been
carried to Lemnos, just as the head of Osiris used to be wafted to Byblus.
He is described as going to the shades below, and afterwards returning to
upper air. This is similar to the history of Osiris, who was supposed to
have been in a state of death, and after a time to have come to life. There
was moreover something mysterious in the death of Orpheus; for it seems to
have been celebrated with the same frantic acts of grief, as people
practised in their lamentations for Thamuz and Osiris, and at the rites of
Baal. The Bistonian women, who were the same as the Thyades, and Maenades,
used to gash their arms with knives, and besmear themselves with
[1056]blood, and cover their heads with ashes. By this display of sorrow we
are to understand a religious rite; for Orpheus was a title, under which
the Deity of the place was worshipped. He was the same as Orus of Egypt,
whom the Greeks esteemed both as Apollo, and Hephaistus. That he was a
deity is plain from his temple and oracle abovementioned: which, we find,
were of great repute, and resorted to by various people from the opposite
coast.

As there was an Orpheus in Thrace, so there appears to have been an Orpha
in [1057]Laconia, of whose history we have but few remains. They represent
her as a Nymph, the daughter of Dion, and greatly beloved by Dionusus. She
was said, at the close of her life, to have been changed to a tree. The
fable probably relates to the Dionusiaca, and other Orphic rites, which had
been in early times introduced into the part of the world abovementioned,
where they were celebrated at a place called Orpha. But the rites grew into
disuse, and the history of the place became obsolete: hence Orpha has been
converted to a nymph, favoured of the God there worshipped; and was
afterwards supposed to have been changed to one of the trees, which grew
within its precincts.

Many undertook to write the history of Orpheus; the principal of whom were
Zopurus of Heraclea, Prodicus Chius, Epigenes, and Herodorus. They seem all
to have run into that general mistake of forming a new personage from a
title, and making the Deity a native, where he was inshrined. The writings,
which were transmitted under the name of Orpheus, were innumerable: and are
justly ridiculed by Lucian, both for their quantity, and matter. There were
however some curious hymns, which used to be of old sung in Pieria, and
Samothracia; and which Onomacritus copied. They contain indeed little