Some ancient Greek authors, such as Strabo and Plutarch, write of Orpheus as having Thracian origins (through his father, Oeagrus).[1][2][3] Although these traditional accounts have been uncritically accepted by some historians,[1] they have been put into question by others, since it was only in the mid-/late 5th century that Orpheus acquired Thracian attributes.[4][5] Additionally, as André Boulanger notes, "the most characteristic features of Orphism—consciousness of sin, need of purification and redemption, infernal punishments—have never been found among the Thracians".[1] It has also been observed that Pausanias tells us that on Polygnotus' mural in the Cnidian Lesche at Delphi (ca. 460 BCE) Orpheus was represented as a Greek.[4] This is also the case in early vase paintings, where his appearance is contrasted with that of the Thracian men, whom he enchants with his music.[4] Indeed, the introduction of the worship of the Muses in the times of Archelaos, the genealogies featuring Apollo, Pierus and Methone, Orpheus's tomb in Leibethra and the importance of this gesture as a part of the king’s cultural policy, makes the hypothesis of the Pierian, and so Macedonian, roots of Orpheus, highly probable.[6][7] The testimonies referring to his death, grave and heroic worship, for example early attestations to the existence of a real, or fictitious, gravestone epigram of Orpheus, point most strongly to his Macedonian links.[6] Orpheus's links to Thrace seem to have been sporadic and not "ethnic": he was only "Thracian" when there was a need for him to be and when that part of his portrayal allowed a poet to express a meaning important for themselves and for their audiences.[7] In contrast, when presented as the originator of the Greek musical tradition, he was not viewed as a foreign Thracian, but rather as a Greek Pierian.[7] Jingiby (talk) 17:39, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
References
Orpheus's Thracian origin, already maintained by Strabo and Plutarch, has been adopted again by E. Rohde (Psyche), by E. Mass (Orpheus), and by P. Perdrizet (Cultes et mythes du Pangée). But A. Boulanger has discerningly observed that “the most characteristic features of Orphism—consciousness of sin, need of purification and redemption, infernal punishments—have never been found among the Thracians”. For more see: Mircea Eliade (2011) History of Religious Ideas, Volume 2: From Gautama Buddha to the Triumph of Christianity, translated by Willard R. Trask, University of Chicago Press, p. 483, ISBN 022602735X.
Anthi Chrysanthou, Defining Orphism: The Beliefs, the ›teletae‹ and the Writings, (2020) Volume 94 of Trends in Classics - Supplementary Volumes, Walter de Gruyter, ISBN 3110678454: Orpheus's place of origin was Thrace and according to most ancient sources he was the son of Oeagrus and muse Kalliope.
Androtion, an Attidographer writing in the fourth century BCE, focused precisely on Orpheus's Thracian origin, and the well-known illiteracy of his people...For more see: Nora Goldschmidt, Barbara Graziosi as ed., (2018) Tombs of the Ancient Poets: Between Literary Reception and Material Culture, Oxford University Press, p. 182, ISBN 0192561030.
Mojsik, Tomasz (2022). Orpheus in Macedonia: Myth, Cult and Ideology. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 93, 137. ISBN 978-1-350-21319-7.