Potsdamer Altertumswissenschaftliche Beiträge – 57

Franz Steiner Verlag Sonderdruck aus:

Burial Rituals, Ideas of Afterlife,

and the Individual in the Hellenistic World
and the Roman Empire

Edited by Katharina Waldner, Richard Gordon,

and Wolfgang Spickermann

Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2016

 INHALT

Katharina Waldner, Richard Gordon, Wolfgang Spickermann

Introduction .....................................................................................................7

Part 1: From Homer to Lucian – Poetics of the Afterlife

Krešimir Matijević
The Evolution of the Afterlife in Archaic Greece ......................................... 15
Jan N. Bremmer
The Construction of an Individual Eschatology: The Case of the
Orphic Gold Leaves ...................................................................................... 31
Matylda Obryk
Prote im Land der Negationen: Per negationem definiertes Nachleben
in einer griechischen Grabinschrift ............................................................... 53
Wolfgang Spickermann
Tod und Jenseits bei Lukian von Samosata und Tatian ................................. 67

Part 2: Individual Elaborations in the Roman Empire

Constanze Höpken
Gefangene zwischen Diesseits und Jenseits: Außergewöhnliche
Bestattungen im römischen Gräberfeld um St. Gereon in Köln ................... 83
Veit Rosenberger †
Coping with Death: Private Deification in the Roman Empire ................... 109
Valentino Gasparini
“I will not be thirsty. My lips will not be dry”:
Individual Strategies of Re-constructing the Afterlife in the Isiac Cults .... 125
Martin Andreas Stadler
Dioskourides, Tanaweruow, Titus Flavius Demetrius et al.
Or: How Appealing was an Egyptian Afterlife? .......................................... 151

Part 3: Making a Difference: Groups and their Claims

Claudia D. Bergmann
Identity on the Menu: Imaginary Meals and Ideas of the World to
Come in Jewish Apocalyptic Writings ........................................................ 167
 Inhalt

Andreas Merkt
“A Place for My Body”: Aspects of Individualisation in
Early Christian Funerary Culture and Eschatological Thought .................. 189
Richard Gordon
„Den Jungstier auf den goldenen Schultern tragen“: Mythos, Ritual und
Jenseitsvorstellungen im Mithraskult ..........................................................207

Index .................................................................................................................. 241

Zu den Autoren .................................................................................................. 263

 THE CONSTRUCTION OF AN INDIVIDUAL ESCHATOLOGY:
THE CASE OF THE ORPHIC GOLD LEAVES
Jan N. Bremmer

Abstract

The overall aim of this contribution is to provide some idea of the options open to indi-
viduals in the late Classical and Hellenistic periods for expressing ideas about the after-
life, and the limits within such options operated. To that end, I concentrate on a single
case, namely the so-called Orphic Gold Leaves and other Orphic literature, of which I
select some aspects that seem to me important for our understanding of their afterlife
ideas. I will do this by systematically re-tracing the steps prescribed on the Gold Leaves
for the Orphic initiates to follow. It will appear that the religious entrepreneur who de-
signed these Gold Leaves made use of Egyptian materials, which he appropriated to in-
vent a new geography of the underworld. In addition he coined what I take to be a ritual
formula inspired by the Eleusinian Mysteries and he took recourse to an ancient Indo-Eu-
ropean idea of the underworld as a meadow. It was precisely in the hybrid world of Sicily
and Magna Graecia that there was room for such a bricolage of old and new ideas.

At the opening of the Olympic Games 2012 Eric Idle sang the classic Monty Python
song Always look on the bright side of life. This is of course a happy song, yet it also
contains the line ‘Always look on the bright side of death’. Despite the diversity of
human experience regarding our final moments, we may think this injunction rather
implausible. In view of the highly selective nature of our evidence, it is not easy to
answer that question. Ancient tombstones are much less informative than, say, ear-
ly-modern ones, even if the latter too are highly stylised.
The overall aim of this contribution is to provide some idea of the options open
to individuals in the late Classical and Hellenistic periods for expressing ideas
about the afterlife, and the limits within which such options operated. To that end, I
propose to concentrate on a single case, namely the evidence supplied by the so-
called Orphic Gold Leaves and other Orphic literature. Orphism is perhaps the area
where we can best trace individual ideas about the afterlife in this period, more so
than in texts written for larger audiences, such as tragedy or legal and funeral orations,
which have been well studied by Kenneth Dover, Robert Parker and Adam Drozdek.1
In recent times, little attention has been paid to more individual ideas in the study
of Greek religion: the focus on ‘polis religion’ has meant that the collective aspect
has received more interest than individuals’ own ideas. It is therefore not surprising
that a reaction has now set in, typified by a recent book by Julia Kindt program-

1 doveR 1974, 261–268; paRkeR 2005, 360–368; dRozdek 2008/2009, 73–78.

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32 Jan N. Bremmer

matically entitled Rethinking Greek Religion. The author rightly stresses that focus-
ing on polis religion prevents us from seeing the ‘thin coherence’ of Greek religion
and encourages us to play down the inevitable shifts and contestations within that
religion. Orphism is one of the examples she adduces as an illustration of how the
stress on polis religion prevents us from properly situating “those areas of religious
activity that the model cannot sufficiently explain”.2
I cannot of course discuss Orphic ideas about the afterlife in detail here, but I
will select some aspects that seem to me important for our understanding of those
ideas. I propose to do this by systematically re-tracing the steps prescribed on the
Gold Leaves for the Orphic initiates to follow. The number of these Leaves has
steadily increased in recent decades, and they are now available in a number of
different editions.3 I would emphasise that the analysis of these texts in recent years
has often been of very high quality: the work of Sarah Johnston as well as of Al-
berto Bernabé and his co-author Ana Jiménez on the eschatology of the Leaves in
their recent commentaries has put all scholars in their debt.4 Yet there is still, I think,
room for some additional observations both from the point of view sketched above
and in the light of other recent publications regarding the Leaves.
My point of departure is Christoph Riedweg’s reconstruction of a total hieros
logos for the Orphic ritual by arranging the texts of all the Gold Leaves into one
more or less coherent poem. As he himself admits, “what we are doing here is rather
bold”.5 Admittedly, the experiment can be no more than a hypothesis. Yet if we
adopt the model for heuristic purposes, it can help us to see the narrative order of
events as set out for the initiate by the earliest Gold Leaves. Moreover, there seems
little doubt that the various texts are extracts from or allusions to a larger whole; the
later ones, in particular, are increasingly routinised and offer only an abbreviation
of the original. All reconstructions must of course be largely arbitrary, but they will
help us to form some idea of a possible, perhaps even probable, scenario that was
available to the earliest Orphic initiates.
The overall scenario is clearly composed of three parts or sections. First we
have a number of verses that instruct the initiates what to do at the moment of death:
how to find his or her way until the moment they are allowed to travel the road that
the other initiates have taken. Then there comes the confrontation with Persephone,
who is asked to allow them to proceed to “the seats of the pure” (below), after
which they will enter the ‘meadow’ that is the final destination of the Orphic initi-
ates. But this last stage is complicated by the requirement that the initiates pro-

2 kindt 2012, 23; see also BRemmeR 2010, 13–35; eidinow 2011, 9–38; Rüpke 2011, 191–204.
3 I will quote the Leaves from the following authoritative editions:
OF = BeRnaBÉ 2004/2005, somewhat updated in BeRnaBÉ and jimÉnez san cRistóBal 2008,
241–271.
GJ = GRaf and johnston 20132.
The Gold Leaves have also been edited by tziphopoulos 2010, 255–284 and edmonds iii 2011,
15–50.
4 BeRnaBÉ and jimÉnez san cRistóBal 2008; see also BeRnaBÉ 2009, 95–130; johnston 2013,
94–136.
5 RiedweG 2011, 218–256 at 248–252 (quotation: 252).
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 The Construction of an Individual Eschatology: The Case of the Orphic Gold Leaves 33

nounce certain pass-words. It is these, apparently, that enable the final transition
into the world of the Orphic blessed. But to utter these pass-words, the initiate must
be able to remember them, and we will see that the Gold Leaves prepare them for
this.
Before we take a look at what happens after death, however, I should stress that
the average Greek seems to have been somewhat reluctant to talk about life after
death in specific terms. There clearly was a certain preference for using euphe-
misms rather than being explicit about what awaits one in the other world. It is thus
not surprising that the Athenians used the expression ‘thither’, when they meant the
place where one goes after death, or ‘there’.6 They not only referred to Hades as
“the god below”,7 but also to Persephone as the “daughter of Demeter” rather than
calling her by her own name.8 In the Cratylus (404cd) Plato notes that “many peo-
ple” are in awe of the name Pherephatta. The Eleusinian terms Theos and Thea, like
Thea in an early fifth-century BC defixio from Selinus in Sicily, surely stem from
just such reverence.9
We find the very same tendency in the earliest Gold Leaves. In the Hipponion
Leaf (OF 474 = GJ 1, 13), Persephone is called ‘ὑποχθονίωι βασιλεί<αι>’, as is prob-
ably the case in the related, but somewhat later, Entella Leaf (OF 475 = GJ 8, 16),10
and in the Gold Leaves from the Timpone Piccolo at Thurii (OF 488–90 = GJ 5–7, 1)
she is called χθονί<ων> βασίλεια. In other words, in some of our earliest Leaves
Persephone is not mentioned by name. It is only in somewhat later Leaves, such as
Thurii 1 (OF 487 = GJ 3, 6) and the late fourth-century examples from Pelinna (OF
485–86 = GJ 26ab, 2) and Pella/Dion (OF 496b = GJ 31, 1) that she is explicitly
mentioned. Pluto and Persephone together are named only in second/first century
BC Cretan Leaves (OF 495 = GJ 15; OF 494 = GJ 17). Admittedly, in the fourth-cen-
tury Leaves from the Timpone Piccolo (OF 488–89 = GJ 6–7, 2) we do find the
names Eubouleus and Eukles, who are without any doubt chthonic divinities, but
the fact that their names started with Εὐ- may well have prompted their explicit
mention.11 We may perhaps compare the use of the name Eumenides for the Er-
inyes.12

6 ‘Thither’: Soph. Aj. 690, [855], 1372, El. 356 with finGlass 2011 ad loc. ‘There’: van leeuwen
on Ar. Ra. 82; finGlass 2011 on Soph. Aj. 1372.
7 west on Hes. Th. 767; finGlass 2011 on Soph. Aj. 571 (spurious) and El. 110.
8 For the expression, see Eur. Hel. 1306–1307 with kannicht ad loc. and F 63 kannicht; Carci-
nus TrGF 70 F 5.1; henRichs 1991, 161–201 at 178–181; voutiRas 1999, 73–82. For other un-
derworld powers, note Il. 14, 274; Hes. Th. 767; Soph. El. 292, OC 1548; Eur. Or. 37, probably
parodied by Euboulos F 64 KA; [Eur.] Rh. 963.
9 paRkeR 2005, 335; BettaRini 2005, 1–7.
10 The reading is disputed (GJ prefer to read ‘king’, which seems less appropriate in these texts).
Note also a second-century BC dedication from Mylasa to [Χ]θονίαι Βασιλαίαι (SEG 44, 910).
11 For these two gods, see BRemmeR 2013, 35–48 at 35–40, and here Appendix 1.
12 henRichs 1991, 169–179.
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34 Jan N. Bremmer

1. The moment of death

Now what did the Greeks think was awaiting them after they died? Undoubtedly,
most people will have thought that they would go to the underworld. How they
imagined this in detail, if at all, we do not know, but it seems that the fifth-century
Athenians at least, that is, if Sophocles is a reliable guide for us in these matters,
thought that the souls of the dead had to travel some distance, as in the Ajax, like the
Antigone nowadays to be dated to about the 440s,13 the protagonist says: ‘For I will
go to that place where I must travel’ (690) and Antigone, too, uses the word ‘travel’
(poreuô) with reference to her descent to the underworld (891–93).14
What is the case with the Gold Leaves? Here the deceased seems to be im-
agined as embarking immediately upon the journey, some of which is described in
detail, though its very beginning is referred to only once, in a Leaf from the Tim-
pone Grande at Thurii: “but as soon as the soul leaves the light of Helios” (OF
487 = GJ 3, 1). Note the reference to the soul here, which is in fact exceptional: this
is the only time that the deceased is mentioned as such. Yet in the same Leaf, only
two lines later, the deceased is named in the masculine, pathôn, and it seems that in
the Orphic imaginary the dead kept their identities as persons.15
In any case, it is important to note that the idea of a flitting or squeaking soul,
as in Homer, does not figure in the Leaves. By contrast, black-figured vases of the
end of the sixth century BC show Patroclus’ soul in the shape of an armed homun-
culus hovering over his dead body.16 Similar winged souls are often pictured near
the bier or the tomb on fifth-century Athenian white-ground lekythoi.17 Such con-
ventionalised representations thus had a long life. In general terms they fit the de-
scription of the dead in Homer, who are called ‘the outworn ones’ (Od. 11, 476) or
‘the feeble heads of the dead’ (10, 521; 11, 29): after the performance of an appropri-
ate funeral, the deceased seems to have been supposed gradually to join the rest of
the (long) dead, who were not represented as individuals but as an enormous, undif-
ferentiated conglomerate. This lack of individuality is well illustrated by a fragment
of Sophocles (F 879 Radt), where the dead are compared to a swarm of bees: “Up
(from the underworld) comes the swarm of the souls, loudly humming”. However,
in the eschatological imaginary of the Gold Leaves, the dead are not reduced to a
vaguely-imagined collective but remain individuals, as we shall see in a moment.
On the other hand, the first, ritual, part of the late fourth-century BC Derveni Papy-
rus states that the magi offer cakes with innumerable knobs because “the souls too
are innumerable”.18 Does this mean that the author of the Papyrus had different
ideas about the afterlife from the authors of the Gold Leaves? Or are we to presume

13 finGlass 2011, 1–11.

14 Note also Aristophanes, Ra. 109–18; chaniotis 2000, 159–181 at 63f.
15 Thus, persuasively, oBBink 2011, 291–330 at 298 n. 29.
16 See most recently souRvinou-inwood 1995, 325 n. 99, 328, 336–337 and 340–341; vollkom-
meR 1997, 566–570.
17 oakley 2004, 81, 211–213.
18 Derveni Papyrus Col. VI. 8 Kouremenos, cf. henRichs 1984, 255–268 at 261–266.
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 The Construction of an Individual Eschatology: The Case of the Orphic Gold Leaves 35

that the magi normally operated on behalf of the souls of non-initiates? We simply
do not know, but in any case we must always be prepared to allow for differences
also within Orphism, which was in no sense a monolithic movement.
Several Leaves specify that the journey is to Hades, which is situated, as tradi-
tionally in Greek religion, beneath the earth.19 This could have hardly been other-
wise: one of Orpheus’ renowned feats was his descent into Hades, which was cele-
brated in several poems, now lost.20 It is interesting to note that in our earliest Leaf,
that of Hipponion, the underworld is called the Aidao domous euêreas, “the well-
built houses of Hades” (OF 474 = GJ 1, 2). There is some uncertainty about how to
translate this expression, which Graf and Johnston translate as “the well-built house
of Hades”, Bernabé and Jiménez as “the well-built abode of Hades”, Edmonds as
“the well-built halls of Hades” and Riedweg as “the palace of Hades”. We should
observe, though, that the expression derives from the Homeric expression ‘house of
Hades’, which must be very old as it has Hittite, Indian and Irish parallels.21 Graf
and Johnston take it literally, and translate the first lines of the Petelia Leaf (OF
476 = GJ 2, 1) as: “you will find to the left of the house of Hades a spring and stand-
ing by it a white cypress”. The expression ‘house of Hades’ is however clearly used
metaphorically here for the underworld, even if the domous are called ‘well-built’,
so that Edmonds’ ‘halls of Hades’ is perhaps most suitable. It remains interesting
that the Orphic poet of these lines used such a traditional expression – perhaps to
lend further solemnity to his instructions; or he may have taken it from one of the
poems about Orpheus’ katabasis, where, given that Orpheus actually visited Hades
and Persephone, it would have been quite appropriate.
Having gone down into the underworld, the deceased is warned not to go near
the spring to which the souls of the (other) dead, the psychai nêkuôn, are going (OF
474 = GJ 1, 5; OF 476 = GJ 2, 3). The expression for the ‘souls of the (other) dead’ is
not Homeric, but clearly a later collocation that seems to contrast their collective
being with the individuality of the Orphic ‘soul’. In the Hipponion Leaf (OF
474 = GJ 1) the injunction runs: “there is a spring at the right side, and standing by
it a white cypress. There the descending souls of the dead refresh themselves. Do
not even go near this spring!” (2–5). The white cypress constitutes a problem that
has not yet been solved. At the very least we should note the anomaly, since the
normal cypress is dark. Johnston, partly following Zuntz, argues that the white cy-
press lures the souls of the uninitiated deceased away from the Spring of Memory,
but is also a sign warning the souls of the initiated not to approach it.22 On the other
hand, Radcliffe Edmonds proposes that the cypress’ light colour marks it out in the
darkness of the underworld. Moreover, as he notes, trees are regularly associated
with springs in Greek pastoral poetry and as a pair belong to the topos of the locus
amoenus. There is no need, then, according to him, to look for further possible

19 OF 474, 4 = GJ 1, 4; OF 475.6 (reconstructed) = GJ 8; OF 485.7 = GJ 26a.

20 BRemmeR 2014, 59–61.
21 Il. 7, 131; 11, 263; 14, 457; 20, 366. Empedocles B 142 DK, cf. maRtin 2003, 43–52; janda
2000, 69–71; west 2007, 388; note also Verg. Aen. 6.269: domos Ditis.
22 johnston 20132, 108–109.
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36 Jan N. Bremmer

associations of the tree, such as salvation, in order to understand its meaning in

these particular texts.23 Neither solution seems wholly convincing, and the problem
will probably remain unresolved as long as no new evidence turns up.
According to Bernabé and Jiménez, who have discussed the problem most
fully, those who have drunk of the water of Forgetfulness forget their previous ini-
tiation and experiences and therefore have to return to the world for a new reincar-
nation. Now it seems reasonable to accept that the first spring, contrasted with the
Spring of Memory, has to do with amnesia. Bernabé and Jiménez also suggest that
the Orphics may have imagined a new Spring of Memory as a contrast to the Spring
of Forgetfulness.24 The latter is not attested before our text, however, and the case
seems rather to have been the other way round. We know that memory played an
important part in the Pythagorean world. Pythagoras was credited with a fabulous
memory, and his pupils seem to have practised memory-training.25 But Forgetful-
ness personified (or perhaps we should say Forgetfulness ‘topologised’) is certainly
post-Homeric and seems to have become important only in the later fifth century
when we hear of the ‘Plain of Lethe’ in Aristophanes (Ra. 186) and Plato (Rep.
621ab). We may hazard the guess that the pair of springs were invented by the au-
thor of the hypothetical original scenario, perhaps not long before 400 BC, the date
of our earliest Leaf.
Having ignored the dangerous spring, the initiate will soon come upon the pool
of Memory, whose cool water he or she is to drink. But the privilege of drinking
such water is not easily earned. It is guarded by beings whose function is to under-
line the value of this particular liquid and to dramatise the process of acquiring it.
These guards will ask the deceased a question ἐνὶ φρασὶ πευκαλίμαισι, ‘with
shrewd mind’ (OF 474 = GJ 1, 8; OF 475 = GJ 8, 10). The expression is once again
Homeric.26 Graf and Johnston translate “with astute wisdom”, Βernabé and Jiménez
“with sagacious discernment”. But the guards’ wisdom or discernment is hardly the
point here. The implication is rather that they, the watchers in the underworld, can
pose questions because they still posses their phrenes, unlike the normal souls of
the dead, which have lost the capacity to think properly. As Homer noted, in the
underworld it was only Teiresias who still possessed a noos.
These watchers should not be fooled with: the Pharsalos Leaf instructs the de-
ceased: “You, tell them absolutely the entire truth” (OF 77 = GJ 25, 7). Once again
the expression is Homeric, more particularly, Odyssean (11.507), although Egyptian
influence is perhaps not to be excluded, as the Egyptian dead had to pass through a
‘Room of Truth’, according to the Egyptian Book of the Dead (c. 125).27 It does not
seem necessary, with Bernabé and Jiménez, to search for deeper meanings behind
‘the entire truth’ and compare the Olbian bone-tablets, where ‘truth’is opposed to

23 edmonds iii 2010, 221–235.

24 BeRnaBÉ and jimÉnez 2008, 34.
25 Empedocles B 129 DK; BuRkeRt 1972, 213; BeRnaBÉ and jimÉnez 2008, 15–19.
26 Il. 8, 366; 14, 165; 15, 81; 20, 35. Hes. F 170 M/W.
27 As noted by sofia 2010, 19–27 at 27, with further observations on the connections between the
Gold Leaves and Egypt.
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 The Construction of an Individual Eschatology: The Case of the Orphic Gold Leaves 37

‘lie’. Riedweg, in his reconstruction of the hypthetical Hieros logos, makes the
guards first ask: “Why you are searching through the darkness of gloomy Hades?”
before having them pose the question: “Who are you? Where do you come from?”,
questions that are preserved in prose on the Cretan tablets.28 However, it would be
better to reverse his order, since the latter questions seem more natural at the very
beginning of the interrogation.
On being confronted with the guards, the deceased is instructed to say: “I am a
child (son, daughter) of Earth (Ge) and starry Heaven (Ouranos), and my descent is
heavenly: you too know that well yourselves” (OF 476 = GJ 2.6–7, cf. OF 475 = GJ
8, 12–15; OF 478–80 and 481–84a.3 = GJ 10–14, 16, 18 and 29, 3; OF 477 = GJ 25.8).
The precise meaning of these words is debated. As has often been seen, the verse
would most naturally have recalled for the initiate the line from Hesiod’s Theogony:
“(the gods) who were born from Earth and starry Heaven” (106). In the fifth and
fourth centuries this claim would have appeared quite extraordinary, for the gods
were then increasingly seen as distanced from humans and, as a consequence, peo-
ple longed for their presence.29 In other words, to claim a family relationship with
the gods at this time must have seemed strange to contemporaries. We can see this
in the famous ithyphallic hymn in honour of Demetrius Poliorcetes, where he is
hailed as “the son (pais) of the most powerful god Poseidon and Aphrodite” (13–
14). In an otherwise excellent article on the hymn Angelos Chaniotis translates pais
as ‘boy’, since the word can also mean ‘servant’.30 This is of course true, but ignores
the most striking feature of the phrase: Demetrius himself is a god and son of gods,
like the Orphic initiate he has left his or her mortal existence behind and has as-
sumed a divine status.
As Albert Henrichs was the first to see,31 there is a parallel for the expression
‘son of Earth and starry Heaven’ in a papyrus, probably of the first century AD, now
in Cornell, that gives a genealogy of Triptolemos and other mythological figures
connected with Eleusis:32
As for Triptolemos, (some consider him the son of)
Keleos, (others) of (D)ysaules and
Baubo,33 still others of Earth and Heaven.

This genealogy cannot be very early, since Pherecydes (FGrH 3 F 53 = F 53 Fowler)

states that Triptolemos was “the son of Okeanos and Ge”, a claim that also occurs

28 RiedweG 2011, 250.

29 BRemmeR 2013b, 7–21 at 9–10.
30 chaniotis 2011, 157–195 at 174–176 (presence of gods), 183–184 (pais); for the hymn, see also
veRsnel 2011, 444–455, who translates ‘son’ (p. 446).
31 henRichs 19882, 242–277 at 250–251, whose translation I somewhat adapt. Note that henRichs
19882, 271 n. 31 mistakenly states that ‘the pair Okeanos/Ge seems to be unparalleled’.
32 P.Corn. 55, re-edited by salvadoRi Baldascino 1990, 205–210, which is the basis of the text by
van Rossum-steenBeek 1998, 338 no. 73; note also OF 397.
33 The papyrus has Baurous, which is kept by van Rossum-steenBeek, but henRichs persuasively
argues for emending this to Baubo, comparing the couple Baubo and Dysaules in Asclepiades
FGrH 12 F 4 (cf. Palaephatus FGrH 44 F 1).
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38 Jan N. Bremmer

in Musaeus (B 10 DK = F 60 Bernabé). The latter was well connected to Eleusis,34

which implies that the parenthood of Okeanos and Ge preceded that of Ouranos and
Ge. Now variant readings (mss Ra, O) of Apollodorus 1, 5, 2 (32), who gives the
citation from Pherecydes, offer the name Ouranos in addition to Okeanos. Presum-
ably the author of this gloss or correction intended to correct the fatherhood of
Triptolemos in the light of the couple ‘Earth and (starry) Heaven’. Indeed, the cou-
ple ‘Earth and Heaven’ is quite prominent in Orphic divine genealogies (OF 20, 21,
82, 187, 200; Epimenides F 47 Bernabé, although Fowler [Epimenides F 8] prefers
Okeanos), even though these, as so many Orphic fragments, are all attested rather
late. However, if the statement in Porphyry’s On Abstinence (3, 25, 4) that “Heaven
and Earth are the common parents of all creatures” indeed derives from Euripides’
Cretans (see Kannicht on Eur. F 1004),35 which was produced some time after the
middle of the fifth century,36 we would have an early testimony for this parenthood
in Orphic circles, although, perhaps, the statement could also derive from Wise
Melanippe (F 484 Kannicht), as we shall see in a moment. Now the genealogies of
the Cornell papyrus afford, in the words of Henrichs, “a rare prosopographical
glimpse of a particular local mythology which was once so popular in Eleusinian
circles but which perished in later antiquity”.37 One may wonder whether this par-
ticular genealogy of Triptolemos was not an adaptation of his genealogy to Orphic
views. We know that Orphism was close to Eleusis in the late fifth century BC,38
and an Eleusinian figure like Brimo was even taken over by the Gold Leaves (OF
493, 3 = GJ 27, 3).39 In some Eleusinian circles Triptolemos’ genealogy may well
have been adapted at around the same time that we find our first Gold Leaves, that
is, around 400 BC.
However that may be, the deceased continues with the request to give him to
drink cool water from the Spring of Memory. Sarah Johnston observes that we have
no literary precedents for the idea that the Greek dead wanted to drink, but given
that the thirst of the dead is a virtually universal idea, she concludes that the brico-
leurs of our text, whom she neatly dubs “the Orphic script writers”, “developed a
familiar, popular idea into a form that would have specific implications within their
cult”.40 This is hardly persuasive, I think, since we have no evidence that this was a
familiar Greek idea. The fact that an idea, say reincarnation, is more or less univer-
sal does not mean that it is thematised in every culture in the same manner.41
The Hipponion Leaf ends: “and you too, having drunk, will go along the sacred
road that also the other glorious mystai and bakchoi travel” (OF 474 = GJ 15–16).

34 GRaf 1974, 9–21.

35 Note that kannicht 2004 has an improved text of Porphyry as compared to that of BouffaR-
tiGue and patillon 1979.
36 collaRd; cRopp and lee 1995, 58; kannicht 2004, 1.504.
37 henRichs 19882, 251.
38 For this closeness, see GRaf 1974, 158–181; BuRkeRt 2006, 34–37; BeRnaBÉ 2009a, 89–98;
BRemmeR 2013, 40–41; BRemmeR 2014, 2, 15, 65.
39 For Brimo, see now BRemmeR 2013, 40–41; johnston 20132, in GJ 196–200.
40 johnston 2007, 117
41 Cf. BRemmeR 20052, 14, 9325–9331.
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 The Construction of an Individual Eschatology: The Case of the Orphic Gold Leaves 39

The mention of two groups of initiates is probably inspired by the two Eleusinian
degrees of mystai and epoptai.42 The well known dictum ‘many are narthêkophoroi,
but the bakchoi are few’,43 which was already familiar to Plato (Phd. 69c = OF 576),
suggests that at the time of the Hipponion Leaf, that is 400 BC, the bakchoi were
indeed the highest stage attainable in the Bacchic mysteries. Subsequent Leaves
merely use the terms ‘mystês’ or ‘mystai’, not only in both later fourth-century BC
Leaves from Pherae, but also in a series of even later, small Gold Leaves, many of
which only carry the name of the deceased.44 In other words, the status of bakchos
seems to have been dropped in the individual Bacchic initiations during the course of
the fourth century Bc.
With these injunctions and prescriptions we have arrived at the end of the first
section of the hypothetical hieros logos that deals with what the initiates should say
and do before they appear before Persephone. It is important to stress that none of
these prescriptions can be paralleled from any of the mainstream representations of
the underworld. This immediately raises the question of the origin(s) of this part of
the description of the Orphic underworld. It is interesting to note that in her detailed
discussion of the eschatology of the Leaves, Sarah Johnston hardly ever refers to a
possible Egyptian influence, whereas Bernabé and Jiménez do, even though they
conclude their discussion of a possible Egyptian influence by quoting Zuntz: “Zuntz
concludes that the motif of thirst is universal, and that it is not therefore necessary
to suppose the existence of an Egyptian model for the texts of the tablets”. Moreo-
ver, and rather oddly, in relation to the guards they state that it “is a motif that is
repeated in Antiquity and extends as far as Christianity”.45 But when we look up
their supporting reference to Father Festugière, we find that he says exactly the
same, and merely cites the seventh-century Leontius of Neapolis!46 This does not
get us very far.
I would like to approach the problem from a different angle. It has recently
become increasingly clear that Orphism not only borrowed from Oriental poems,
such as the Kumarbi Cycle, but also was influenced by Egyptian traditions.47 From
the seventh century onwards, Greek mercenaries had entered the service of the
Pharaohs and even left their ‘Kilroy was here’ in Abu Simbel,48 and merchants
traded in Naucratis in the Nile Delta.49 Knowledge of Egyptian religion is likely to

42 dowden 1980, 409–427; clinton 2003, 50–78; BRemmeR 2014, 1–20.

43 For the precise form of the dictum and its history, see BühleR 1999, 371f. For the narthex, see
GuiRaud 2011, 59–65.
44 Pherae: OF 493 = GJ 27, 6; OF 493a = GJ 28, 2, which speaks of ‘mustôn thiasous’, a typical
Bacchic expression. Small gold Leaves: OF 496 b–e = GJ 20–22; 31, 2.
45 BeRnaBÉ and jimÉnez 2008, 208 (both quotes).
46 festuGièRe 1972, 62 n. 1.
47 For the connections made in antiquity between Orpheus and Egypt, see now oRtiz de landa-
luce 2011, 55–59.
48 See most recently haideR 1996, 59–115 at 95–113; hauBen 2001, 53–77; Bietak 2001; kopa-
nias 2001, 149–166; Beck; Bol and BücklinG 2005; lloyd 2007, 221–239 at 221–226; aGut-
laBoRdèRe 2012, 293–306.
49 For Naucratis, see most recently the studies by BResson et al. 2005, 133–257; villinG and
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40 Jan N. Bremmer

have percolated to Greece through such contacts, as is well attested for ancient
Sicily.50 In a wide-ranging study Walter Burkert has recently sought to document
Egyptian influence on Orphism. The evidence is not unequivocal, but he brings out
clearly that there was indeed a connection between Osiris and Dionysos, as Hero-
dotus claims, and he has made a case for recognising the influence of Egyptian
cosmogonies on the Orphic theogony as represented by the Derveni Papyrus. The
famous ejaculation of aither by Ouranos in Columns XIII and XIV of the Derveni
Papyrus can only be paralleled in Egypt, as can the idea of a composite god and
creation by thinking. As Burkert himself notes, “it is almost uncanny to find so
many particulars”.51
But these are not the only close Egyptian parallels. I myself have recently again
drawn attention to a passage from Euripides’ tragedy Wise Melanippe, which prob-
ably dates from the 420s, where the eponymous heroine says:
Heaven and earth were once a single form; but when they were separated from
each other into two, they bore and delivered into the light all things: trees, winged
creatures, beasts reared by the briny sea – and the human race.52
The first line is cited together with three other certainly Orphic passages on a
late-antique alabaster bowl (OF 66), which assures its Orphic character.53 The
theme of the separation of heaven and earth is also found in an Orphicising passage
of the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes, where heaven, earth and sea together
start off in one form.54 There must then have been an Orphic tradition about the
unicity of the primeval materia, even though it is not to be found in any extant Or-
phic poem. As I pointed out, the separation of heaven and earth is a prominent
motif in Egyptian religious literature and iconography. A Pyramid text (1208c) al-
ready speaks of the time when “heaven was separated from earth, when the gods
ascended to heaven”. The idea was taken up by Heliopolis and there given its classic
formulation: Shu separates the sky (Nut) from earth (Geb).55 I therefore concluded
that Orphism most likely took the motif from ancient Egypt. Admittedly, the idea
that the union of Heaven and Earth generates all living things does appear else-
where in Greek tradition. It occurs in a fragment of Aeschylus’ Danaids, and also
in fragments of Euripides where Sky (aither) and Earth generate and re-cycle all
life.56 Yet the striking aspect of our passage is that the human race is mentioned as
well. Moreover, humanity seems to be the most important ‘product’ of the cosmic
union, since the passage is part of a speech in which Melanippe defends her infants.

schlotzhaueR 2006; demetRiou 2012, 105–152; schlotzhaueR; höckmann and weBeR 2012;
fantalkin 2014, 27–51.
50 See now sofia 2013.
51 BuRkeRt 2004, 71–98 at 95 (quote); see also BeRnaBÉ 2008, 2, 899–931 at 901–12.
52 Eur. F 484 kannicht, trans. collaRd; cRopp and lee 1995, 253, cf. BRemmeR 2008, 11–13. Note
also Diod. Sic. 1, 7, 1.
53 Cf. BeRnaBÉ 2002, 205–247 at 216f.
54 AR 1, 494–511 = OF 67.
55 For these and other texts, see moRenz 1960, 182–183; te velde 1977, 161–170.
56 Aesch. F 44.1–5 Radt; Eur. F 182a, 839, 898 kannicht.
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 The Construction of an Individual Eschatology: The Case of the Orphic Gold Leaves 41

The mention of the human race, therefore, fits well with the Orphic concern with
anthropogony.57
Given the manifest Orphic interest in Egyptian theology and cosmogony, sev-
eral scholars have argued that the function of the Orphic Gold Leaves as ‘pass-
ports’, their dialogue form, the tree and the spring, and their mention of fresh water
derive from the Egyptian Book of the Dead.58 In an important article the American
Thomas Dousa has now demonstrated, I believe, that this whole first set of instruc-
tions, descriptions and questions of the Gold Leaves largely derives from Egyptian
models.59 There seem however to be two different sources. On the one hand, there
is the sycamore or, less frequently, date-palm associated with a pool of water and
post-mortem refreshment. These elements seem to have been derived from mortu-
ary scenes on tomb paintings or papyri. On the other, there are the guards with the
interrogation, whom we can see in the following spell from a Late Middle Kingdom
coffin:
NN says: “Open [for me]!” Then they, the akhs who are in the necropolis, say: “Who are you?
[What] are yo[u]? Where did [you] come into existence?” NN says: “I am one of yo[u] (pl.).”
Then they, the akhs, who are in the necropolis say: “Who, pray, are the ones who are with you?”
NN says: “It is the two Meruty snakes.” Then they, the akhs who are in the necropolis, say:
“Upon whom are you advancing?” NN says: “[U]pon the one who approaches the Beaten Path,
in order that he might cause that I cross over to the temple of the ‘Finder of Faces’.”60

It is clear that in the Orphic text the dialogue has been cut down and typically Egyp-
tian details removed, but the basic themes of interrogation, guardians and self-ac-
creditation remain clearly recognisable. In other words, this is not a case of a Greek
translation of an Egyptian text, but rather an appropriation of Egyptian material to
the Greek world and its ecology along a route that still remains highly unclear.
Burkert suggests that the nexus of pond, tree and thirsty person must have been
transmitted in the first half of the sixth century. But this is implausible since there is
no trace of such a collocation in the period between c. 550 and 400 BC, the date of
the earliest Gold Leaf. Even if the text of the Leaves goes back to an older model,
as seems likely, we can hardly postulate that the theme was somehow kept in cold
storage for a century before gradually becoming incorporated into Orphic writings.
On the other hand, trade was carried on not merely between Greece and Egypt but
also between Italy and Egypt,61 and in Sicilian comedy and lyrical poetry we can
note a certain interest in Egypt,62 just as we can note Egyptian material influence on
Calabria in Archaic times.63 So we must keep an open mind regarding the route(s)
by which Orphism may have come into contact with Egyptian funerary discourse.

57 For this interest, see most recently johnston 20132, 85–90.

58 See most recently GRaf 1974, 125–126; moRenz 1975, 462–489; meRkelBach 1999, 1–13; BuR-
keRt 2004, 87; olmos 2008, 273–326 at 310–315; lópez-Ruiz 2015.
59 dousa 2011, 120–164.
60 Ibidem, 148.
61 schweizeR 2007, 307–324.
62 sofia 2003, 133–161 and 2007, 44–53.
63 See the various contributions in de salvia and muRGano 2007.
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42 Jan N. Bremmer

2. Facing Persephone

Despite their inherent interest, I need to deal with the other two sections of the hy-
pothetical hieros logos more briefly. It is clear that the four elements of the initiate’s
declaration before Persephone follow a certain temporal sequence:
I paid the penalty for the sake of deeds unjust (OF 489 = GJ 6, 4)
I flew out of the cycle of wearying deep grief.
I set foot on the longed-for crown with swift feet.
I dived under the kolpos of the Lady, the chthonian Queen (OF 488= GJ 5, 5–7).

As has often been seen, the expression of diving under the kolpos is perfectly Ho-
meric.64 Aristocratic Greek women wore a peplos, and kolpos is the word for the
part that covers the chest. Trojan women are said to be bathykolpoi (Il. 18, 122; 339;
24, 215), which shows that their garment was thought of as hanging down over the
belt in a deep fold.65 There must have been plenty of space underneath the
kolpos, for Hera hid Aphrodite’s magical strap ‘in her kolpos’ (14, 219; 223), and in
the Odyssey (15.469) a Phoenician woman concealed three stolen cups ‘under her
kolpos’. It is not surprising, then, that Dionysos ‘in fear’ was received under Thetis’
kolpos (6, 135–7), and likewise Hephaestus (18, 398). In the Cypria, Telemachus is
snatched out of the kolpos of Penelope,66 and in a fragment of Panyassis (F 5 Da-
vies = F 8 Bernabé), Dionysos ‘jumped out from the kolpos of his nurse Thyone’.67
Finally, when in Callimachus’ Hymn to Artemis (70–1) Hermes plays bogeyman to
an unruly divine child, ‘she dives into the kolpous of her mother covering her eyes
with her hands’. It is this image of a mother protecting her child that the Orphico-
Bacchic phrase evokes.68 Surely, there could hardly be a more telling metaphor for
the close relationship between Persephone and her initiates. Evidently, the last line
is the climax of this enumeration.
At the same time, as Jane Harrison noted over a century ago,69 these four lines
reflect the structure of the passwords of the Eleusinian Mysteries, as attested by
Clement of Alexandria:
I fasted,
I drank the kykeon (like Demeter in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter),
I took from the hamper,
after working I deposited in the basket and from the basket in the hamper.70

64 Differently, festuGièRe 1972, 48–63; petRidou 2004, 69–75; BeRnaBÉ and jimÉnez cRistóBal
2008, 128–132.
65 For the kolpos, see especially van wees 2005, 1–36 at 7–8; lee 2005, 221–224.
66 Compare Proclus, Arg. 5b and Apollod. Epit. 3, 7, which are rightly combined by west 2013,
102.
67 For Thyone, see BRemmeR 2013a, 4–22 at 7–8; add the probable mention in P.Mich.inv.
3498+3250b recto, col. iii.13, cf. BoRGes and sampson 2012, 18 and 23.
68 See also the iconographic parallels collected by olmos 2008, 306–310, who notes their promi-
nence in the Western Mediterranean, especially in Italy.
69 haRRison 1903, 588, whose discussion of Orphic eschatology has been neglected in subsequent
discussions of the Leaves from Thurii and elsewhere.
70 Clem. Alex. Protr. 2, 21, 2; Arnobius 5, 26, cf. Roussel 1930, 52–74; BuRkeRt 1983, 269–274;
paRkeR 2005, 354.
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 The Construction of an Individual Eschatology: The Case of the Orphic Gold Leaves 43

The parallel seems to confirm our earlier observation that the entrepeneur(s?) who
designed the Orphic-Bacchic Mysteries turned to the most prestigious Mysteries of
the day for inspiration. If this was indeed the case, we would have far earlier (indi-
rect) testimony for the Eleusinian passwords than anyone has supposed until now.

3. The final destination

Having stood the test before Persephone, the deceased will travel to his or her final
destination, which is described in the Leaf from the Thurii Timpone Grande as the
‘sacred meadows and groves of Persephone’ (OF 487 = GJ 3, 6). The combination
of (flower-strewn) meadow(s) and (shady) grove(s) is typical of the ancient locus
amoenus,71 and Euripides (IA 1544) deliberately perverts the topos when he situates
the sacrifice of Iphigeneia in the ‘grove and flowery meadows’ of Artemis. Moreo-
ver, one of the symbola of the first Pherae Leaf reads ‘enter the holy meadow’ (OF
493 = GJ 27, 3–4), and meadows are already mentioned by Pindar in a thrênos with
Orphic, eschatological colouring (F 129, 1–5 Maehler).72 As with the ‘house of Ha-
des’, one might wonder if the Orphics did not derive their underworldly meadows
from an old Indo-European tradition, as the meadow also figures in Vedic and Hit-
tite descriptions of the underworld. However, our Greek evidence is too meagre to
say anything definitive here.73
Instead of these specific details, two of the Thurii Leaves send the initiates to
the hedras es euageôn, ‘the seats of the pure’ (OF 489, 7 and 490, 7 = GJ 6 and 7).
The term euagês recurs in an Amphipolis Leaf that is not properly a passport to the
underworld but states that the owner is ‘pure and sacred to Dionysos Bakchios’ (OF
496n = GJ 30, 1). The term also occurs in Euripides’ Bacchae (1008) and in Theocri-
tus (26, 30, with Gow ad loc.) in a Dionysiac context, which might suggest an origin
in Orphic/Bacchic circles. In any case, the expression recapitulates and stresses the
demands of purity that are also stressed in the Thurii Leaves. Although the expres-
sion ‘I am purified’ also occurs in the Book of the Dead (86, 23, p. 176 Hornung),
we have to look for a Greek context. Now Empedocles, whose Orphic connections
are beyond dispute,74 tells his pupil Pausanias that he will gain knowledge through
exercises in purity and uses the Eleusinian term for reaching the highest grade of
initiation to denote the gaining of insight:

71 Aesch. Suppl. 558; Timaeus FGrH 566 F 164.31; Plut. Numa 4, 1; Arrian, Ind. 43.13. Flower-
strewn meadows: Il. 2, 467; Od. 12.159; Hes. Th. 279; Sappho F 2.9 voiGt; Ar. Ra. 449; Mo-
schus 63; Schol. Il. 12, 407. Shade in groves: Od. 20, 278; Stes. F S17 davies; Pind. O. 8.9; Eur.
IT 1246; GRaf 1974, 91 note 55.
72 GRaf 1974, 90–92; BeRnaBÉ on OF 61.
73 See the material, not all of it persuasive, collected by puhvel 1981, 60, 64–69.
74 See BeRnaBÉ ante OF 447 with the bibliography; add now meGino RodRíGuez 2005; idem
2008, 2, 1105–1140.
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44 Jan N. Bremmer

εἰ γάρ κέν σφ’ ἀδινῆισιν ὑπὸ πραπίδεσσιν ἐρείσας

εὐμενέως καθαρῆισιν ἐποπτεύσηις μελέτηισιν,
ταῦτά τέ σοι μάλα πάντα δι’ αἰῶνος παρέσονται…75
If you plant them in your stout understanding
and contemplate them with good will in pure exercises,
these will assuredly all be with you throughout your life.
trans. Kirk, Raven & Schofield 1983, 312 frg.398

In other words, it is purity that helps the initiates to gain the insight that is likewise
so important in the eyes of the author of the Derveni Papyrus (XX). Yet insight does
not seem to be the most important quality here, and Sarah Johnston has persuasively
argued that the purity here intended is rather the purity from the ancestral blood-
guilt that all humans inherited from the murder of Dionysos by the Titans.76

4. Conclusion

In retrospect, we can conclude that the author of the hypothetical scenario that lies
behind the Gold Leaves was fairly methodical in his attempt to supplement main-
stream ideas about life after death. The after-life in the Homeric poems consisted
only of flitting souls or heroic descents into the underworld, and there was no de-
scription that was both authoritative and detailed. In his search for models to help
him construct an alternative, he came upon the Egyptian materials, by routes we can
no longer reconstruct, and appropriated them to invent a new geography of the un-
derworld. I would stress that he was not simply eclectic but clearly selected two sets
of ideas from the Egyptian material for a specific part of the journey (§ 1). In addi-
tion he coined what I take to be a ritual formula inspired by the Eleusinian Myste-
ries (§ 2) and took recourse to an ancient Indo-European idea of the underworld as
a meadow (§ 3). One can only wonder to what extent he found any of these ideas in
the poems circulating about Orpheus’ descent to the underworld in Southern Italy.
The concept of ‘polis religion’ was developed largely on the basis of Athens.
When we look to Southern Italy, by contrast, we find figures such as Pythagoras,
Parmenides and Empedocles, all of whom developed religious ideas and practices
that were not mediated through the polis. The individuals who developed the major
themes of Orphism clearly belong to the same part of Greece. Is it possible that it
was precisely in the world of the colonies and the frontier there was room for such
a new creation? Andreas Willi has recently stressed the innovative character of the
Sicilian society and noted the ‘zunehmende Betonung von Individualität’ in the
area.77 Orphism plays only a small role in his argument, but in an analysis of the
Gold Leaves the relation between Sicily and Southern Italy and the rest of the Greek
world can hardly be neglected. The position of the deceased in these texts, which is

75 Empedocles B 110, 1–3 DK (= Hippol. Ref. 7.29.25); for the changes to their reading, cf. willi
2008, 235f.
76 johnston 20132, 121f.
77 willi 2008, 327.
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 The Construction of an Individual Eschatology: The Case of the Orphic Gold Leaves 45

clearly not mediated by the polis, seems to be part of this individualising trend.
Perhaps then we should begin evaluating the importance of polis religion in Greece
differentially, depending on region and period. But that is another story …

APPENDIX 1: THE AUGMENTED TRIAD IN OF 488

It may be useful to note that the oldest version of the line OF 488.2 Εὐκλῆς
Εὐβο<υ>λεύς τε καὶ ἀθάνατοι θεοὶ ἄλλοι, varies a stylistic feature of archaic poe-
try, which is a sub-class of the ‘Gesetz der wachsenden Glieder’. It was first dis-
cussed in 1909 by Otto Behaghel for Greek, Latin and Germanic texts, then in 1931
by Elmo Lindholm for Latin poetry and prose. Martin West has recently demonst-
rated that the feature must have been already part of the Indo-European Dichter-
sprache: “It consists in the construction of a verse from three names, of which the
third is furnished with an epithet or other qualification”, which may either precede
or follow the name in question and is usually of a non-specific nature.78 The fol-
lowing parallels indicate that OF 488, 2 is also built on this principle:
Iliad
9, 292 Καρδαμύλην Ἐνόπην τε καὶ Ἱρὴν ποιήεσσαν
14, 29 (= 380) Τυδεΐδης Ὀδυσεύς τε καὶ Ἀτρεΐδης Ἀγαμέμνων
15, 214 ῞Ηρης Ἑρμείω τε καὶ Ἡφαίστοιο ἄνακτος
Homeric Hymn to Demeter
422 καὶ Ῥοδόπη Πλουτώ τε καὶ ἱμερόεσσα Καλυψὼ
Hesiod
Th. 734 Γύγης Κόττος τε καὶ Ὀβριάρεως μεγάθυμος
F 10a MW καὶ Καλύκην Κανάκην τε καὶ ε]ὐ̣ειδέ[α] Π̣ε̣ρ̣ι̣μήδην
F 77 MW Ἀσπληδὼν Κλύμενός τε καὶ Ἀμφίδοκος θεοειδής
F 227 MW Εὔμολπος Δόλιχός τε καὶ Ἱπποθόων μεγάθυμος
Apollonius Rhodius
2, 942 Κρωβίαλον Κρῶμνάν τε καὶ ὑλήεντα Κύτωρον.

At the same time, we notice that the epic feature gradually changes over time, as it
is already less recognizable in the slightly later Thurii OF 489–490 = GJ 7, 6, where
the last part of the line has become θεοὶ ὅσοι δαίμονες ἄλλοι (the text is not quite
certain, but the effect is the same), and it has become totally unrecognizable six
centuries later in OF 491 = GJ 9, in which Eubouleus has turned into a ‘child of
Zeus’; the rest of the line seems to be corrupt. Even the analysis of a single line,
then, can show the Protean nature of Orphism.

78 BehaGhel 1909, 110–142; lindholm 1931; west 2004, 33–49 (citation on p. 33); cf. idem 2007,
117–119, 328; kwapisz 2014.
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46 Jan N. Bremmer

APPENDIX 2: TWENTIETH-CENTURY VIEWS OF PERSEPHONE

Given the importance of Persephone for the Gold Leaves, it might be useful to
briefly survey the Persephonian Forschungsgeschichte. To this end I limit myself to
the discussions in the standard handbooks of Nilsson and Burkert, and Christiane
Sourvinou-Inwood’s fairly recent lemma ‘Persephone’ in Der Neue Pauly. The first
is, basically, the product of the thinking of the first half of the twentieth century, the
second exemplifies the turn towards structuralism and functionalism, with a touch
of ethology, of the late 1960s and 1970s, and the third may be expected to reflect the
current position.
Martin P. Nilsson published the first edition of his still useful handbook in 1941,
and later editions were only updated, not essentially changed.79 Persephone is not
mentioned in the table of contents, and in the section on Hades she is mentioned
only once (453). In the section on Demeter, we hear only that Demeter was often
worshipped together with her daughter (463). Passing mentions of Persephone in
Nilsson’s discussion of reincarnation (692), the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (723)
and afterlife beliefs (816) suggest that he was not very interested in this divinity.
Where he himself deigns to give an opinion, it is clear that he sees Persephone and
her myth in an agrarian perspective (234, 470), as we might expect from a Swedish
farmer’s son. Yet it should be noticed that half a century earlier he had presented an
excellent analysis of Persephone’s festivals in his Griechische Feste, which has not
yet been superseded.80
Burkert treats Persephone in a little more detail when he comes to speak of
Demeter (159–60).81 He had the advantage that he could use two important discus-
sions of our goddess that had recently appeared, namely Zuntz’s somewhat roman-
tic study of Persephone and Nicholas Richardson’s commentary on the Homeric
Hymn to Demeter.82 Naturally, Burkert was interested in a possible Minoan avatar
(42–3), and he suggests that Persephone’s name might point to ‘a formerly inde-
pendent, uncanny Great Goddess’ (196). He also notes the connection of Artemis
and Athena with the rape (222) and certain resemblances between Persephone and
Harmonia at Samothrace (283–4). In discussing Bacchic hopes for the afterlife,
Burkert notes that ‘Persephone, queen of the dead, plays a special role in these
mysteries’ (295), but he does not enlarge upon this role. In the end, the girl clearly
does not have his heart.

Finally, Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood (1945–2007) makes a distinction between

the myth and cult of Persephone, and mentions Persephone’s role in the Gold

79 nilsson 19552, 184–190. For Nilsson (1874–1967), see GjeRstad, knudtzon and callmeR
1968; W.W. BRiGGs and caldeR iii 1990, 335–340; BieRl and caldeR iii 1991, 73–99 (reprin-
ted in caldeR iii 1994, 151–178).
80 nilsson 1906, 354–362.
81 BuRkeRt 1985. For Burkert (1931–2015), see aldeRink 1980, 1–13; BuRkeRt 1988, 29–30; cape
1988, 41–52; aldeRink 2000, 211–227; aRRiGoni 2003, 13–53; BieRl and BRaunGaRt 2010;
RiedweG 2015.
82 RichaRdson 1974.
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 The Construction of an Individual Eschatology: The Case of the Orphic Gold Leaves 47

Tablets and the Orphic Mysteries, but her most original contribution is probably her
introduction of the term ‘Ankunftsfest’ to denote festivals in which there was a
search for a divinity to mark his or her ‘arrival’ in the community.83
What can we conclude from this brief survey? Firstly, Persephone is not a god-
dess who has attracted much attention from major historians of Greek religion in
the twentieth century. Secondly, Mannhardt’s and Frazer’s ideas of a Corn Maiden
or a Corn Mother have had a long life, from Nilsson to Burkert, and in that light it
is striking that there is only a minimal reference to agriculture in Sourvinou-In-
wood’s lemma. Yet Rudolf Wachter has recently reconstructed a first part of her
name *Περσο- that he relates to a word from the Indo-European Dichtersprache
meaning ‘corn sheaf’ or, perhaps better, ‘ear’, which still survived in the RigVeda
(10.48.7) and the Avesta (Yt. 13.71), albeit as a hapax legomenon. The second part,
the clearly extremely old -φαττα, derives from a root *gwhen, which also occurs in
the just mentioned passages and which must mean ‘to beat, to kill’. In other words,
Persephone literally means ‘she who beats the ears of corn’, a word which well fits
the activity of girls in many less developed areas.84 Beating the ears does not yet
make her into a Frazerian Corn Maiden, whatever that would have been, but it
surely comes rather close!85 Thirdly, the eschatological significance of Persephone
in Orphic-Bacchic myths and rituals has not yet received the full attention it de-
serves.86

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