the office of high priest
with that of king. Horace styles him the interpreter of the Gods;
and he was said to have interposed with the Deities for the
deliverance of the Argonauts from a dangerous tempest. It is thought
that he passed some part of his life in Egypt, and became acquainted
with many particulars of the ancient religion of the Egyptians,
which he introduced into the theology of Greece. Some modern writers
even go so far as to suggest that he learned from the Hebrews, who
were then sojourning in Egypt, the knowledge of the true God.

His wife, Eurydice, dying very young, he was inconsolable for her
loss. To alleviate his grief, he went to Thesprotia, in Epirus, the
natives of which region were said to possess incantations, for the
purpose of raising the ghosts of the departed. Here, according to
some accounts, being deceived by a phantom, which was made to appear
before him, he died of sorrow; but, according to other writers,
he renounced the society of mankind for ever and retired to the
mountains of Thrace. His journey to that distant country gave
occasion to say, that he descended to the Infernal Regions. This is
the more likely, as he is supposed to have there promulgated his
notions of the infernal world, which, according to Diodorus Siculus,
he had learned among the Egyptians.

Tzetzes, however, assures us that this part of his history is
founded on the circumstance, that Orpheus cured his wife of the bite
of a serpent, which had till then been considered to be mortal; and
that the poets gave an hyperbolical version of the story, in saying
that he had rescued her from Hell. He says, too, that he had learned
in Egypt the art of magic, which was much cultivated there, and
especially the method of charming serpents.

After the loss of his wife, he retired to mount Rhodope, to assuage
the violence of his grief. There, according to Ovid and other poets,
the Maenades, or Bacchanals, to be revenged for his contempt of them
and their rites, tore him in pieces; which story is somewhat
diversified by the writers who relate that Venus, exasperated
against Calliope, the mother of Orpheus, for having adjudged to
Proserpine the possession of Adonis, caused the women of Thrace to
become enamoured of her son, and to tear him in pieces while
disputing the possession of him. An ancient author, quoted by
Hyginus, says that Orpheus was killed b