ABSTRACT
What we commonly call the Orphic myth of Dionysus does not survive in anything approaching a complete form earlier than Olympiodorus, a Neoplatonic philosopher of the sixth century CE. Olympiodorus narrated it briefly in the course of writing a commentary on a passage from Plato’s Phaedo, where Socrates and his friends are debating whether it is right to commit suicide.1 Socrates argues against suicide by claiming that humans are under the guardianship of the gods, and alludes to a myth “told secretly” that explains how this is so. In attempting to clarify Socrates’ allusion Olympiodorus gives us the Orphic story. He says:
According to Orpheus there were four cosmic reigns. First was the reign of Uranus, then Cronus received the kingship, having cut off his father’s genitals. Zeus ruled after Cronus, having cast his father into Tartarus. Next, Dionysus succeeded Zeus. They say that through Hera’s treachery, the Titans who were around Dionysus tore him to pieces and ate his flesh. And Zeus, being angry at this, struck the Titans with thunderbolts, and from the soot of the vapors that arose from [the incinerated Titans] came the matter from which humanity came into existence. Therefore, we must not commit suicide – not because, as [Socrates] seems to say, we are in our body as if in a prison, since that is obvious and [Socrates] would not call such an idea secret, but rather because our bodies are Dionysiac. We are, indeed, part of Dionysus if we are composed from the soot of the Titans who ate Dionysus’ flesh.
