Note 3 — Chapter VII · IDEAS OF THE FUTURE LIFE

The remains in Kinkel, Frag. Epic. i, 215 ff. This Μινυάς was identified by K. O. Müller, Orchom2., p. 12, with the Orphic κατάβασις εἰς Ἅιδου, and this suggestion has been followed, though with hesitation, even by Lobeck, Agl. 360, 373. It rests solely on the fact that the Orphic κατάβασις was very doubtfully ascribed according to Clemens to Prodikos of Samos, according to Suidas to Herodikos of Perinthos (or to Kerkops, or to Orpheus of Kamarina); while the Minyas, according to Paus. 4, 33, 7, was very doubtfully ascribed to Prodikos of Phokaia. Müller first identified Prodikos of Samos with Herodikos of Perinthos, and then both of them with Prodikos of Phokaia. The justification of such a procedure is by no means “self-evident” and the identification—entirely depending upon this quite arbitrary view—of the Orphic κατάβασις εἰς Ἅιδου with the Minyas is in the last degree hazardous. Such an alternative title to an ancient narrative poem can only be defended by fictitious and quite untenable parallels. The name Μινυάς has no parallel in Orphic literature, and suggests rather a poem dealing with heroic adventure in which the Nekyia would only be an episode. If we are to believe in the double title we require at least to be told how the name (Minyas) could possibly have been given to a poem whose contents as implied by the title κατάβασις εἰς Ἅιδου plainly consisted in a descent to Hades—made by Orpheus himself (as Lobeck also understands, p. 373). Besides, everything we learn about the Nekyia of the Minyas differs widely from the temper and doctrine of Orphism, which should have manifested themselves very distinctly in such a vision of the life to come. Nor is anything from the Minyas given elsewhere under the name of Orpheus, like so many of the details of underworld mythology. There is nothing to suggest that it was Orpheus who sought the atra atria Ditis: an unprejudiced interpretation of fr. 1 (ap. Paus. 10, 28, 2) would suggest that it was rather Theseus and Peirithoos whose descent to Hades supplied the framework for the Hades episode in the poem. There is then not the slightest justification for including the Minyas in the list of Orphic poems or for citing what is known of its contents as Orphic mythological doctrine (which last Lobeck himself did not do: he knew too well the real nature and meaning of Orphism). Cf. Dümmler, Delphika, p. 19 (Bas. 1894).