Note 27 — Chapter X · THE ORPHICS

In the statements of the Neoplatonic writers this first Orphic Dionysos is regularly called Διόνυσος simply (perhaps also Βάκχος: fr. 192). Nonnus in recounting the Orphic legend calls him Zagreus: D. vi, 165; cf. Ζαγρέα γειναμένη (of Perseph.) with clear allusion to Callim. fr. 171, υἷα Διώνυσον Ζαγρέα γειναμένη. Callim. here, as elsewhere, seems to have in mind the Orphic story. Tz. on Lyc. 355 calls the god of the Orphic legend Διόνυσον τὸν καὶ Ζαγρέα καλούμενον. Ζαγρεύς the great Hunter is a name of the all-absorbing Hades: thus also the Alkmaionis fr. 3 Kink. Zagreus is identified with the Dionysos of nocturnal revelry in E., Kret. fr. 472, 10 (a reference in Ba. 1181 Kirchh.); and see above, chap. viii, n. 28. This Dionysos is regarded as a χθόνιος (see Hsch. Ζαγρεύς) and this must indubitably have been quite familiar to the poets who made him the son of Persephone: χθόνιος ὁ τῆς Περσεφόνης Διόνυσος (Harp. λεύκη). They were as clearly conscious as was Herakleitos of the fact that ὡυτὸς Ἅιδης καὶ Διόνυσος, whereas this consciousness was undoubtedly obscured in the public ceremonial of Dionysos-worship (to which, however, Hcl.’s saying refers). Zagreus-Dionysos was never identified with the Ἴακχος of the Eleusinia (to which Orph. fr. 215, l. 2 refers); though Dionysos alone was often so identified.