Note 12 — Chapter X · THE ORPHICS

We may not simply take it for granted that the account given in Dem. 18, 259–60, of the nocturnal initiations and the processions by day through the city held by a mystical sect, is intended to describe the secret mysteries of an Orphic conventicle (as Lob. does 646 ff., 652 ff., 695 f.). The explanation of the ἀπομάττειν τῷ πηλῷ of that passage by reference to the specially Orphic myth of Zagreus and the Titans is arbitrary in itself and hard to reconcile with the language of Demosth. (Harp. and Phot. are responsible for this expl.) Hardly more successful is the derivation of the call ἄττης ὕης from the ἄτη of Dionysos (Zagreus) on being torn to pieces by the Titans: EM. 163, 63. A definite connexion undoubtedly does exist between the Ὀρφικὰ ὄργια and the Σαβάζια καὶ Μητρῷα (Str. 471) described by Dem.; but the Orphics were never called worshippers of Sabazios nor their god Σαβάζιος, and it seems likely that their secret worship was different from the ceremonies of the Σαβαζιασταί that Dem. had in view (the latter may have retained more of the primitive barbaric ritual: cf. the ins. given in Ἐφ. Ἀρχ. 1883, p. 245 f. = CIA. iv, Supp. ii, n. 626 b; from the end of second century B.C.).