philosophic dogma (he allows, § 36 that some people without training in the precise sense, sine institutione subtili (like Trajan, n. 29) turn out very well, dum nudis tantum praeceptis obsecuntur, but he ascribes this to excellent natural equipment. Yet even these men are deemed to have heard the praecepta, and only of the gods will he say nullam didicere uirtutem.

43 J. S. Reid, Philological Quarterly, I, 1922, 226 f. and his note on Cic. Acad. II 23, with the reference to the denial of this art by Sextus Empiricus.

44 Works and Days, 293.

45 P. 306, above. For parallels cf. J. Darmsteter, The Zend-Avesta, II 4 n. 5.

46 Quod omnis probus liber 4.

47 Spec. leg. IV 115: Fragments p. 70 Harris.

48 Philo In Flaccum 184 makes Caligula speak of certain exiles as βίον καρπουμένους φιλόσοφον; the phrase is contemptuous and probably means just ‘enjoying a life of leisure.’

49 Like those of Sextus, which are now obscured by Christian rehandling.

50 Cf. the decrees in honor of athletes discussed by L. Robert, Anatolian Studies presented to W. H. Buckler, 231 f., 236: and n. 64.

51 J. Keil-A. von Premerstein, Denkschriften Wien LIII, ii, 34 f.: A. Brinkmann. Rh. Mus. 66, 1911, 616 ff. For the choice of toil, cf. also W. Peek, Der Isishymnus von Andros u. verwandte Texte, 129 1.9, where Isis is made to say εἱλόμην πόνον.

52 Cf. Brinkmann l. c. and A.-J. Festugière, L'idéal religieux des grecs, 80 n. 9. As far as the ϒ alone is concerned, Persius, in spite of III 56, was a Stoic.

53 Full quotations in Brinkmann. I suspect that Pythagoras is here little more than a name, as in Cebes 2.2, Hor. Serm. II 4.3, Martial 9, 47.3: compare the sages on mosaics (e.g. Nock, Sallustius, xxii n. 33) and sarcophagi (H.-I. Marrou, ΜΟΤΣΙΚΟΣ ANHP, 217, 220 f.).

54 E. Zeller, Philosophie der Griechen, III, ed. 4, ii, 124; on Sextus cf. III i 701 n. 4, and J. Kroll in E. Hennecke, Neut. Apokryphen, ed. 2, 628: for early Pythagorean gnomic utterances, cf. H. Diels in Dittenberger, Syll. inscr. gr. 1268 (vol. 3, 392). On the way in which Peripatetic material found quasi-Pythagorean expression, cf. W. Theiler, Gnomon 1, 1925, 146 ff.: 2, 1926, 147 ff., 587 ff. Were the Pythagorean ascription and Doric dialect of the treatises on kingship discussed by E. R. Goodenough, Yale Classical Studies 1, 1928, 55 ff., chosen in order that the treatises might not be taken as criticisms of contemporary actuality?

55 O. Rayet, Rev. arch. N. S. XXVIII, 1874, 113 f. (Cougny, Anth. gr. III app. ii 242 p. 128.)

56 Nock, Sallustius, xxxii ff. and Cl. Rev. 41, 1927, 191 f. Add A. Deissmann, Licht vom Osten, ed. 4, 251 (Coan epitaph); Carm. lat. epigr. 1870, with E. Diehl's comments in Gnomon 4, 1928, 119; W. H. Buckler-W. M. Calder-C. W. M. Cox, Journ. Rom. Stud. 16, 1926, 61 ff.; earlier nonsepulchral instances on Thera, IG XII 3, supp. 1334, 1656: a late text, Brit. Sch. Ath. 12 (1905–06), 476.

57 W. Fröhner, Rh. Mus. 47, 1892, 307: E. Peterson, ΕΙΣ ϴΕΟΣ, 257 ff.

58 Cf. κατὰ τρόπον, ἀπὸ τρόπου.

59 Cf. E. Diehl, Anthologia lyrica, ed. 1, II 185 no. 14. 'Αδμήτου λόγον, ὦ ἑταῖρε, μαθὼν τοὺς ἀγαθοὺς φίλει; frag. ap. Text. Empir. XI 122 κἐρδαιν᾽ ἑταῖρε καὶ θέρους καὶ χειμῶνος (with A.D. Knox in Loeb Theophrastus-Herodes, p. 230).

60 E.g. Isocr. Paneg. 171, Cato ad M. filium fr. 1 p. 77 Jordan, Philodem. π. εὐσεβ. 28 (Gomperz, Herk. Stud., II 148), Cic. Fin. II 20 with J. S. Reid's note for the usage of Epicurus, Philo, Quod omnis probus liber 3, Plut. Cat. min. 35.7; Epictet. II 21.10; Delatte, Vie de Pythagore, 180.

61 H. W. Parke, A History of the Delphic Oracle, 395 ff.; Dittenberger, Syll. inscr. gr. 1268: for a supposed ethical oracle of Sarapis, Cougny, Anth. III p. 501 no. 187. Cf. also n. 34.

62 As Peterson, op. cit.

63 σύνοδος perhaps picks up again the metaphor from the stage with which the text opens.

64 Our epitaph is not to be compared with Latyschev II 86 (on an eighteen-year-old λόγων φίλος), IV 110 (= I ed. 2, 482: v. Kieseritzky-Watzinger 7 no. 49: end 1st cent. B.C.) τὸν σοφὸν ἐν Μούσαις, v. Kieseritzky-Watzinger 92 no. 523 (man once praised, now mourned by Muses: 2nd cent. B.C.) or with the text published by V. Skorpil, Bull. comm. Imp. arch. LIV, 1914 (Petersburg), 71 ff. (first cent. A.D.).

καὶ πινυτὴν, Στρατόνεικε, καὶ ἤθεα κεδνὰ φυλάσσων

ὤλεο, τῷ λυγρῷ πατρὶ λιπὼν δάκρυα.

θεῖε φίλε, προτέροις ἐναρίθμιε, μυριάδ᾽ αἰὼν

πεύσεται ἐκ βίβλων σὴν σοφίην ἐρατήν.

The first two certainly, the third probably, refer to literary culture — the third showing a marked Epigonengefühl. They are like the material studied by H.-I. Marrou, ΜΟϒΣΙΚΟΣ ANHP. (His reservations, p. 253 f., in reference to the idea that culture conveyed a heroic status, could be stated even more strongly. To call a man ἤρως was often no more than a compliment: and the courteous suggestion that accomplishments which brought prestige in this life would bring it afterwards did not necessarily involve any religious belief.)

65 Cf. Eurip. Bacch. 427, and E. R. Dodds in this volume, p. 176.

66 Bidez-Cumont, Les mages hellénisés, I 93.

67 Epp. I 2.17 ff.: cf. Serm. I 4, 133 consilium proprium, with the lines which follow.

68 E.g. Bias ap. Stob. III 1.93 p. 36: cf. Pind. Pyth. II 79 f. Cic. fin. II 105 matches a proverb against Epicurean doctrine.