The Derveni papyrus (Diagoras of Melos, Apopyrgizontes Logoi?): A new translation

Classical Philology

Volumn 96, Issue 1, 2001, Pages 1-32

  Janko, Richard ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 34248725790     PISSN: 0009837X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/449521     Document Type: Review

References (110)

1. It is possible that this find-spot has no religious significance, since papyrus was a convenient combustible material, like newspaper, and was used for pyres: cf. Mart. 10.97.1, arsura struitur Libitina papyro, cf. 8.44.11, both cited by S. G. Kapsomenos, "'O," AD 19 A (1964): 16-25, at p. 16,
2. n. 1. Differently, e.g., G. W. Most, "The Fire Next Time: Cosmology, Allegoresis, and Salvation in the Derveni Papyrus," JHS 117 (1997): 117-35, at pp. 117, 130-35;
3. A. Laks, "Between Religion and Philosophy: The Function of Allegory in the Derveni Papyrus," Phronesis 42 (1997): 121-42, at 141.
4. In a notice by K. Tsantsanoglou and G. M. Parássoglou (with E. Turner), its editors predicted that their work would be completed by mid-1984 (Gnomon 54 [1982]: 855-56).
5. K. Tsantsanoglou, "The First Columns of the Derveni Papyrus and their Religious Significance," in Studies on the Derveni Papyrus, ed. A. Laks and G. Most (Oxford, 1997 [hereafter, Laks and Most]), 93-128.
6. On this topic see Most, "Fire Next Time" and Laks, "Between Religion and Philosophy" (n. 1 above), esp. pp. 125-26, 134-40 of the latter.
7. This is wrongly doubted by L. Brisson (Sauver les mythes [Paris, 1996], 55), since he misdates Theagenes to earlier in the century.
8. Tsantsanoglou, "First Columns" (n. 3 above), at 99.
9. Tsantsanoglou, "First Columns," at 122-23 (he cites Lucian Syr. D. 26 and Astr. 10); and D. Sider, "Heraclitus in the Derveni Papyrus," in Laks and Most, 129-48, at p. 135, n. 17 (he cites Herennius Philo, FGrH 790 F 1.26, and Damascius De princ. 38).
10. is well attested in this sense (R. D. Lamberton, Homer the Theologian [Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1986], 22-31).
11. "Alcman's 'cosmogonic' fragment," CQ 37 (1987): 1-19, at 7-9, on P Oxy. 2390 frag, ii, col. i 26 = frag. 5.2 Page.
12. "Orpheus und die Vorsokratiker," A&A 14 (1968): 93-114.
13. "Star Wars or One Stable World?" in Laks and Most 167-74, at 174.
14. "The Physicist as Hierophant: Aristophanes, Socrates, and the Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus," ZPE 118 (1997): 61-94, esp. 63-66, 80-87. The arguments offered here are supplementary to my thesis there. For the closeness of the treatise to Diogenes, see now W. Burkert, Da Omero ai magi (Venice, 1999), 108, 110-11.
15. Laks, "Between Religion and Philosophy," 130-32, based on col. XVII of the papyrus.
16. See the comparisons by R. Seaford, "Immortality, Salvation, and the Elements," HSCP 90 (1986): 1-26, at 20-21;
17. Sider, "Heraclitus in the Derveni Papyrus," 129-48;
18. and D. Obbink, "Cosmology as Initiation vs. the Critique of the Orphic Mysteries," in Laks and Most, 39-54, at 46 and 53.
19. Cf. Seaford, "Immortality" (n. 13 above), 14-20.
20. DK 22 B 5, 14, 15. For the punctuation of B 14 see F. Graf, Magic in the Ancient World (Cambridge, Mass., 1997), 21.
21. A History of Greek Philosophy, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 1962), 476.
22. The Orphic Poems (Oxford, 1983), 81.
23. D. Obbink has shown that, since the quotation of the "Hymns" of Orpheus in col. XXII recurs in Philochorus (FGrH 328 F 185), the Derveni papyrus was known to that writer (perhaps in his or, who is in his turn quoted by Philodemus in his De Pietate (P. Herc. 1428 frag. 3): see "A Quotation of the Derveni Papyrus in Philodemus' On Piety" Cronache Ercolanesi 24 (1994): 111-35;
24. Burkert, Da Omero ai magi (n. 11 above), 79.
25. Orpheus and Greek Religion (London, 1952), pp. 161-63 with n. 4: "we have seen enough now to say that what may be called allegorical philology was a feature of Orphic speculation." Guthrie cites the Orphic allegorizer in Pl. Grg. 493a-c, who says that he (493d). Elsewhere (p. 63) he notes that, in the passage where Plato compares the true philosopher with the initiate (Phd. 69c), when those who conduct the "say that the uninitiated will have an unpleasant lot in the next world, the religious teachers are speaking in riddles. In truth they are not such worthless teachers as men who try to force a literal meaning on their doctrines." The Derveni author offers a similar argument (col. V).
26. For this diagnosis of his aim see Most, "Fire Next Time," 119-25.
27. See Janko, "Physicist as Hierophant" (n. 11 above), 87-94.
28. J. S. Rusten already related col. XX of the papyrus to Diagoras ("Interim Notes on the Derveni Papyrus," HSCP 89 [1985]: 121-40, at 140).
29. On Diagoras see the excellent studies of M. Winiarczyk, Diagorae Melii et Theodori Cyrenaei reliquiae (Leipzig, 1981);
30. cf. id., "Diagoras von Melos: Wahrheit und Legende," Eos 67 (1979): 191-213 (for his life),
31. and Eos 68 (1980): 51-75 (on his works).
32. These render obsolete those of F. Jacoby, "Diagoras," Abhandlungen der deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Kl. für Sprachen, Literatur und Kunst 1959, Abh. 3,
33. and L. Woodbury, "The Date and Atheism of Diagoras of Melos," Phoenix 19 (1965): 178-211.
34. See also D. Obbink, Philodemus: "On Piety;" Part I (Oxford, 1996), 352-54.
35. This may be the work in which Protagoras expressed his famous agnosticism about matters divine, for which, the story goes, the Athenians exiled him and burned his books in the agora (Diog. Laert. 9.52, with L. Piccirilli, "Il primo autodafé letterario: il rogo di libri di Protagora," SIFC 15 [1997]: 17-23).
36. Sext. Emp. Math. 9.53, in a catalogue of resembling that in Epicurus (below):. The verses quoted are the same as in Aristoxenus given below. Sextus' list of resembles that of Epicurus (see next note); perhaps both are from Eudemus of Rhodes' (cf. Obbink, "On Piety" [n. 22 above], 352). Cf. the list in Cic. Nat. D. 1.117-19, where a list of "atheists," ending with Euhemerus, is at once followed by a reference to the Eleusinian mysteries and those of Samothrace and Lemnos, "whose interpretation and rationalization has more to do with natural science than with theology" (quibus explicates ad rationemque revocatis rerum magis natura cognoscitur quam deorum, 119). Evidence in Philodemus (see next n.) proves that such lists were current by the late fourth century B.C.E.
37. Clouds 828-30 (= T 38 Winiarczyk):.
38. (Pro Christianis 4 = T 27 Winiarczyk); on Athenagoras' sources see W. R. Schoedel, Athenagoras: "Legatio" and "De Resurrectione" (Oxford, 1972), xix-xxiii. Diagoras is linked with Samothrace in other sources (T 36-37, 59, 101), which contain serious inaccuracies and confusions.
39. The date is given by Diod. Sic. 13.6 (T 17 Winiarczyk) and Al-Mubaššir (T 10). The latter gives the archon's name as Khāriyūs al-Arkūn, i.e., (translation of G. J. van Gelder in J. N. Bremmer, "Religious Secrets and Secrecy in Classical Greece," in Secrecy and Concealment, ed. H. G. Kippenberg and G. G. Stroumsa [Leiden, 1995], 61-78, at 74-75).
40. I thank Patricia Crone for confirming that the Arabic form of the name contains a letter that can be read as yod, although previous translations render it Hārūs. Al-Mubaššir used Porphyry's, which gave many dates, relying on Apollodorus (as Porphyry's name is absent, the fragment is omitted in A. Smith's Teubner). F. E. Romer, "Atheism, Impiety, and the limos Melios in Aristophanes' Birds" AJP 115 (1994): 351-65, at p. 354, n. 11, holds that the decree must have been issued a year or two previously, since Aristophanes shows that the proclamation made at the Dionysia against Diagoras and the tyrants had been made before (Av. 1072), and the Dionysia happened only once a year.
41. But curses against the tyrants opened each meeting of the Assembly also (cf. Ar. Thesm. 331-51), and we should instead deduce that the same opened both the Assembly and the Dionysia, just as they opened both the Assembly and the Boule (P. J. Rhodes, The Athenian Boule [Oxford, 1972], 36-37). By late in Charias' archonship the Athenians could have heard this often.
42. In a second article ("Diagoras the Melian [Diod. Sic. 13.6.7]," CW 89 [1995-96]: 393-401, at 397), Romer suggests that Craterus (FGrH 342 F 16) is the source of Schol. Av. 1073c, which says that this happened roughly around the time of the capture of Melos, but could have been earlier. Craterus is quoted immediately before, but nothing proves that this suggestion derives from him. Conversely, Schol. 1073a says that Diagoras lived in Athens after the capture of Melos and used to disparage the Mysteries so as to deter many from the rites - hence the Athenians' proclamation; Melanthius is then cited, i.e., (FGrH 326 F 3). R. Parker thinks the date 415 is an inference from the Birds (Athenian Religion: A History [Oxford, 1995], p. 208, n. 37).
43. See esp. Thuc. 8.53.2 and W. Furley, Andokides and the Herms, BICS Suppl. 65 (London, 1996).
44. 1073 (= T 15) and 1421 (= T 84):; On this latter joke as a reference to Diagoras see Romer, "Atheism" (n. 29 above), 355-56; this is wrongly doubted by N. Dunbar, Aristophanes' "Birds" (Oxford, 1995), ad loc. (that the scholiasts failed to understand it proves nothing). Diagoras' escape to Pellene is reported by Melanthius and Al-Mubaššir (T 7A, 10); the Suda's claim that he died in Corinth (T 9A) is owed to a confusion with Diagoras of Eretria (T 89-90).
45. Schol. Av. 1073a, c, citing FGrH 326 F 3, where we should read (codd.: Wilamowitz) (inserui: add. Wilamowitz, Fritzsche). The supplement would imply that the decree would only take effect if the Pellenians did not extradite him; is also palaeographically superior. The scholia to Ran. 320 (T 8 Winiarczyk) say that "the other Peloponnesians" were persuaded to extradite him; this confirms that some Peloponnesians refused to do so. Differently C. Higbie, "Craterus and the Use of Inscriptions in Ancient Scholarship," TAPA 129 (1999): 43-83, at 51-52.
46. Schol. Av. 1073b, citing FGrH 342 F 16:.
47. Thus Furley, Andokides (n. 30 above), omits all mention of it, even though it fits well into his reconstruction of events; he also misses the importance of Cleonymus and Pisander, who proposed the huge rewards for those who informed on profaners of the Mysteries (Andoc. 1.27), and are major targets in the Birds, where Pisander is directly linked with Socrates (1553-64, with T. K. Hubbard, The Mask of Comedy [Ithaca and London, 1991], 177).
48. Mask of Comedy (n. 34 above), 158-82 and esp. p. 175, n. 48, relying on Jacoby, "Diagoras" (n. 22 above).
49. "The Birds of Aristophanes and Politics," Athenaeum 54 (1976): 353-81, at 372-73. This need not conflict with other suggestions about what the title means; once coined, it would be open to comic reinterpretation.
50. "Atheism." J. N. Bremmer similarly suggests that, angered by the "First Fruits decree," which compelled the allies to send first fruits to Eleusis during the Mysteries, and by the recent sack of Melos, Diagoras revealed the Mysteries as a political protest ("Religious Secrets" [n. 29 above], 74-75). However, the evidence of Clouds 830 (cited above, n. 27) suggests that he had already done so years earlier.
51. The objections to Hubbard's approach advanced by D. M. MacDowell (Aristophanes and Athens [Oxford, 1995], 223-24) are far from decisive, given Furley's new insights into the crisis of 415 (n. 30 above).
52. Line 320 (= T 8 Winiarczyk):. The ironic reference to both aspects of Diagoras' activity, poetry and the mysteries, was correctly explained by Aristarchus in the scholia ad loc. The joke is missed by K. J. Dover in his edition (Aristophanes: "Frogs" [Oxford, 1993], ad loc). For Diagoras' poetry (PMG 738) see Aristoxenus cited by Philodemus On Piety Part II in PHerc. 1428 col. 11.7-15 = p. 85 Gomperz = p. 122 Schober (= Diagoras T 69 Winiarczyk). Aristoxenus (frag. 127a Wehrli), finding in his poetry nothing impious but only endorsements of divine providence like "it is god, god who wields his highest wisdom for every mortal act" or "by god and all things come to pass for mortals," denies that Diagoras wrote the prose work ascribed to him. But there is no reason to accept this, since the passages are compatible with Diagoras' having been a teleologistic monotheist, his change in attitude is attested elsewhere, and as a philosopher Aristoxenus would have had good reason to wish that Diagoras had not been condemned (see Janko, "Physicist as Hierophant," 90-94).
53. [Lysias] 6.17-18 = T 16 Winiarczyk (cited above, n. 36). In favor of this identification of the speaker, who must be either Meletus or Epichares (Andoc. De mysteriis 92-94), see K. J. Dover, Lysias and the Corpus Lysiacum (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1968), 78-80. The author of this speech was a grandson of an Eleusinian hierophant ([Lys.] 6.54), and the trial was conducted before a jury consisting entirely of initiates (Andoc. De Myst. 29).
54. On the sense of see Obbink, "On Piety," 1-2, 12-15;
55. M. L. McPherran, The Religion of Socrates (University Park, Pa., 1996), p. 88, n. 13 and p. 130. Cf. the protest of Clement of Alexandria that those who perform the mysteries are the true, whereas Diagoras and others who rejected the traditional religion were called (Protr. 2, pp. 20-21 P.). Glen Bowersock reminds me that the Emperor Julian, who certainly knew that the Christians were not atheists, still calls them.
56. Mask of Comedy, 178-80.
57. Athenian Religion (n. 29 above), 210-11.
58. See McPherran, Religion of Socrates (n. 43 above), 29-82.
59. Bus. 38-40. The passage is so apposite that it is worth quoting:. Cf. Pl. Euthphr. 6a-b, with n. 49 below. Isocrates' earlier praise of Pythagoras as a pupil of the pious Egyptians, and as one who educated the young with the full approval of their relatives (28-29), is also notable, since Herodotus claims that the practices called Orphic and Bacchic were actually Egyptian and Pythagorean (2.81); Isocrates is surely offering a covert defense of Socrates as someone not only condemned for corrupting the young, but also suspected of Pythagorean beliefs. For similar praise of Pythagoras see Libanius' Apology (Decl. 1.158); the coincidence shows that Polycrates (and the real Anytus?) had alluded to him. Cf. T. Ebert, "Sokrates als Pythagoreer und die Anamnesis in Platons Phaidon" Akad. der Wiss. und der Lit. zu Mainz, Geistes- und Sozialwiss. Kl., Jahrg. 1994, Abh. 13, 1-20;
60. McPherran, Religion of Socrates, 135. Unfortunately we have lost Lysias' speech On behalf of Socrates against Polycrates (frag. 113 Thalheim), which also replied to Polycrates.
61. So Parker, Athenian Religion, p. 211 with n. 48; but he is right to note that the issue is raised "to stress the division between true Socratic piety and the traditional version, in fact impious, that has presumed to arraign him ... The truly dangerous innovators in religion ... are soi-disant experts such as Euthyphro." Numenius already took the passage to mean that Plato, wishing to criticize scandalous stories about the gods but afraid of being executed like Socrates, ridiculed them by making the laughable theologian (we might say "religious fanatic") Euthyphro accept them (frag. 23 Des Places). Euthyphro was, of course, an exponent of etymology, as we learn in the Cratylus (396d, 399a, 399e). In the Euthyphro Plato seems keen to distance Socrates from such figures; however, if D. Sedley is right to argue that his intent in the Cratylus is in fact serious, then it follows, as he suggests, that Plato may have taken Euthyphro's etymological expertise seriously ("The Etymologies in Plato's Cratylus" JHS 118 [1998]: 140-54, at 147).
62. For the counterargument that Plato sought to discredit the etymological method of the Derveni treatise see F. Casadesús Bordoy, "Nueva interpretación del Crátilo platónico a partir de las aportaciones del papiro de Derveni," Emerita 68 (2000): 53-71.
63. Clouds 828-30, cited above, n. 27. Similarly Diagoras' contemporary Hippon of Samos or Rhegium was accused of impiety by Cratinus in his Panoptae (PCG F 167 Kassel-Austin = DK 38 A 2); other sources say that he was called "atheist" because he made water the first principle of the universe and acknowledged nothing other than what we can perceive (A 4, 8, 9). In his very important attack on true atheism in Laws 10 Plato equates it with scientific materialism; he links it with early theogonies that posit a material principle prior to the existence of god and speak of conflict among the gods (886b-e) - these are a source of "ignorance". The Derveni treatise makes the same point about the tales of Hades (e.g., col. IV).
64. following the important work of P. A. Vander Waerdt ("Socrates in the Clouds" in The Socratic Movement, ed. P. A. Vander Waerdt [Ithaca, 1994], 48-86),
65. that Socrates had an early interest in such views and held the Diogenean teleological argument for the existence of god that Xenophon ascribes to him (Religion of Socrates, 272-91,
66. cf. A. E. Taylor, Socrates [London, 1951], 51-74); his conclusions on Socrates' religious outlook, very similar to my own, were unknown to me when I first assigned the Derveni papyrus to Diagoras (Janko, "Physicist as Hierophant," 92-94). However, although McPherran regards Diagoras as a sophist and compares him with Socrates (114), he does not doubt that he was a complete atheist (130, 285).
67. "The Freedom of the Intellectual in Greek Society," Talanta 7 (1976): 25-54 (= Collected Papers, Vol. 2 [Oxford, 1988], 135-58).
68. G. Kerferd (The Sophistic Movement [Cambridge, 1981], p. 21, n. 7) rightly calls Dover's argument "excessively sceptical."
69. Much of the confusion over what actually happened, on which Dover bases his argument, is likely to go back to Athenian law-court speeches, which are notoriously inaccurate about historical details. Moreover, Polycrates' pamphlet probably mentioned the charges against Anaxagoras, Protagoras, Diagoras, and Damon, since these are cited in Libanius' rebuttal of it (Apology = Decl. 1.153-57). Intellectuals who have never experienced persecution seem to find it hard to believe that it can occur even in a democracy, if the society offers no legal protection for freedom of thought and expression like the Bill of Rights. For an invaluable corrective see M. Ostwald, From Popular Sovereignty to the Sovereignty of Law (Berkeley, 1986), 275-90.
70. H. Yunis believes that we must accept that Anaxagoras was attacked on religious grounds, even if he was never condemned, and that Diopeithes offered a proposal outlawing his type of teaching, even if it was not enacted (A New Creed: Fundamental Religious Beliefs in the Athenian Polis and Euripidean Drama [Göttingen, 1988], 66-72);
71. see also McPherran, Religion of Socrates, p. 270, n. 246.
72. R. Wallace supports Dover's arguments, denying the trial of Anaxagoras, but concedes that Protagoras did leave Athens under a cloud soon after 421, at a time of the popular suspicion of intellectuals that is documented by the Clouds, Ameipsias' Connus of 423, and Eupolis' Flatterers of 421, frag. 157 Kassel-Austin ("Private Lives and Public Enemies: Freedom of Thought in Classical Athens," in Athenian Identity and Civic Ideology, ed. A. L. Boegehold and A. Scafuro [Baltimore, 1994], 127-55, at 134-35).
73. R. Parker (Athenian Religion, 199-217) seeks a middle course.
74. See I. F. Stone (The Trial of Socrates [London, 1988]).
75. The fact that Libanius' Apology deals with Socrates' association with Alcibiades and Critias (Decl. 1.136-52) confirms that Polycrates, if not Anytus, had raised the question at his trial (cf. T. C. Brickhouse and N. D. Smith, Socrates on Trial [Princeton, 1989], 77-87).
76. and R. Garland, Introducing New Gods: The Politics of Athenian Religion (London, 1992), 136-51.
77. So McPherran, Religion of Socrates, 119-44, who rightly argues that Socrates had not failed to observe civic cult (77-78);
78. contra Garland, New Gods (n. 54 above).
79. See Ostwald, Popular Sovereignty (n. 52 above), 494-95.
80. "Fire Next Time," 118.
81. See Janko, "Physicist as Hierophant," 62-63, 85-86.
82. See, e.g., D. A. Russell, An Anthology of Greek Prose (Oxford, 1991), 2-4, for the style of such writers as Pherecydes, Acusilaus, and Hecataeus;
83. L. R. Palmer, The Greek Language (London and Boston, 1980), 143-44,
84. for passages that make a similar impression in the Hippocratic corpus, e.g., Airs, Waters, and Places 24.41-52 (or De victu 5-24, whose author imitates Heraclitus);
85. and J. D. Denniston, Greek Prose Style (Oxford, 1952), 1-4, on the styles of Heraclitus and Anaxagoras. Our author seems less practiced as a prose writer than Herodotus or Antiphon; his awkwardness may be compared with that of the "Old Oligarch." For further thoughts on the style see Janko, "Physicist as Hierophant," 62-63, 84-85.
86. The Philodemus Translation Project has found these techniques invaluable for studying the carbonized papyri from Herculaneum. For the digital imaging, introduced by Dr. Steven W. Booras of the Center for the Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts at Brigham Young University, see Cronache Ercolanesi 29 (1999): 95-100.
87. Several of the illustrations in (h), (i), and (k) are reproduced in R. Seider, Paläographie der griechischen Papyri, vol. 2 (Stuttgart, 1970), pl. 1.
88. In the opening columns the author reveals the nature of the Furies, which continue to be discussed in cols. II-IV and VI. They are merely daimons, which are souls of the angry dead (col. VI). Col. V, like cols. VII and XX, reveals that his argument seeks to dispel the ignorance of ordinary seekers after faith. On these cols, see S. I. Johnston, Restless Dead: Encounters Between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1999), 273-79.
89. Ts.'s ["this mound" is unlikely, as it would require. The difficulty is noted by Johnston, Restless Dead (n. 63 above), p. 275, n. 54.
90. The sequence of thought (which depends on the ambiguity of) seems to be that, just as the world is ordered by the, so our shared order our lives. As Sider showed ("Heraclitus in the Derveni Papyrus," 134-35), this passage reflects Heraclitus' doctrine of the opposition between and. Sextus Empiricus (Math. 7.127-34 = DK 22 A 16) explains that Heraclitus rejected, i.e., an individual's sensations (notably when dreaming), in favor of, i.e., phenomena that we all perceive; these alone are trustworthy, according to the shared divine that encompasses us when we are awake and breathing. Note especially B 89: (cf. the reference to that precedes in IV); B 2; and Sext. Emp. Math. 7.129:. The idea that Air is essential to intelligence goes far to explain why Heraclitus' thought appealed to our author, since it resembles Diogenes' equation of Air with Mind. Johnston, Restless Dead, 265-67, follows Laks and Most.
91. DK 22 B 3 + B 94. Col. XXV refers back to this discussion of the size of the sun.
92. I accept, suggested by Ts. in Laks and Most, 113, but also thought of Ts. prints, which is accepted by Johnston, Restless Dead, 275, but the point is that the daimons are souls who are owed a penalty, as the sequel shows. For discussion of this column see A. Henrichs, "Dromena und Legomena," in Ansichten griechischer Rituale, Geburtstag-Symposium für Walter Burkert, ed. F. Graf (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1998), 33-71, at 33-35;
93. W. Burkert, Da Omero ai magi, 105-7.
94. For this view of the world as full of souls cf. Thales (DK 11 A 22-23) and the Pythagorean Memoirs excerpted by Alexander Polyhistor (apud Diog. Laert. 8.31-32); although these date from the third century B.C.E. (W. Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism [Cambridge, Mass, 1972], 53, 57-59), Aristotle (De an. 1.2.404a1-16) reports that the Pythagoreans (DK 58 B 40) and Democritus (DK 67 A 28) regarded the motes in a sunbeam as souls (W. Burkert, Da Omero ai magi, 108).
95. I supply because the author reverts to the topic of belief (as in col. V), to which a literal reading of Orpheus' hymn, with its deeds of violence between gods, is a serious obstacle. Orpheus offers "important" truths, like those shared perceptions valued as "important" by Heraclitus in col. IV.
96. This sentence, marked with paragraphi as a quotation, was recognized as such by Ruten, "Interim Notes," 132; I think it is a new fragment of Heraclitus. The claim that "prophesy" means the same as "suffice"is typically implausible.
97. For this sense of missing from the lexica, see Strabo 1.2.3 and Philodemus De poem. I col. 24, 20 (see R. Janko, ed. and trans., Philodemus: "On Poems," Book I [Oxford, 2000], p. 213, n. 6).
98. West holds that the commentator misinterprets "reverend one," an epithet, as "penis" (Orphic Poems, 85-86); the same pun appears in Heraclitus (DK 22 F 15).
99. However, Burkert, Da Omero ai magi, 81-83, has proved that this is wrong, and the poem did entail this obscene episode. First, it parallels the Hittite tale of Kumarbi, who bites off the penis of the Sky-god Anu, and thus becomes pregnant with the Storm-god and two River-gods (cf. Zeus at col. XVI 3-6). Secondly, Burkert adduces a neglected passage where Diogenes Laertius (1.5) denies that Orpheus was a philosopher, since he attributes shameful acts to the gods, including oral sex:.
100. For this interpretation of with an object in the accusative ("ejaculate, procreate") I follow Burkert (Da Omero ai magi, 82), who compares Aesch. frag. 15 Radt, which Hesychius (s.v.) glosses cf. "semen" and Aesch. Eum. 660. Lamberton had suggested (in Laks and Most) that, although the papyrus has, the Orphic logos originally read "sprang from the ether"; but cf. Rusten, "Interim Notes," p. 125, n. 9.
101. Laks and Most (p. 16, n. 34) report further proposals of Ts. after this, the cogency of which cannot be judged.
102. West (Orphic Poems, 114) supplies a complete verse "now he is king of all, and will be in future." For Ts.'s suggestions about the sequel see Laks and Most, p. 17, n. 40.
103. This sentence follows Ts., whose suggestion for the last line (Laks and Most, p. 17, n. 45) I cannot accept.
104. Apparatus to col. XIX: 3 Ts.: ed. 6 coni. Burkert ("Orpheus" [n. 9], p. 93): ed. 11 Ts.
105. For Ts.'s translation of the rest of the col., which I do not follow, see Laks and Most, p. 18, n. 52.
106. I supply (cf. Obbink in Laks and Most, 42-43; Rusten, "Notes," p. 139, n. 42).
107. Rusten ("Notes," 138-40) deems the whole column to this point a quotation, and the following sentence a feeble paraphrase of the last point, marked by a paragraphus. But this is not convincing (cf. Obbink in Laks and Most, 43-46).
108. I emend to the paradosis, defended by Rusten ("Notes," p. 139, n. 41), would be an easy mistake in a context with so many participles.
109. For this sense of cf. Hippoc. Nat. Hom. 1.1, with used nearby.
110. The book ended here; after the closing agraphon there ought to be a subscriptio giving the author and title, but perhaps it has yet to be unrolled. West doubted whether either the poem or the commentary could have ended so suddenly (Orphic Poems 76, 94-98); was there a further roll? The poem certainly included the birth of Zeus' daughter-sister Demeter as a result of this rape (cf. the forward reference in col. XXII), and perhaps the rape of Demeter herself, if it is mentioned in col. XXII. Col. XX may also refer to Zeus' rapes of his mother and sister, and perhaps even to that of his daughter Persephone, unless Aphrodite is meant.