Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/48

26 26 HISTORY OF THE These spurious productions of later times will be treated in that part of our history to which they may with the greatest probability be referred : here we will only state our opinion that the name of Orpheus, and the legends respecting him, are intimately connected with the idea and the worship of a Dionysus dwelling in the infernal regions (Zaypevg), and that the foundation of this worship (which was connected with the Eleusinian mysteries), together with the composition of hymns and songs for its initiations (reXsTai), was the earliest function ascribed to him. Nevertheless, under the influence of various causes, the fame of Orpheus grew so much, that he was considered as the first minstrel of the heroic age, was made the companion of the Argonauts*, and the marvels which music and poetry wrought on a rude and simple generation were chiefly described under his name. iii. Singers and musicians, who belonged to the Phrygian worship of the great mother of the gods, of the Corybantes, and other similar beings. The Phrygians, allied indeed to the Greeks, yet a separate and distinct nation, differed from their neighbours in their strong disposition to an orgiastic worship — that is, a worship which was connected with a tumult and excitement produced by loud music and violent bodily movements, such as occurred in Greece at the Bacchanalian rejoicings ; where, however, it never, as in Phrygia, gave its character to every variety of divine worship. With this worship was connected the deve- lopment of a peculiar kind of music, especially on the flute, which in- strument was always considered in Greece to possess a stimulating and passion-stirring force. This, in the Phrygian tradition, was ascribed to the demi-god Marsyas, who is known as the inventor of the flute, and the unsuccessful opponent of Apollo, to his disciple Olympus, and, lastly, to Hyagnis, to whom also the composition of nomes to the Phry- gian gods in a native melody was attributed. A branch of this worship, and of the style of music and dancing belonging to it, spread at an early date to Crete, the earliest inhabitants of which island appear to have been allied to the Phrygians. § 8. By far the most remarkable circumstance in these accounts of the earliest minstrels of Greece is, that several of them (especially from the second of the three classes just described) are called Thracians. It is utterly inconceivable that, in the later historic times, when the Thracians were contemned as a barbarian race f, a notion should have sprung up, that the first civilisation of Greece was due to them ; consequently we cannot doubt that this was a tradition handed down from a very early period. Now, if we are to understand it to mean that Eumolpus, Orpheus, Musaeus, and Thamyris, were the fellow-countrymen of those Edonians, Odrysians, and Odomantians, who in the historical age occupied the Thracian territory, and who spoke a barbarian language,
 * Pindar, Pyth. iv. 315. f See, for example, Thucyd. vii. 29.