Presocratics

and Papyrological
Tradition
A Philosophical Reappraisal of the Sources
Proceedings of the International Workshop held
at the University of Trier (22–24 September 2016)

Edited by
Christian Vassallo
Funded by the Schwarz-Liebermann Stiftung im Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft
and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)

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ISSN 1869-7143

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Contents
Abbreviations   IX

Christian Vassallo
Introduction. The Presocratics from Derveni to Herculaneum:
A New Look at Early Greek Philosophy   1

Part I: Orpheus and the Orphic Tradition

Alberto Bernabé and Ana I. Jiménez San Cristóbal

1 Two Aspects of the Orphic Papyrological Tradition:
PGurob 1 and the Greek Magic Rolls   17

David N. Sedley
2 The Opening Lemmas of the Derveni Papyrus   45

Richard D. McKirahan
3 Some Controversial Topics in the Derveni Cosmology   73

Marco A. Santamaría
4 Pherecydes of Syros in the Papyrological Tradition   91

Part II: Pythagoreanism and Beyond

Leonid Zhmud
5 The Papyrological Tradition on Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans   111

Kilian J. Fleischer
6 Philolaus’ Book(s) in Philodemus’ Index Academicorum   147

Aldo Brancacci
7 Music and Philosophy in Damon of Oa   161
VI   Contents

Part III: Heraclitus

Gábor Betegh and Valeria Piano

8 Column IV of the Derveni Papyrus: A New Analysis of the Text
and the Quotation of Heraclitus   179

Graziano Ranocchia
9 Heraclitus’ Portrait in Diogenes Laërtius and Philodemus’
On Arrogance   221

Part IV: Empedocles

Mirjam E. Kotwick
10 Aphrodite’s Cosmic Power: Empedocles in the Derveni Papyrus   251

Simon Trépanier
11 Empedocles on the Origin of Plants: PStrasb. gr. inv. 1665–1666,
Sections d, b, and f   271

Giuliana Leone
12 Empedocles in the Herculaneum Papyri: An Update   299

Part V: Anaxagoras and his School

Christian Vassallo (with a Foreword by David Sider)

13 Anaxagoras from Egypt to Herculaneum: A Contribution to the History
of Ancient ‘Atheism’   335

Michael Pozdnev
14 Metrodorus the Allegorist as Reflected in Philodemus’ On Poems, Book 2:
PHerc. 1676, col. 2 + N 1081, col. 12 (= 61 A 4 DK; Test. 34.3 Lanata)   415

Part VI: Early Atomists

Enrico Piergiacomi
15 Democritus’ Doctrine of Eidola in the Herculaneum Papyri:
A Reassessment of the Sources   437
 Contents   VII

Tiziano Dorandi
16 Anaxarchus from Egypt to Herculaneum   473

Part VII: The Sophistic Movement

Andrei Lebedev
17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus, A Sophistic Treatise on the Origin
of Religion and Language: A Case for Prodicus of Ceos   491

Part VIII: The Papyrological Tradition and Doxographical

Questions

Jaap Mansfeld
18 Lists of Principles and Lists of Gods: Philodemus, Cicero, Aëtius,
and Others   609

Indices

Index locorum   633

Index nominum antiquorum   679

Index nominum recentiorum   687

Andrei Lebedev
17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus,
A Sophistic Treatise on the Origin
of Religion and Language:
A Case for Prodicus of Ceos
Εἰς μνήμην τοῦ σοφοῦ καὶ φιλομούσου Martin L. West

1 (I) Preliminary remarks
Since the very possibility of establishing the author of the Derveni Papyrus (here-
after PDerv.) has been questioned in the official editio princeps,1 we are obliged

1 Habent sua fata not only libelli, but also conference papers. The original version of this paper
under the title The Derveni Treatise as a Document of Sophistic Atheism was presented at the
international conference on the Derveni Papyrus held at Princeton University on April 25th, 1993
during my Perkins fellowship granted by the Council of Humanities of Princeton University: cf.
Sider (1997) 129 n. 2. It was not included in the proceedings published later. I decided to wait
for the publication of the official editio princeps of the papyrus (KPT) in order to verify the sup-
plements I proposed, but this took quite a while. In the meantime, as a result of the change of
platforms between Mac and PC, the Greek in my paper became unreadable; eventually, it was re-
stored by the Institute of Linguistic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg
(thanks are due to Nikolai Kazansky and Evgeniia Kriuchkova). I have benefited from several
discussions of my hypothesis. During my fellowship in All Souls College, Oxford (1995–1996)
I was invited by Richard Janko to present my ‘atheistic’ interpretation of PDerv. at his seminar
in the Institute of Classical Studies, London on June 7th, 1996. Additional recent research was
stimulated by the invitation to give a lecture, The Derveni Papyrus and Greek Enlightenment, at
the Department of Classics of New York University on November 3rd, 2016 (thanks are due to
David Sider, Mirjam Kotwick, and other colleagues who took part in the discussion) and by the
participation at the International Workshop Presocratics and Papyrological Tradition, University
of Trier, September 22nd–24th, 2016, organized by Christian Vassallo. Thanks are due to Valeria
Piano for discussing with me on this occasion the possibility of some readings in PDerv., col. IV.6.
All remaining faults are mine. The documentary apparatus of this investigation relies on innu-
merable TLG searches. Special thanks are due to Maria Pantelia who year after year provided me
with immediate assistance whenever I experienced problems with access to the TLG. And last
but not least, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to Christian Vassallo both for his patient
and accurate revision of the entire text with footnotes and bibliography, and for sharing with
me his philosophical objections (above all on the question of Prodicus’ ‘atheism’) and several

Andrei Lebedev, University of Crete / Russian Academy of the Sciences, Moscow

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110666106-018
492   Andrei Lebedev

first of all to explain why we dare to take a different approach to this problem.2
The attribution of classical texts (whether anonymous or disputed) is one of the
commonly recognized tasks of classical philology, from ancient times on. Callima-
chus, in his Catalogues (Pinakes), provided information on the authenticity and
authorship of the books he described. Therefore, to dismiss a limine all attempts
to establish the author of the text under discussion (as well as of any other anon-
ymous text) is counterproductive. Some attributions remain questionable and are
accepted by few or by none (like those discussed in § [F] below), while some are
taken for certain and recognized by everybody or by most, e.g. Timotheus’ Persai
or Aristotle’s Athenaion politeia. Questionable or unlikely attributions are based
on insufficient evidence, superficial similarities, etc. We can take an attribution
seriously only when it is based on precise and unambiguous evidence, above
all on verbatim quotations from the anonymous text in ancient authors with a
direct mention of the author’s name. Apart from the verbatim quotations, refer-
ences to particular ideas, tenets, theories, etc. attested in the anonymous text
and attributed by an external source to a certain writer (as well as his interests,
specific subjects, literary habits, methodology, etc.) will also count as evidence,
with the proviso that they are not too common and widespread, but rather pecu-
liar (and best of all unique) to the supposed author. The attribution of PDerv. to
Prodicus proposed in this article meets these requirements: it is based on verbal
coincidences of peculiar phrases and terms in PDerv. and Prodicus’ fragments;
Prodicus’ peculiar theory of the origin of the names of gods and religion from
agriculture and other τέχναι ‘useful’ for human race is directly attested in PDerv.;
there is also the evidence found in both Aristophanes and Themistius that Prodi-
cus wrote an allegorical interpretation of the Orphic theogony.
The demonstration of our thesis is presented in 11 sections (§) and three
appendices (App.). After preliminary remarks on the necessary distinction of
the two types of pantheism and allegoresis in Greek thought (§ [I]) we define in
§ (II) the literary genre, the general purpose, and the hermeneutical method of
the Derveni treatise, and draw a preliminary intellectual portrait of its author
describing his peculiar features, a kind of ‘composite image.’ In § (III), we argue
for Prodicus as the author of PDerv. and present the 19 testimonia on which this
attribution is based.3 These include both the verbatim quotations with Prodicus’
name that find an exact correspondence in the text of PDerv. (hereafter Derv.T)

papyrological remarks. Unless otherwise specified, the translations of the Greek texts quoted
below are my own.
2 Th. Kouremenos ap. KPT, 58–59. The skeptical attitude is shared by Betegh (2004) 349 and
Kotwick (2017) 22, among others. We cite Janko’s new text from Kotwick (2017).
3 To these testimonia, the evidence of Xenophon in App[endix] (3) should be added.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   493

and the common peculiar features of language and style. In § (IV), we propose
a reconstruction and interpretation of the text of col. IV that contains a quota-
tion from Heraclitus. This column is of primary importance for understanding the
aims and allegorical method of the author in general, as well as for his theory of
names. In § (V), the problems of the original title and the date of the Derveni trea-
tise are addressed, as well as its relation to the psephisma of Diopeithes (432 BC).
In § (VI), the philosophical sources of Derv.T are discussed. Apart from the
Anaxagorean source of the Derveni author’s cosmology and theory of matter rec-
ognized long ago, we discuss the possible influence of Democritus while dismiss-
ing Leucippus, Diogenes of Apollonia, and the Eleatics. We point to Protagoras as
an important source of anthropology for the Derveni author and to Heraclitus as
the source of his philosophy of language (including functionalist semantics) and
criticism of popular religion. In § (VII), we briefly present our reasons for rejecting
the ascription of PDerv. to other authors (Epigenes, Stesimbrotos, Euthydemus,
Diagoras of Melos). § (VIII) expands the discussion of Prodicus’ atheistic sobri-
quet ‘Tantalos’ in § (III) by focusing on two cryptic Tantalos passages in Euripi-
des’ Orestes. Taking the torture of Anaxagoras before his trial as a historical fact
(which the new reconstruction of Philodemus’ account by Eduardo Acosta Méndez
has brought to light, and which Christian Vassallo confirms in this volume,
DAPR, T7), we interpret the tortures of Tantalos as an allusion to Anaxagoras’
trial, a cryptic commemoration of the 20th anniversary of his death, and a
makarismos of the heroic martyr of science, analogous to Euripides’ cryptic com-
memoration of Protagoras’ death in Ixion. § (IX) searches for further reflections
of the ‘avian’ theme (ὀρνίθειον in PDerv., cols. ΙΙ and VI) in Aristophanes’ Birds
and Clouds.4 It starts with the attribution of a neglected comedy fragment in the
Suda Lexicon to Aristophanes’ Seasons and connects the comic passages in the
Clouds on ἀλεκτρυών with Prodicus’ orthoepeia. The passage on ‘Persian cock’ as
a prehistoric king in Birds 481–492 is interpreted as a parody of Prodicus’ theory
of the origin of religion and civilization. § (X) discusses three ‘Heraclitizing’ pas-
sages (apart from col. IV) in cols. V, XX, and XXII, and arrives at the conclusion
that cols. V and XX contain either hidden verbatim quotations from Heraclitus or

4 Janko (2016) 21–22 questions the reading ὀ [ρ]νίθ  [ε]ιον πρότερον [ in col. VI.11 (KPT) and pro-
poses φ[ο]ρτίον πρότερον [ἀείρει. This does not fit the context: the connection with prothysia is
lost, ἕνεκ[εν becomes pointless, and what is meant by the “labouring souls” remains unclear.
On the contrary, the reading ὀ[ρ]νίθ[ε]ιον (KPT) or ὀρνίθ ιον (Ferrari, followed by Piano) provides
an immediate link with the air-cosmogony and with prothysia: first offerings are due to the air,
the most ancient ‘god’. On the expression ὀρνίθειον κρέας see also Ferrari (2007) 204. But even
if the reading ὀ[ρ]νί θ[ε]ιον is by any chance incorrect, this will not affect our study of the ‘avian’
parodies of Prodicus in Aristophanes (cf. § [IX]).
494   Andrei Lebedev

paraphrases close to the original text with authentic terms and phrases, whereas
col. XXII contains a summarizing exposition of Heraclitus’ philosophy of lan-
guage and religion (the invention of polytheism by poets due to their ‘ignorance’).
In § (XI), the hypothesis that Euripides may have taken with him to Macedonia a
copy of Prodicus’ work on religion, since he quotes it in the Bacchae on which he
worked at that time, is advanced. A copy of it may have been made for the library
of Archelaus in Pella. In App. (1) we defend the traditional 5th cent. date and the
Preplatonic character of PDerv. in response to Luc Brisson’s Stoic hypothesis. App.
(2) clarifies our use of the term peritrope and explains the Derveni treatise as a
naturalistic peritrope of a religious text. App. (3) identifies a neglected reflection
of Prodicus’ benefaction theory of religion in Xenophon’ Memorabilia with paral-
lels from PDerv.
We distinguish the terms Derveni Papyrus (PDerv.) and Derveni Treatise
(Derv.T). The Derveni Papyrus is a document which we quote by the column and
line of the official edition (KPT). By the Derveni Treatise we mean the original
Sophistic text of the 5th cent. BC which can be reconstructed on the basis both
of the extant columns of PDerv. and other testimonia discussed in § (III) which
partly supplement our knowledge of the lost integral text. The Derveni treatise is
a kind of reconstructed ‘archetype’ of which the extant PDerv. is the best and most
important preserved ‘manuscript.’
In our opinion, the Derveni Papyrus has been often misread and misunder-
stood for six main reasons. (1) First, because the papyrus was falsely labeled as
‘Orphic’ in the very first report.5 (2) Second, because another misleading label –
‘Presocratic’ – was soon after that attached to its author.6 (3) Third, because
the rhetorical/grammatical terms of the Derveni author τὰ κοινά καὶ τὰ ἴδια
(sc. ὀνόματα or ῥήματα) that provide a clue for understanding his theory of lan-
guage and the origin of religion have been misunderstood as alleged ‘echoes’
of Heraclitus’ own terminology. (4) Fourth, because of the failure to distinguish
between two types of pantheism in early Greek thought, the naturalistic and the
ethico-religious. (5) Fifth, because of the failure to distinguish between two types
of allegoresis of myth: constructive (friendly and apologetical in purpose) and
deconstructive (polemical or atheistic). (6) And, last but not least, the widespread
(after Tsantsanoglou [1997]) misinterpretation of πάριμεν in PDerv., col. V as an
alleged indication of the author’s religious profession. Mistake (1) is addressed in
§ (II), mistake (3) in § (IV), mistake (5) in § (II), mistake (6) in § (XI) below. Here is
a brief explanation of what we mean by mistakes (2) and (4).

5 Kapsomenos (1964).
6 Burkert (1968).
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   495

We have on different occasions since 1989 criticized the term ‘Presocratic/

Presocratics’ both for its chronological incongruities (if Presocratics were philos-
ophers of the 6th and 5th centuries BC, then was Socrates ‘Presocratic’?) and for
its physicalist bias that has led to the serious misunderstanding of Western Greek
idealist metaphysics (Pythagoreans and Eleatics) and to the no less serious dis-
tortion of the general picture of what happened in early Greek thought before
400 BC.7 The Derveni Papyrus is a remarkable case at point: it provides a clear
example of how this artificial and misleading modern term can bewilder schol-
ars because of its surreptitious ‘interference’ with authentic ancient terms.
Sophists knew that they were σοφισταί, the Pythagoreans knew that they were
Πυθαγόρειοι, but Presocratics did not know that they were ‘Presocratics’ (and for-
tunately so). Ancient sophists like Protagoras and Prodicus were contemporaries
of the so-called ‘Presocratics’ like Anaxagoras or Archelaus and held very similar
doctrines about nature and the cosmos. But although they are included in Diels’
edition of Vorsokratiker, the sophists are usually not referred to by this term:
since ‘Presocratics’ are thought to be cosmologists and physikoi, and sophists
are not, the latter are commonly treated as a special group of ‘Sophists.’ That is
why scholars, misguided by the label ‘Presocratic,’ turned away from the most
obvious and promising group of candidates for the authorship of PDerv., viz. the
Ionian Sophists.
In our opinion, it is necessary to distinguish between two types of pantheism
in early Greek thought. Both rely on the equation deus = natura, but interpret it
in a different way: naturalistic pantheism reduces god to nature, while ethico-
religious pantheism reduces nature to god. Ethico-religious pantheism is ethically
relevant: the ubiquity and omniscience of god is interpreted as a moral command
of timor Domini and a warning “I am watching you!” Naturalistic pantheism is
akin to deism and may have been perceived by ordinary Greeks as asebeia and

7 Cf. Lebedev (1989a) and (2009), where one can find a summary of my views. A defence of
the ancient (and modern ante-Burnet) idealist interpretation of the metaphysics of Parmenides
and the Pythagoreans is in Lebedev (2017b) and (2017c), respectively. The validity of the term
‘Presocratiсs’ has been, with good reasons, questioned by S. Luria starting from the 1920’s (see
Luria [1970] 5 ff.) and by A. Long in his preface to The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Phi­
losophy (Long [1999]). Late M. West, after reading with approval my paper in Lebedev (2009)
replied: “What you say about the Presocratics corresponds to what I have always thought.
Forty-six years ago I wrote (CQ 17, 1967, 1 n. 2): “The term ‘Presocratics’ has so established itself
that we should greatly inconvenience ourselves by abandoning it now. But it has two grave dis-
advantages: it exaggerates the effect of Socrates; and it lumps together an assortment of people,
priests, doctors, vagabond poets, experimental physicists, whose methods and intentions were
very various, and implies that they were somehow united in a common search.” (letter from
March 2nd, 2013).
496   Andrei Lebedev

atheism. When Aristotle ascribes to “Anaximander and most of the physiologi”

the doctrine of infinite matter as to theion, he is referring to naturalistic panthe-
ism. Anaximander may have described his “boundless nature” (φύσις ἄπειρος)
with ‘divine’ epithets like “eternal and ageless” (ἀΐδιος καὶ ἀγήρως) in order to
emphasize that it is eternal and indestructible, but he hardly prayed to it or to the
cosmogonical vortex it produced.8 The pantheistic thesis “all full of gods” (πάντα
πλήρη θεῶν), as Aristotle ascribed to Thales (De an. 1.5.411a7), is related to his
pampsychism (ψυχὴν μεμῖχθαι ἐν τῷ παντί). Thales probably proved this thesis
by adducing empirical evidence (tekmeria, Diog. Laërt. 1.24), such as the attrac-
tive force of magnet and amber. Even if Thales regarded these forces as ‘divine,’ it
is doubtful that he ever prayed to them or feared their wrath. This is naturalistic
pantheism. A classical example of an ethically relevant religious pantheism is the
Orphic Hymn to Zeus that followed the kataposis scene and the absorption of the
Protogonos by Zeus in the Orphic theogony. Naturalistic pantheism is of Ionian
origin; ethico-religious pantheism (Orphic and Pythagorean) has Italian roots.
In Xenophanes’ monotheistic poem, god “sees as a whole, perceives as whole,
hears as whole” (21 B 24 DK = Xen 86 Strobel/Wöhrle), and according to another
fragment quoted by Philoponus, nothing escapes his notice, not even a hidden
thought in the heart of a man.9 The Derveni author perfectly understood the dif-
ference between these two types of pantheism. He definitely does not believe
that the ‘air’ that we inhale monitors our thoughts and will punish our sins in
Hades. In a brilliant polemical peritrope10 he substitutes the Ionian naturalistic
pantheism for the Western Greek ‘Orphic’ ethico-religious pantheism (see App.
[2] below).

2 (II) The purpose, literary genre, and the

hermeneutical method of the Derveni treatise
It has been thought that the Derveni author is quoting Orphic verses because he
is interested in Orphic religious doctrine, or because he was an Orphic initiate or
even an Orphic priest (Orpheotelestes), diviner, or a religious specialist himself. In

8 Against the authenticity of the term τὸ ἄπειρον, cf. Lebedev (1978); mechanistic physics, Lebe-
dev (1988); vortex in cosmogony, Lebedev (2016) 597–598.
9 Philop. De aet. mund. 582.24 Rabe: πάντα θεοῦ πλήρη, πάντηι δ᾽ οἵ εἰσι ἀκουαί / καὶ διὰ πετράων
καὶ ἀνὰ χθόνα, καί τε δι᾽ αὐτοῦ / ὅττι κέκευθεν ἐνὶ στήθεσσι νόημα. Attribution to Xenophanes:
cf. Lebedev (1985a).
10 On the meaning of peritrope as polemical device see App. (2) below.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   497

order to understand these Orphic verses in light of some strange remarks the author
makes about mysteries, it has been suggested that he is an ‘enlightened’ Orphic
writing for a local Orphic community and trying to reconcile Ionian philosophy with
Orphic faith. From the Greek point of view, the Derveni author quotes not ‘Orphic
poetry,’ but a ἱερὸς λόγος. Classical authors avoid quoting Orpheus’ verses verba­
tim, which is why the bulk of the extant fragments comes from late antiquity, when
the Neoplatonists made the Orphic theogony a Hellenic Bible. It is impossible to
explain col. XX simply as a criticism of superstition, by comparing it, say, with Hip-
pocratic De morbo sacro 2. The Hippocratic doctor does not attack the public cult.
The Derveni author does. In col. XX, he makes derogatory and blasphemic remarks
full of mockery and sarcasm about the mystery cults. The τέχνην ποιούμενοι τὰ ἱερά
are first of all the Orpheotelestes who charged fees for the rites of initiation. How
could an ‘Orphic’ priest or an initiate ridicule his own profession and faith?
It has been rightly pointed out that his interest in Orphic poetry is neither
grammatical nor philological.11 He does not seem to be interested in the text of
Orphic theogony as such. He is not an allegorist in the usual sense of the word,
either. Main-stream philosophical allegorism from Theagenes on has been usually
apologetic in purpose. The purpose of an allegorical interpretation is to construct
a coherent referential subtext that will exist side-by-side with the ‘surface’ text
without destroying it, and that even ‘saves’ it.12 The Derveni author does exactly
the reverse: he systematically destroys myths. He does this not because he is an
unskilled or bad interpreter, but because this is the purpose of his work. He there-
fore is not an awkward allegorist, but an intelligent and skillful irreligious ration-
alist. His allegorical interpretation of the Orpheus’ theology, similar to the natu-
ralistic meteoroleschia in Aristophanes’ Clouds and the physical gods-elements
of the philosophers mocked by Epicharmus,13 belongs to the deconstructive type.
An example of deconstructive naturalistic allegoresis of the Orphic theogony is
provided by the sixth Homilia of the ps.­Clementina.14 The Christian apologists
who reduced the Hellenic gods to the elements and natural phenomena did not
want ‘to save’ them; their purpose was to exterminate them, to dismiss them as
‘just a cloud.’ Their method was anticipated by Xenophanes.15 Heraclitus’ use of

11 According to West (1983) 190, the author’s interest in the Orphic text “is wholly philosophi-
cal, not philological.”
12 Brisson (2004).
13 Lebedev (2017d).
14 See test. 19 in § (III) below.
15 21 B 32 DK (= Xen 344 Strobel/Wöhrle): ἥν τ᾽ Iριν καλέουσι, νέφος καὶ τοῦτο πέφυκε,
/ πορφύρεον καὶ φοινίκεον καὶ χλωρὸν ἰδέσθαι. This comes from a series of demythologized
pseudo-gods of the poets.
498   Andrei Lebedev

etymological allegory and of functionalist semantics may have been deconstruc-

tive with regard of the anthropomorphic polytheism of the poets, but by no means
atheistic, since it was only a prelude to the new ethico-religious monotheism.16
The same holds true for the Stoics, although they may have been less iconoclastic
than Heraclitus. Some sophists (Protagoras and Prodicus) may have mistaken
Heraclitus for an atheist.
The Derveni author is interested not so much in Orphic poetry, as in Orpheus
himself. It is the figure of Orpheus in Derv.T that reveals the personality of the
author and gives a key to understanding the purpose of his book. Orpheus in
Derv.T is first of all a σοφὸς ἀνήρ of time immemorial, a prehistoric sage who
invented religion and established the sacred rites (teletai). Secondly, he is the
Onomatothetes who first established the divine names. Thirdly, he is an ἀρχαῖος
φυσιολόγος who knew τὴν φύσιν τῶν πραγμάτων. The text of the Orphic theogony
is used in Derv.T only as historical evidence for the reconstruction of Orpheus’
work and philosophy as well as of the original religion of primitive people. Like
poetry, rituals also preserve the original wisdom of Orpheus. The third class of
evidence used by the Derveni author are proverbial expressions, taken as ‘rem-
nants’ of ancient wisdom.17 This image of a prehistoric rationalist philosοpher
who replaces traditional Greek culture heroes and divine πρῶτοι εὑρεταί is
unmistakably Sophistic. ‘Orpheus’ in Derv.T may be compared with the σοφὸς
ἀνήρ of the play Sisyphus (probably by Critias) who invented religion;18 with
Cheiron the centaur in Euripides’ Melanippe the Wise, a prehistoric astronomer
and Anaxagorean philosopher;19 with Heracles the ancient μάντις καὶ φυσικός

16 See Vassallo (2017a) and infra.

17 On the idea that the proverbs are ‘survivals’ of the ancient wisdom, cf. Arist. fr. 13 Rose
(= Synes. Calvit. enc. 22.85c).
18 88 B 25 DK (= Sext. Emp. Math. 9.54).
19 Clem. Al. Strom. 1.73.2–3: ὁ δὲ Βηρύτιος Ἕρμιππος Χείρωνα τὸν Κένταυρον σοφὸν καλεῖ κτλ.
Clement’s passage can be summarised as follows: just as according to Herodorus of Heraclea
(fr. 13 Fowler), Heracles was a seer and a physical scientist (μάντις and φυσικός) who took over
from Atlas (another scientist and astronomer) the knowledge of the heavenly bodies allegorically
interpreted as pillars of the cosmos (κίονες τοῦ κόσμου), so, according to Hermippus of Berytus
(FGrHistCont 1061 F 7), Cheiron was also an ancient astronomer and philosopher. From Cheiron,
physical science (φυσικὴ θεωρία) passed to his daughter Hippo, who, in turn, taught it to Aeolus,
a meteorologist ‘mastering’ the winds by the power of his knowledge. Two poets are cited as
μαρτύρια of this remarkable construction: Titanomachia fr. 11 Bernabé and Euripides’ Melanippe
the Wise, fr. 481 TrGF (Kannicht). Hippo/Hippe is the mother of Melanippe who expounds an
Anaxagorean cosmogony in Eur. fr. 484 TrGF (Kannicht): cf. Anaxag. 59 A 1, A 62, and B 1 DK, and
infra. It is therefore conceivable that Cheiron the physiologos derives from a 5th cent. ‘Anaxagoriz-
ing’ interpretation known to Euripides. The phraseology of Melanippe’s logos is strikingly similar
to PDerv., col. XV.2 (χωρισθέντα διαστῆναι δίχ’ ἀλλήλων τὰ ἐόντα). Cf. Lebedev (1998) 3–10.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   499

in Herodorus of Heraclea;20 and, last but not least, with Orpheus as an ancient
philosopher and onomatothetes in Plato’s Cratylus who runs a philosophical
school of his own (οἱ περὶ Ὀρφέα). The attention to hyperbaton in the exegesis of
poets is a technique that Plato associates with Protagoras.21 The Derveni author
takes the Sophistic antithesis of nomos and physis for granted and he is appar-
ently a specialist in the linguistic science of ὀρθότης τῶν ὀνομάτων. Even his
physical doctrine is Sophistic: he makes use of Anaxagorean physics, as modi-
fied by Archelaus (and possibly Democritus), who may be considered the father
of the Kulturgeschichte. In his Περὶ φύσεως, Ionian cosmogony was for the first
time supplemented by an archaeologia that discussed the origin of nomoi and of
human language.22
The Derveni author’s theory of names is of primary importance for under-
standing his hermeneutical method and his theory of the origin of religion. It is
based on the distinction between τὰ ἴδια and τὰ κοινὰ ὀνόματα or ῥήματα (see
§ [IV] below). Orpheus, who clearly saw the philosophical truth, decided, for some
reason, not to reveal it to the polloi and therefore expressed it in enigmatic poetry
(αἰνι[γμ]ατώδης col. VII.5 and αἰνίζεται passim). Presumably, he did the same
when he established the sacred rites. Instead of using plain words in common
language – the κοινὰ ὀνόματα – Orpheus obscured his message with ‘idiomatic’
or ‘peculiar’ words, τὰ ἴδια. The ‘peculiar’ words were partly invented by Orpheus
himself – these are the divine personal names. In some cases, however, Orpheus
used existing words of the current language of his time,23 but gave them unusual
meaning – these correspond to what we call ‘metaphors’. The noun μεταφορά in
a rhetorical sense is not attested before Isocrates and Aristotle; both the Derveni
author and Epigenes (who wrote on τὰ ἰδιάζοντα παρ᾽ Ὀρφεῖ, i.e. on metaphorical
or allegorical expressions) use a more archaic 5th-cent. terminology.24 The
author of Derv.T pretends to know the secret code for the correct reading of
this prototext of human civilization created by Orpheus col. ΙΧ.2–3: οἱ δὲ οὐ
γινώσκον[τες] | τὰ λεγό[μεν]α; col. XΧΙΙΙ.2: τοῖς δὲ ὀρθῶς γινώσκουσιν). His task is
to retranslate the “peculiar expessions into common,” τὰ ἴδια into τὰ κοινά: this

20 See the quotation from Clement in the previous footnote. Herodorus of Heraclea wrote τὴν
Ὀρφέως καὶ Μουσαίου ἱστορίαν (fr. 12 Fowler) and distinguished two Orpheuses and seven
Heracleses. According to this history, Orpheus was recommended to Jason by Cheiron (fr. 43
Fowler), whereas Heracles did not sail with the Argonauts at all (fr. 41 Fowler). Herodorus knew
Anaxagoras’ theory of the moon as a ‘celestial earth’ and used it in his science-fiction work about
Selenites (fr. 21 Fowler). Can he be the author of Cheiron the astronomer story as well?
21 Pl. Prt. 339a ff.
22 60 A 1; A 2; A 4.6 DK.
23 PDerv., col. XIX.9: ἐκ τῶν λεγομένων ὀνομάτων.
24 Cf. Clem. Al. Strom. 5.49 (= OF 407 + 1128).
500   Andrei Lebedev

philological technique serves the historical reconstruction of the religious beliefs

of the ‘ancients’ and their subsequent transformations. We will call this method
‘linguistic archaeology.’ Here is the list of correspondences with ‘translations’
from the prehistoric mythopoetic Greek into plain prose, a kind of glossary of the
divine names and metaphorical expressions in the theogony of Orpheus:

ΙΔΙΑ ΟΝΟΜΑΤΑ to ΚΟΙΝΑ (ΛΕΓΟΜΕΝΑ) ΟΝΟΜΑΤΑ (ΡΗΜΑΤΑ)

1. ἀήρ from αἰωρεῖσθαι (col. XVII.3–4);
2. ἄδυτον Νυκτός = βάθος Νυκτός (col. XI.2–3);
3. αἰδοῖον = ἥλιος (cols. XIII.9 and XVI.1);
4. ἀλκὴν καὶ δαίμονα = θερμόν (col. IX.4); θάλψιν (col. IX.7);
5. ἀρχὸν (…) | [ὅτι πάντα ἄρ]χεται διὰ [τοῦτον (col. XIX.14–15);
6. Ἀφροδίτη Οὐρανία = Ζεύς = ἀφροδισιάζειν = θόρνυσθαι = Πειθώ = Ἁρμονία
(col. XXI.5–7);
7. ἀφροδισιάζειν = γυναικὶ μίσγεσθαι (col. XXI.6 ff.);
8. Ἀχελῶιος = ὕδωρ (col. ΧΧΙΙΙ.12);
9. βασιλεὺς = ἀρχή (col. XIX.11–12);
10. Γῆ νόμωι (col. XXII.8);
11. δαίμων from δαίω “to burn,” hence πῦρ = ἥλιος (col. IX.4–5);
12. Δημήτηρ = Γῆ Μήτηρ (col. XXII.10);
13. Δηιὼ ὅτι ἐδηϊ[ώθ]η ἐν τῆι μείξει (col. XXII.13);
14. Δία = διά (col. XIX.15);
15. Δία = δίνη (col. XVIII.1 ff.);
15. Ἐρινύες = ψυχαὶ τιμωροί = ποιναί (col. VI.4–5);
16. Εὐμενίδες = ψυχαί = ἀήρ (?) (col. VI.9–10);
17. εὐρὺ ῥέοντα = μέγα δυνατοῦντα because of μεγάλους ῥυῆναι
(col. XXIII.6–10);
18. Zεύς = νοῦς (col. XVI.10);
19. Ζεύς = ἀήρ (cols. XVII.4–5 and XXIII.3);
20. κεφαλή = ἀρχή, μέσσα = κάτω φερόμενα κτλ. (col. XVII.12–14);
21. Κρόνος = κρούων Νοῦς (col. XIV.7);
22. Μή τηρ δ’ ὅτι ἐκ ταύτης πάντα γ[ίν]εται (col. ΧΧΙΙ.8);
23. Μήτηρ = Νοῦς = Ζεύς = ἀήρ (col. XXVI.1 ff.);
24. μητρὸς ἑᾶς = Νοῦς ἀγαθός (col. XXVI.2–12);
25. Μοῖρα Διός = πνεῦμα (col. XVIII.2); ἀήρ (col. XIX.3);
26. Μοῖρα = φρόνησις θεοῦ (sc. Διός) (col. XVIII.7 ff.);
27. Μοῖραν ἐπικλῶσαι = φρόνησιν ἐπικυρῶσαι (col. XIX.4–5);
28. Ὄλυμπος = χρόνος (col. XII.3);
29. Οὐρανός = ὁρίζων (χωρίζων) = νοῦς (?) (col. XIV.12–13);
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   501

30. πανομφεύουσαν = πάντα διδάσκουσαν because φωνεῖν = λέγειν = διδάσκειν

(col. X.9–10);
31. πατήρ = ἰσχυρότατον (sc. πῦρ vel θερμόν) (col. IX.1–2). Hence παρὰ πατρὸς
ἑοῦ = “from the strongest part of his own” (cf. col. XIV.2, ἀφ᾽ ἑωυτοῦ);
32. Πειθώ from εἴκειν τὰ ἐόντα ἀλλήλοις (col. XXI.10–11);
33. Ῥέα δ’ ὅτι πολλὰ (...) | ζῶια ἔφυ [ἐκρεύσαντα] ἐξ αὐτῆς (col. XXII.14–15);
34. χρῆσαι = ἀρκέσαι (col. XI.5);
35. Ὠκεανός = ἀήρ = Ζεύς (col. XXIII.3).

Equations of divine names

Πρωτογόνος = Οὐρανός = Κρόνος = Ζεύς (cols. VIII–IX and XIII–XVI);
Γῆ = Μήτηρ = Ῥέα = Ἥρη (col. XXII.7).

The restricted use of etymology confirms our impression that the author is not an
allegorist in the usual sense of the term. He uses etymologies and some of them
are important for his argument, but more often he looks not for a phonetic corre-
spondence of the explanatory κοινόν with the ἴδιον, but for a functional equiva-
lence. Thus, αἰδοῖον is equated with the sun because their function is the same:
a generative principle. He explicitly states his ‘functionalist’ thesis as a general
principle of nomination in the following two passages:
a) PDerv., col. XIV.9–10: Κρόνον δὲ ὠνόμασεν ἀπὸ τοῦ | ἔ[ρ]γου αὐτὸν καὶ τἆλλα
κατὰ τ[ὸν αὐτὸν λ]όγον, “He named Kronos after his function, and all other
things (or gods) by the same principle” (i.e. “after the function of each thing”);
b) PDerv., col. XXII.1: πάν[τ᾽ οὖ]ν ὁμοίω[ς ὠ]νόμασεν ὡς κάλλιστα ἠ[δύ]νατο,
“And so, he named all things (or rather, gave all divine names) in the same
way as best as he could.” In the second passage, ὁμοίως exactly corresponds
to κατὰ τ[ὸν αὐτὸν λ]όγον in col. XX, i.e. it refers to the general principle of
the ‘functionalist’ semantics (as we will call it) and the theory of nomination
“after function” (ἀπὸ τοῦ | ἔ[ρ]γου).25

25 Therefore, the ingenious new reading πάν[τ᾽ ἀ]νομοίω[ς and interpretation proposed by Kot-
wick (2017) 94 and 302 cannot be correct. Kotwick takes ἀ]νομοίω[ς in the sense of “by different
names.” According to Kotwick, Orpheus gave many different names to the same god Air, knowing
that human nature and desire are never the same, etc. In such a case, Orpheus’ attitude towards
this variability and instabilty of human behavior and speech must be positive since he named
everything ἄριστα. But the following ll. 3–6 of col. XXII flatly contradict this conclusion: οὐδαμὰ
ταὐτά cannot be an example of ἄριστα. This lack of stability and consistency is perceived in
negative terms and even attributed to human πλεονεξία and ἀμαθία. The Derveni author con-
trasts human inconstancy and capricious wishfulness with Orpheus’ methodic exactness in
giving names to things and the gods always in accordance with the same ‘best’ principle, i.e.
‘after function.’ This principle is exemplified in the col. XXII.7–16 that follows after the moralistic
502   Andrei Lebedev

The allegorical method based on ‘functionalist’ semantics rather than on lexical

affinity and phonetic assonance of a name with its ‘original’ etymon can be with
equal success used in physical allegoresis, but it should be distinguished from
‘classical’ etymological allegoresis of the Stoic type. The Stoic allegoresis of
mythical names is based on etymology, i.e. on the phonetic similarity between
the traditional name and the ‘real’ etymon for which it stands, e.g. χάος from
χεῖσθαι, Ζεύς from ζῆν and διά, Ἥρη from ἀήρ, etc. But out of the 35 explana-
tions of “peculiar” expressions in PDerv. (see the ‘glossary’ above), only ten are
based on etymology.26 This means that more than two thirds are based not on
etymology, but on ‘functionalist’ semantics (nomination ἀπὸ τοῦ ἔργου) and/or
on the ‘linguistic mistake’ theory (e.g. hoi polloi misunderstood the phrase μοῖραν
ἐπικλῶσαι). How do these two methods relate to the two schools of thought in
the philosophy of language known from Plato’s Cratylus, i.e. naturalism and con-
ventionalism? Prima facie one is tempted to correlate the etymological method
with naturalism and functionalist semantics with conventionalism. But let us be
cautious: out of 35 names, only one (γῆ) is said to be “by convention” (νόμωι). The
Derveni author does not claim to be a conventionalist and he probably is not. He
seems to believe that when something is named ἀπὸ τοῦ ἔργου, its name accords
with nature or reality, i.e. it is κατὰ φύσιν. As we shall see, in col. XX he contrasts
Orpheus’ “always the same” rule of giving names to things with human incon-
stancy and wishfulness in their desires and speeches, and this juxtaposition
already looks like a critique of conventionalism. The ‘correct’ method of naming
is exemplified in the same col. XX by the names of the gods derived from their
‘functions’ or their deeds.
The distinction of the name and the function of a thing it denotes (ὄνομα ~
ἔργον) plays an important role in Heraclitus’ theory of naming, but, unlike the
Derveni author, Heraclitus emphasizes that ordinary names (i.e. koina, legomena
in PDerv.) contradict their function.27 Functionalism and utilitarianism are related
schools of thought. The functionalism in semantics points to a thinker with a

tirade: Meter was named from “giving birth” to all, Deo from “being ravaged” in congress, Rhea
from ἐκρέω, etc. In addition, to judge by the pl. 22 in KPT, three letters after παν fill the gap better
than two.
26 Cf. the list above, sub 1, 5, 11, 12, 13, 14, 21, 29, and 33.
27 Cf. Heraclit. 22 B 48 DK (= fr. 28 Lebedev): (…) ὄνομα βίος, ἔργον δὲ θάνατος; 22 B 23 DK
(= fr. 118 Lebedev): Δίκης ὄνομα vel ταῦτα (sc. ἄνομα ἔργα). In 22 B 15 DK (= fr. 148 Lebedev) the
ergon of Dionysos’ symbol (αἰδοῖον) is generation and life, but its name is death (Aides). Note
that unlike the Derveni author, Heraclitus regarded separate names of ordinary language as ‘syl-
lables’ of original natural names, i.e. of integrated pairs of opposite like life/death. For details
see Lebedev (2017a).
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   503

general utilitarian outlook: the value of something is determined only by its use,
and hence by its usefulness (τὸ ὠφέλιμον).
By translating χρῆσαι as ἀρκέσαι, the author eliminates mantic practices and
oracles (χρησμοί) as nonsense; the humorous interpretation of the oracular cave
of Night as a night-time (i.e. as a non-entity) in col. VII follows the same anti-
mantic line. By explaining the mythical Οὐρανός as the sun, and Olympus as time
(another non-entity),28 he intentionally deconstructs the divine world. The Hymn
to Zeus is a godsend for this purpose. Since Zeus is everything, and his name “for
those who understand correctly” (τοῖς ὀρθῶς γινώσκουσι) means “air,” all gods of
Greek religion are literally dissolved in the air. Air is the common referential sub-
strate of all conventional divine names (cf. Heraclit. 22 B 67 DK = fr. 43 Lebedev).
Hence the equations of the divine names in Derv.T are to be taken not as exam-
ples of mystical syncretism or sophisticated philosophical theology, but as inten-
tional deconstruction of divine personalities. The Succession myth, according to
the Derveni author, is nonsense since all its participants – Protogonos, Night,
Ouranos, Kronos, Zeus – are different names for the air, or for its constituents (hot
particles), or for the processes such as the separation of the sun. The translation
of Olympus as ‘time’ is connected with the reduction of the gods to processes:
the ‘gods’ exist not on Olympus, but ‘in time’; they are fluctuations of the air. The
conceptual framework for such etymologies is Heraclitus’ theory of the ‘univer-
sal flux’ and change of all things that Plato associates to the tandem Protagoras/
Heraclitus.
It follows that not only the mysteries, but also Greek religion as a whole is a
result of a misunderstanding, a kind of a linguistic mistake similar to a ‘disease of
language.’ The worship of the traditional gods is a result of the ignorant polloi’s
misreading of the proto-text. The referential meaning of the divine names is dif-
ferent from the meaning intended by the polloi. When they hear the name of Zeus,
they imagine the well-known anthropomorphic figure, but κατὰ φύσιν this name
refers to the air. Thus all ordinary Greeks are fools: they do not realize that they,
in fact, worship different forms of air, i.e. natural phenomena. A theory of the
original linguistic mistake of mortals that leads to even more catastrophic conse-
quences, i.e. to the origin of the phenomenal world of plurality, is attested in Par-
menides (28 B 8.53 DK).29 The Derveni author borrowed it from another source,
which he cites in col. IV. Heraclitus, along with his theory of the ambiguity of the
cosmic Logos, evidently gave the Derveni author the idea for the theory of the
linguistic mistake of mortals.30

28 Cf. Antiph. fr. 9 Pendrick (= 87 B 9 DK): νόημα; Democr. 68 A 72 DK: φάντασμα.

29 Lebedev (2017b) 510–513.
30 Lebedev (2014) 61–69.
504   Andrei Lebedev

Was Orpheus’ ambiguity, according to the Derveni author, intentional? The

answer must be yes, for this ambiguity clearly appears in col. VII. We subse-
quently learn that Orpheus deceived the crowd. Why? We do not find the explicit
answer to this question in the extant parts of the text. But given the Sophistic
character of the Derveni treatise, it is natural to suppose that Orpheus, according
to our author, did it for the very same reason as the σοφὸς ἀνήρ in Critias’ Sisy­
phus (88 B 25 DK), who “covered the truth by a false logos” (v. 26: ψευδεῖ καλύψας
τὴν ἀλήθειαν λόγωι), so that the crowd would obey the laws through fear of the
omniscient gods. The natural phenomena that were mistaken for anthropomor-
phic gods according to Sisyphus – the revolution of the heavens (viz. the vortex of
air), thunder and lightning, the starry sky, the ὄμβροι – are very similar to those
in Derv.T. According to the Derveni author, then, Orpheus intended the ‘surface’
meaning of his poetry for the ignorant polloi, and the hidden meaning for a few,
i.e. for philosophers (who were called Sophists in 5th-cent. BC Athens) and their
disciples. Religion and science were both invented and transmitted to posterity
by Orpheus in his poetry.
From the Derveni author’s point of view, the “common names” (κοινὰ
ὀνόματα) existed already in Orpheus’ time, but the “peculiar names” (ἴδια)
were invented by Orpheus. In other words, there was a time (ἦν ποτε χρόνος
motif) when there were no gods. It follows that the “ancient men” (ἀρχαῖοι
ἄνθρωποι) were natural atheists who worshipped only the sun, the moon, and
the elements. They lived “in agreement with nature” (κατὰ φύσιν) and their lan-
guage was natural, i.e. conforming to reality (κατὰ φύσιν). In his exegesis, the
Derveni author therefore follows “the ancients.” The distinction of ‘first’ and
‘secondary’ names plays an important role in Plato’s Cratylus.31 Plato’s theory
is significantly different from that of PDerv., since in it ‘first’ mimetic names are
rather structural elementary units from which secondary names are built, and
they are not identical with the common names of current usage (τὰ κοινά). Yet
there are some points of convergence, too. In Plato, the first names imitate the
essence of things,32 and in PDerv. the common names refer to real things (περὶ
τῶν πραγμάτων, col. XIII.7). All or most divine names in the Cratylus must be
secondary, too, and all of them, as in PDerv, require a special decoding. Although
it is not stated explicitly that the extant divine names are corrupted or distorted,
this is implied by the reconstruction of their original ‘integral’ forms that the polloi
have forgotten. Etymologizing is a kind of recollection (anamnesis). The Derveni

31 See the lists in Rijlaarsdam (1978) 163–164, 236 ff., 257 ff., 271 ff., 295 ff.
32 On this point, see Baxter (1992) 62 ff., 76 ff., 167 ff.; Barney (2001) 83–98; Ademollo (2011)
278–280.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   505

author’s explanation of traditional Greek mythology displays a striking simi-

larity to Max Müller’s view of all ancient mythology as a ‘disease of language’:
“Mythology, which was the bane of the ancient world, is in truth a disease of
language. A myth means a word, but a word which, from being a name or an
attribute, has been allowed to assume a more substantial existence. Most of the
Greek, the Roman, the Indian and other heathen gods are nothing but poetical
names, which were gradually allowed to assume a divine personality never con-
templated by their original inventors.”33
There are reasons to suspect that Derv.T is not only a Sophistic Kultur­
geschichte with an atheistic message addressed to the ignorant polloi, but also
a polemical work, a pamphlet, addressed to certain philosophical opponents.
In Plato’s Cratylus, ‘Orpheus’ is quoted now as a witness to the Pythagorean
soma/sema doctrine, now as supporting the Heracliteans, i.e., from Plato’s
perspective, the Ionian naturalists, the supporters of the doctrine of ‘universal
flux’ (οἱ ῥέοντες). Plato most probably parodies two conflicting interpretations
of Orpheus at the time of Socrates. The ‘Pythagorean’ and the ‘Ionian’ versions
of ‘Orpheus’ reflect the ideological conflict between the Sophistic ‘Enlight-
enment’ and religious conservatives: the dispute between Anaxagoras and
Lampon, as well as the psephisma of Diopeithes against natural philosophers,
are well-known and representative examples. In the Dissoi logoi, the “Anax-
agoreans and Pythagoreans” (Ἀναξαγόρειοι καὶ Πυθαγόρειοι) seem to represent
two main schools of the philosophical scene c. 400 BC with conflicting views.34
The ‘Pythagoreans’ claimed that their religious philosophy is sanctioned by
the authority of the most ancient theologos, Orpheus.35 The simplest way to
refute their claims was to prove that the Orphic Theogony is a fake and that the
poet Orpheus never existed, as this was done by Aristotle, presumably in his
polemics against the Old Academy.36 The Derveni author chose another method,
which again testifies to his inventiveness and wit: he accepts (or pretends to
accept) the historicity of Orpheus and the authenticity of the Orphic Theogony,
and then proves that Orpheus was in fact an Anaxagorean himself, and that,
consequently, naturalistic Ionian science is a πάτριος λόγος (on peritrope as
polemical device in Greek philosophy see App. 2).
On the grounds of these observations, we can draw the following portrait of
the Derveni author: a Preplatonic Sophist and polymath; a specialist in the field
of the “correctness of names” (ὀρθότης τῶν ὀνομάτων); adept in functionalist

33 Müller (1885) 11.

34 90 DK, 6.8. This was seen by Luria (1970) 386.
35 Orpheus μαρτυρεῖ in Philol. 44 B 14 DK.
36 Arist. frs. 26–27 Gigon.
506   Andrei Lebedev

semantics in his theory of naming (which is theoretically connected with his

general utilitarianism); well-versed in rhetorics and physical science, in that he
follows Archelaus’ version of Anaxagorean physics; deeply interested in Kul­
turgeschichte and the origin of religion and language; a supporter of naturalistic
pantheism, which may well have been perceived by ordinary Greeks of his time
as atheism (ἀσέβεια); heavily influenced by Heraclitus, especially by Heraclitus’
allegoresis of mythical names and criticism of popular religion; and a rational-
ist of the utilitarian stamp. He wrote his work with a polemical purpose against
the Orpheotelestai, manteis, and religious conservatives as well as against the
uneducated polloi who supported them. It is obvious that we are dealing with a
thinker of great originality, amazing learning, and inexhaustible inventiveness.
He speaks with authority as a recognized Master of Truth. It is very unlikely that
he was a marginal figure and left no trace in Greek philosophy and intellectual
life;37 it is also unlikely that his name has not been preserved in the tradition. On
the contrary, we have good reasons to suppose that he is one of the intellectual
celebrities of the Greek Sophistic ‘Enlightenment’; moreover, the work we call the
Derveni treatise may have been scandalously famous.

3 (III) The attribution of the Derveni treatise

to Prodicus of Ceos
There are no discernible connections between Gorgias and Hippias. Critias’ theory
of the origin of religion as invention of a sophos aner of ancient times displays a
typological similarity with PDerv, but the smart impostor in this case is Sisyphus,
not Orpheus. The divulgation of Eleusinian mysteries is insufficient for an ascrip-
tion to Diagoras of Melos; besides, our author is a professional Sophist, whereas
Diagoras was a dithyrambic poet (see further § [VII] below). Protagoras’ Περὶ θεῶν
and Περὶ τῆς ἐν ἀρχῇ καταστάσεως certainly come into consideration and fit the
subject of the Derveni treatise, but the scarcity of references to Protagoras in the
supposed references to Derv.T in later authors can hardly be accidental.38 Of all
Greek Sophists, it is Prodicus of Ceos who exactly fits the composite image of the
author. Prodicus was the leading expert in the ὀρθότης τῶν ὀνομάτων, he wrote

37 This possibility is rightly rejected by Burkert (1968). Contra Kouremenos ap. KPT, 59.
38 Protagoras is cited nominatim together with ‘Orpheus’ and Heraclitus in Pl. Tht. 152e; the title
Περὶ τῶν οὐκ ὀρθῶς τοῖς ἀνθρώποις πρασσομένων (Diog. Laërt. 9.55) resembles the criticism of
the absurd practices and beliefs of hoi polloi in PDerv.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   507

on physics,39 his connections with Anaxagoras are well-attested,40 and his repu-
tation as an atheist was second to none:41 “This man has been corrupted either by
a book or by Prodicus.”42 After the trial of Anaxagoras and the psephisma of Dio-
peithes (432 BC), any Anaxagoreios in Athens may have looked suspicious to the
conservative public.43 His name is regularly included in the lists of atheists, and
it seems that he was a genuine philosophical atheist of the Protagorean (‘human-
ist’) extraction, but he is hardly as scandalous and iconoclastic as Diagoras in the
anecdotal tradition. In Plato’s Protagoras (315b–c) the description of Prodicus in
Callias’ house starts with a witty quotation from Homer’s Nekyia: καὶ μὲν δὴ καὶ
Τάνταλον γε εἰσεῖδον (...), “And, among others, I have noticed there Tantalos as
well (...).” In a very important and underestimated article, Charles Willink has
persuasively refuted the old interpretation (the sobriquet allegedly means “suf-
fering grievious pains” and alludes to the poor condition of Prodicus’ health)44
and explained it as a mythical paradigm of the “hybristic audacity” of a “cosmo-
logical blasphemer”45 like that of the meteorosophistai satirized in Aristophanes’
Clouds with Prodicus as their prince and arch-sophist.
The texts of Themistius and Aristophanes cited below leave no doubt that he
discussed in his works “the rituals of Orpheus” (Ὀρφέως τελεταί) and proposed a
‘meteorosophistic’ interpretation of the Orphic Theogony. Prodicus is the common

39 Test. 61–66 Mayhew. Note that Prodicus’ ‘physics’ pays attention to etymology and the ‘cor-
rectness of names’. Galen (test. 64–66 Mayhew) rebukes Prodicus for his deviation from the com-
mon usage and ‘innovations’ in the use of names (ἐν τοῖς ὀνόμασι [...] καινοτομίαν). Cf. § (B),
test. (T10) below. According to Aulus Gellius (15.20.4), Euripides was a pupil of Anaxagoras and
Prodicus.
40 Aeschin. Socr. (SSR VI A 73) ap. Ath. 5.62.220a–b (= Prodic. test. 30 Mayhew). Aeschines in
his Callias mocks Prodicus and Anaxagoras as ‘Sophists’ and immoral teachers corrupting the
young. It seems that Aeschines re-addresses the accusations of ‘atheism’ and corruption of the
young raised against Socrates to Prodicus and Anaxagoras.
41 See Henrichs (1975) 107 ff., a re-edition of the testimonium to Prodicus in Philodemus’ On
Piety, PHerc. 1428, (1976), and (1984a); Willink (1983) 25–27; Burkert (1985) 313–315; Scholten
(2003) 132 ff.; Mayhew (2011) xvii and 91; Bett (2013) 299–303; Roubekas (2017) 39–42. Reser-
vations about Prodicus’‘atheism’ have been recently expressed by Kouloumentas (2018) and
Vassallo (2018a); cf. also Sedley (2013) 141 and Winiarczyk (2016) 66, who ignore, however, the
‘Tantalos’ paradigm and the important work of Willink (1983). Prodicus did not begin to be re-
garded as an ‘atheist’ by the time of Cicero; he was nicknamed ‘Tantalos’ (= godless hybristes)
already by his contemporaries.
42 Ar. (Τηγανισταί) fr. 506 PCG (ex Schol. [VE] in Ar. Nub. 361a = Prodic. test. 5 Mayhew): τοῦτον
τὸν ἄνδρ’ ἢ βιβλίον διέφθορεν / ἢ Πρόδικος ἢ τῶν ἀδολεσχῶν εἷς γέ τις.
43 For doxographical testimonia to Anaxagoras’ alleged ‘atheism’ from papyri, see Vassallo’s
DAPR in this volume.
44 Willink (1983) 30.
45 Willink (1983) 31 ff.
508   Andrei Lebedev

source of the passages from Themistius, Aristophanes (Clouds and Birds), Plato’s
Cratylus, Euripides’ Bacchae, and other testimonia discussed below.

Testimonia (1) – (18) which support the attribution of PDerv. to Prodicus of Ceos

(T1) Plato [I]

Prodicus has rightly been recognized as an important Sophistic source of Plato’s

Cratylus.46 His fifty-drachmas “lecture on the correctness of names” (ἐπίδειξις
περὶ ὀνομάτων ὀρθότητος) is explicitly cited as a classic of the genre (the only
one!) at the beginning of the dialogue.47 The words εἰδέναι τὴν ἀλήθειαν “to
know the truth” (Cra. 384b5) alluding to Prodicus may be compared with the
phrase ὀρθῶς γινώσκειν in Derv.T. Orpheus as a Heraclitean and Anaxagorean
philosopher and an onomatothetes appears in Cra. 402b: Ῥέα and Κρόνος as
ῥευμάτων ὀνόματα, cf. ῥοή at 402a9.48 We may compare this passage with PDerv.,
col. XXII.13–15: δηλώσει δὲ [λί]αν | κατὰ τὰ ἔπη γεν[νᾶν]. Ῥέα δ᾽ ὅτι πολλὰ καὶ
πο[ι]κ[ίλα] | ζῶια ἔφυ [ἐκρεύσαντα] ἐξ αὐτῆς , κτλ. The theory of διπλοῦς λόγος
ἀληθής τε καὶ ψευδής is attested in the etymology of Pan in Cra. 408c. The
ψεῦδος half belongs to the πολλοί and consists of poetic fiction (τραγικόν), μῦθοι
τε καὶ ψεύδη.49 In Cra. 409a9 the etymological derivation of the name Σελήνη
from σέλας (“light”) “seems to reveal the more ancient wisdom” similar to the
“recent” theory of Anaxagoras that the moon reflects the light of the sun: ἔοικεν

46 See Rijlaarsdam (1978) 35 ff., 117 ff., 194 ff. The thesis οὐκ ἔστι ἀντιλέγειν (cf. Pl. Cra. 429d–e:
ἆρα ὅτι ψευδῆ λέγειν τὸ παράπαν οὐκ ἔστι, κτλ.) is explicitly ascribed to Prodicus by Didymus
the Blind: see Prodicus’ test. 60 Mayhew (with comm. by Mayhew [2013] 153–159); Binder/Liesen-
borghs (1976) 453–462.
47 Pl. Cra. 384b (= Prodic. test. 42 Mayhew).
48 Mansfeld (1983)’s identification of Plato’s source as Hippias cannot be correct since: Hippias
is the least philosophical of all the Sophists; the relativist theory of flux and sophisticated episte-
mology are a priori unlikely for him; in the parallel passages of Pl. Tht. 152e and 160d, Protagoras,
not Hippias, is mentioned. Protagoras was never associated with Hippias but was often connect-
ed with his disciple Prodicus. Mansfeld, however, rightly postulates a Sophistic source for the
‘Heraclitizing’ passages in Cratylus and Theaetetus. This source is most probably Prodicus and/
or Protagoras himself, who quoted Heraclitus with approval of his criticism of popular religion.
49 In Lebedev (2014) 22 the source of Plato is identified with Heraclitus and Pl. Cra. 408c2 (οἶσθα
ὅτι ὁ λόγος τὸ πᾶν σημαίνει κτλ.) is included in Probabilia, fr. 3 Lebedev. The fanciful etymology
of Pan may be Plato’s own, but the identification of Logos with the Universe is typically Heraclite-
an: it is based on Heraclitus’ metaphor of common logos or liber naturae in fr. 2 Lebedev (= 22 B 1
DK) and fr. 1 Lebedev (= 22 B 50 DK), on which see Lebedev (2017a).
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   509

δηλοῦν τι παλαιότερον ὃ ἐκεῖνος (sc. Anaxagoras) νεωστὶ ἔλεγεν.50 The ancient

onomatothetes in this passage is likely Orpheus, and so just as in Derv.T, the
Anaxagorean physiologia is presented as an ancient wisdom known to Orpheus
that can be discovered in divine names, when they are “correctly understood.”51
Plato’s source must be Prodicus, in whose history of culture and religion the case
of Selene as a deified “useful thing” must have played important role: on PDerv.,
col. XXIV.7–12 see testimonium (T3) below. Plato’s “accusation” of Anaxago-
ras of plagiarism from ancient theologians is, of course, a joke; the playful and
ironic tone of this remark is best explained as a parody of Prodicus’ extravagant
claims about Orpheus’ Anaxagorean physics rather than a parody of Anaxagoras
himself, who never made such claims.52

(T2) Euripides

Prodicus’ test. 74 Mayhew (= 84 B 5 [III] DK) is an obvious and well-known source of

Euripides’ Bacchae 274 ff., where Demeter is explained as earth (γῆ) and Dionysos
as wine.53 According to the Derveni author, religion and mythology arose from the
misreading and misinterpretation of an ancient text of a wise man (Orpheus) by
the ignorant polloi. A remarkable parallel to this theory is found in Bacch. 286–297.
The myth of Dionysos’ birth, in which he was sewn into and born from Zeus’
thigh (μηρός), is explained away as a misunderstanding of ὅμηρος (“hostage”)
or μέρος τοῦ αἰθέρος (“part of aither”): cf. οἱ δ᾽ ἄνθρω[ποι οὐ γινώσκοντ]ες τὰ
λεγόμενα in PDerv., col. XVIII.14. The multiple etymologies of the same name that
seemed absurd to Euripidean scholars are typical for the Derveni author and for
Plato’s Cratylus as well. Cf. Eur. Bacch. 296: ὄνομα μεταστήσαντες, an expression
that can be compared with the text that I propose to read in PDerv., cols. IV.2,
ὁ κείμ[ενα] μεταθ[έμενος ὀνόματα, and IV.5, Ἡράκλειτος με[ταθέμενος] τὰ κοινὰ
(sc. ὀνόματα). A similar terminology is attested in Plato’s Cratylus.54 Prodicus

50 On this passage, cf. Lebedev (1990) 81 n. 12.

51 For different names of ὀνοματοθέται in the Cratylus, cf. Rijlaarsdam (1978) 149.
52 Cra. 409a7: τοῦτο δὲ τὸ ὄνομα φαίνεται τὸν Ἀναξαγόραν πιέζειν, “this name seems to press
hardly upon Anaxagoras.” The term πιέζω here has the connotation “expose” – Anaxagoras’
plagiarism of ancient wisdom becomes exposed – as in legal contexts, in which it is associated
with ἐλέγχω: cf. Plut. Alc. 4.3; Phld. De dis, PHerc. 152/157, col. 8.2–3 Diels (ὑπὸ τῶν ἐ|λέγχων
πιέζωνται, “under the pressure of evidence”).
53 Roux (1972) 347; Dodds (1960) 104; Mayhew (2011) 242–244. Henrichs (1968) firstly compared
this passage of Euripides with PDerv., col. XVIII (Demeter = Ge meter). See also Willi (2007) and
Santamaría (2010).
54 Rijlaarsdam (1978) 147.
510   Andrei Lebedev

is the most plausible common source of Plato and Euripides. The cosmic αἰθήρ
(=  air) in Euripides is always a reference to Anaxagoras’ cosmology; Zeus and
Hera in this passage are apparently allegorized as Air and Earth. In PDerv. Zeus is
air and Hera is earth (cf. cols. XVII.4 and XXII.7).

(T3) Themistius

A neglected evidence of Themistius is of primary importance for the ascription of

the Derv.T to Prodicus of Ceos. In Them. Or. 30, II, p. 183.1 ff. Downey/Norman (cf.
Prodic. test. 77 Mayhew = 84 B 5 [IV] DK) we can read as follows:

εἰ δὲ καὶ Διόνυσον καλοῖμεν καὶ νύμφας καὶ Δήμητρος κόρην ὑέτιόν τε Δία καὶ Ποσειδῶνα
φυτάλμιον, πλησιάζομεν ἤδη ταῖς τελεταῖς καὶ τὴν Προδίκου σοφίαν τοῖς λόγοις ἐγκατα-
μίξομεν, ὃς ἱερουργίαν πᾶσαν ἀνθρώπων καὶ μυστήρια καὶ πανηγύρεις καὶ τελετὰς τῶν
γεωργίας καλῶν ἐξάπτει, νομίζων καὶ θεῶν ἔννοιαν ἐντεῦθεν εἰς ἀνθρώπους ἐλθεῖν καὶ
πᾶσαν εὐσέβειαν ἐγγυώμενος. οὐ μὴν οὐδὲ Ὀρφέως τελετάς τε καὶ ὄργια γεωργίας ἐκτὸς
συμβέβηκεν εἶναι, ἀλλὰ καὶ ὁ μῦθος τοῦτο αἰνίττεται, πάντα κηλεῖν τε καὶ θέλγειν τὸν Ὀρφέα
λέγων, ὑπὸ τῶν καρπῶν τῶν ἡμέρων ὧν γεωργία παρέχει πᾶσαν ἡμερῶσαι φύσιν καὶ θηρίων
δίαιταν, καὶ τὸ ἐν ταῖς ψυχαῖς θηριῶδες ἐκκόψαι καὶ ἡμερῶσαι. καὶ τὰ θηρία γὰρ τῷ μέλει
κηλεῖν κτλ.

Let the gods who oversee agriculture be summoned to help me with my oration (…) For
it is from the fruits of agriculture that they receive yearly recompense – drink-offerings,
sacrifices, banquets and all the Hours cause to spring up from the earth – and they receive
this recompense not only for helping mankind on oratory, but from everything that human
beings have from the high. If we should also summon Dionysos, the nymphs, Demeter’s
daughter (sc. Persephone), the rain-bringing Zeus and nourishing Poseidon, than we shall
be within short range of the rites and add a dose of Prodicus’ wisdom to our eloquence.
Prodicus makes all of mankind’s religious ceremonies, mysteries, festivals, and rites
dependent on the blessings of agriculture. He thinks that even the idea of gods came to
human beings from agriculture and he makes agriculture the guarantee of all piety. Not
even the rites and mystic ceremonies of Orpheus are unconnected with agriculture but the
myth about Orpheus also hints to this in enigmatic form, namely that it was through cul-
tivated fruits provided by agriculture that Orpheus tamed the whole nature and the diaita
(i.e. way of life and nutrition) of wild beasts and eradicated and tamed the bestial element
in the souls. Indeed, he was believed to enchant wild beasts by his music conducting all
sacrifices and rites in honor of the gods using the fruits of agriculture.55

After this passage, Themistius presents Orpheus as the greatest culture hero
who taught the art of agriculture to all nations of οἰκουμένη, and in turn, this

55 Transl. by Penella (2000) 185–186, with slight alterations.

 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   511

development triggered the transition to sedentary life, the rise of civilization, the
emergence of laws and justice, etc. Diels/Kranz print under Prodicus’ 84 B 5 DK
from Themistius only the words πλησιάζομεν (...) ἐγγυώμενος; Mayhew (test. 77)
expands the preceding context, but he also cuts the quotation at ἐγγυώμενος.
This emendation is based on the assumption that at this point Themistius stops
quoting “Prodicus’ wisdom,” i.e. his agricultural theory of the origin of religion,
and adduces a new piece of evidence, the myth of Orpheus the musician, unre-
lated with Prodicus. But in the preceding text, “Prodicus’ wisdom” is connected
with τελεταί, so in the text set in bold he rather states that what Prodicus explic-
itly said in his theory of the origin of religion is also in an enigmatic form “hinted
by” traditional myth (καὶ ὁ μῦθος), which means that Prodicus himself referred
to or discussed Orpheus’ teletai and Orphic mysteries as providing evidence in
support of his theory of religion.56 The identification of Dionysos with wine,
of Demeter with bread, of Poseidon with water are attested for Prodicus by the
consensus of Philodemus and Sextus (84 B 5 [I, III] DK).57 The reference to Dio-
nysos and Demeter in combination with mystery cults (μυστήρια) and initiations
(τελεταί) is sufficient to conclude that Prodicus discussed the Eleusinian and
Orphic (i.e. Bacchic) mysteries in his work on the origin of religion. If we accept
Henrichs’ reinterpretation of Philodemus, according to which Prodicus added
deified benefactors (πρῶτοι εὑρεταί) of the human race to “things beneficial for
human life” (τὰ ὀφελοῦντα τὸν βίον), the characterization of Orpheus as the first
agriculturalist in Themistius may also derive from Prodicus.58
Prodicus’ theory of the origin of religion from agriculture (and other “useful”
τέχναι) is directly attested in PDerv., col. XXIV, which comments on the Οrphic
verse about the moon (l. 3: “ἡ πολλοῖς φαίνει μερόπεσσι ἐπ᾽ ἀπείρονα γαῖαν”):

56 Mayhew’s skepticism about the authenticity of Themistius’ reference to mysteries, orgia, fes-
tivals, and teletai in Prodicus’ work is unjustified. The uniqueness of evidence may call for sus-
picion in the legal sphere, but not in the evaluation of historical or literary sources. Themistius’
reference is precise and concrete and is paralleled by a plausible reference to it in Plutarch’s De
Daedalibus Plataeensibus (frs. 157–158 Sandbach), see below. Incidentally, Greek agrarian festi-
vals (like those of Dionysos) or mysteries of Demeter provided more abundant and persuasive
evidence on the connection between religion and agriculture than, say, the Orphic theogony or
the poetic myth of Orpheus the singer. Even on a priori grounds, Prodicus could not miss such
opportunity. And this explains why it is Demeter and Dionysos who have a prominent place in
Prodicus’ theory of religion as cases at point.
57 Note the agriculturally relevant epikleseis of Zeus the Rain-giver (Hyetios) and Poseidon the
Nourishing (Phytalmios).
58 Nestle (1976) 439 compares Min. Fel. Oct. 2.21, errando (on ‘wandering’ benefactors), and
concludes that Orpheus was included in Prodicus’ list of deified inventors.
512   Andrei Lebedev

εἰ γὰρ τοῦτο ἔλεγε, οὐκ ἂν “πολλοῖς” ἔφη φαίνειν αὐτήν,

(ἀλλὰ ‘πᾶσι’ ἅμα59), τοῖς τε τῆν γῆν ἐργαζομένοις
καὶ τοῖς ναυτιλλομένοις, ὁπότε χρὴ πλεῖν, τούτοις
10  τὴν ὥραν. εἰ γὰρ μὴ ἦν σελήνη, οὐκ ἂν ἐξηύρ[ι]σκον
οἱ ἄνθρωποι τὸν ἄριθμὸν οὔτε τῶν ὡρέων οὔτε τῶν
ἀνέμω[ν ] καὶ τἆλλα πάντα []ην60

(…) he would not say “to many” (but to “all together”), i.e. to those who cultivate
the land and those who are engaged in navigation, [signalling] to them the hour
when the navigation starts. For if there were no moon, humans would have
discovered neither the number of the seasons nor the number of the winds (…)
nor all the rest (…)

The Derveni author starts col. XXIV with an interpretation of the epithet of the
moon ἰσομελής (hapax) that must have appeared in the verse from the Orphic
theogony quoted in the lost lower part of the preceding column, and he takes it in
the sense of “circular” on the grounds that only circular objects when “measured
from the center” (i.e., the distance to the periphery) have “equal limbs” on all
sides. Martin West suggests that the lost verse was similar to Parmenides’ 28 B
8.44 DK (μέσσοθεν ἰσοπαλές) and reads μέσσοθεν ἰσομελής. This reading remains
attractive, although it cannot be proved. In any case, the reference to the circu-
lar shape of the full moon is plausible. An objection against this interpretation
argues that adjectives ending with -μελής in Greek always refer to “stretched”
limbs. But this is untenable. In fact, in the poetic language, μέλη (plur.) can be
used as a pluralis poeticus for the whole body rather than for some “stretched”
parts of the body: cf. e.g. Parmenides’ 28 B 16.1 DK, where the expression κρᾶσιν
μελέων πολυπλάγκτων, “the mixture (i.e. composition) of much-wandering (i.e.
constantly changing) limbs (i.e. body),” refers to the condition of the body, not of
some limbs, and the Homeric epithet of Eros λυσιμελής, “relaxing limbs,” refers
to the relaxation of the whole body regardless of its shape.
The commentator also doubts the (rather obvious) meaning of the verse about
the moon that “shines,” i.e. is the source of light, “for many,” on the grounds
that in this case, one would expect “shines to all” rather than “to many.” Instead,
he interprets φαίνω as allegedly elliptical for φαίνειν τὴν ὥραν “to show (i.e. to
indicate) the appropriate hour” for starting various activities: that is, he tries to
connect it with the phases of the moon and the telling of time. The word “many”

59 We follow the subtle suggestion of Kotwick (2016) 3. The distinction between many and all
refers to τεχνίται, on the one hand, and to all humanity indiscriminately, on the other.
60 PDerv., col. XXIV.7–12.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   513

is explained as a reference not to all mortals, but to specific groups, namely to

“those who cultivate the land” and “those who are engaged in seafaring.” To the
latter group, the moon “shows” the time when navigation starts. The author does
not specify what exactly the moon “shows” to agriculturalists because it is self-
evident: the agricultural cycle of “works and days” (like sowing, harvesting, etc.)
based on the calendar year and the seasons. Without the moon, there would be
no telling of time and no calendar, and without these, agriculture and seafaring
would be impossible. Since the production of food (agriculture) and sea trade
are essential for sustaining human bios, mortals deified the moon and the sun as
“that which benefits human life.” This is exactly what we find in the reports on
Prodicus’ rather peculiar ‘agricultural’ theory of the origin of the belief in gods.61
The word ὥρα in col. XXIV (τὴν ὥραν, l. 10; τῶν ὡρέων, l. 11) echoes the title of
Prodicus’ work Ὧραι. It is reasonable to infer from this passage that in the lost
parts of Derv.T similar connections between the sun and the practical needs of
humans are made, which, for example, explain Helios as a deified ‘heat’ (thermon)
useful for agriculture: the connection between the sun and the seasons imposes
itself. Cf. Helios and Selene as γεωργοὶ ἀθάνατοι in Max. Tyr. Or. 23.5c5.62 Other
examples illustrating the importance of explanatory time concepts in PDerv. are
Ὄλυμπος = χρόνος (col. ΧΙΙ) and ἄδυτον = βάθος τῆς νυκτός (col. XI.2–3).

(T4) Aristophanes [I]

Cf. Ar. Nub. 828: Δῖνος βασιλεύει τὸν Δί’ ἐξεληλακώς. The text of PDerv., col.
XVIII.1–3 runs as follows:

καὶ τὰ κάτω [φερό]μενα. ⸌[τὴν δὲ “Μοῖρα]ν” φάμενος [δηλοῖ]⸍

˪τὴν δ[ίνην] καὶ τἆλλα πάν[τ]α εἶναι
ἐν τῶι ἀέρι  [πνε]ῦμα ἐόν. τοῦτ᾽ οὖν τὸ πνεῦμα Ὀρφεὺς
3  ὠνόμασεν Μοῖραν.

(...) and the things that move down. By saying [“Moira” he means] the [vortex]
and all the rest in the air which is wind. It is this wind that Orpheus called Moira.

The supplement τήνδ[ε γῆν] in col. XVIII.1, proposed by KPT and accepted by
Bernabé, is unlikely. First, because teste TLG, all instances of this phrase in clas-
sical authors come from tragedy, there is not a single instance of ἥδε γῆ, τῆς δὲ

61 Prodic. test. 66–78 Mayhew.

62 Nestle (1976) 439.
514   Andrei Lebedev

γῆς or τὴνδε γῆν in prose, either in classical or in late prose.63 Α possible phrase
for “this earth” in Greek prose would be τὴν γῆν τήνδε (τῆς γῆς τῆσδε)64 or τὴνδε
τὴν γῆν,65 but never τὴνδε γῆν which is an exclusively tragic idiom. And second,
in most cases, ἡ γῆ ἥδε means “this land” rather than “this earth” and refers
to the polis or region in which the speaker is located in drama, like Athens or
Corinth, but such a meaning does not fit the context of Derv.T at all. It is conceiv-
able that in astronomical and cosmological contexts, “this earth” might refer to
“our” planet earth as distinguished from another similar planet, but there is no
indication in the text of the papyrus that the Derveni author shared either Philo-
laus’ eccentric cosmology of two earths66 or the Ionian theory of innumerable
worlds in the infinite universe, each with its own earth, sun, moon, etc.67 The
most plausible reading that perfectly fits the context is τὴν δ[ίνην], the cosmogo-
nical vortex of the Anaxagorean (and Ionian in general) physics.68 Vortex is a
form of wind, and wind is air in motion, hence the mention of wind (πνεῦμα)
and air in the next l. 2.69 According to the Ionian mechanics of the vortex, heavy

63 For τήνδε γῆν TLG gives ten classical occurrences: seven from Euripides, two from Sophocles,
and one from Aeschylus. There are many more (50) instances of the genitive τῆσδε γῆς: 28 in
Euripides, 13 in Sophocles, nine in Aeschylus, and none from prose.
64 Hdt. 6.107.
65 Dem. 60.8.
66 Arist. fr. 204 Rose (= Simpl. In Cael. 511.25 Heiberg): μετὰ δὲ τῆν ἀντίχθονα ἡ γῆ ἥδε φερομένη
καὶ αὐτὴ περὶ τὸ μέσον, κτλ.
67 Theoretically, the Derveni author could share the latter theory since it is attested in Anaxago-
ras’ 59 B 4 DK, which describes extraterrestrials in a cosmos different from ours, apparently in
a distant part of the infinite universe. But the cosmogonical context in PDerv., col. XVIII in any
case has nothing to do with the theory of innumerable worlds. In late prose (Dionysius of Hali-
carnassus, Cassius Dio, Flavius Josephus, and others), the expression “this earth” is used as a
synonym of οἰκουμένη, without antithesis to “another earth,” but these contexts are historical,
geographical, and ethnographical, and cannot be compared with col. XVIII.
68 I have proposed this supplement in my 1993 Princeton conference paper, and I am glad that
Walter Burkert and Richard Janko (ap. KPT, 227) arrived independently at the same conclusion.
In Janko (2001) 27, the reading is that of KPT. I am also glad that Piano (2016) 9 confirmed by au-
topsy the supplement κόσ]μου which I proposed behind the iron curtain in Lebedev (1989b) 39.
69 Betegh (2004)’s objection (p. 378) that a vortex cannot be “in the air” is futile. See e.g. Plut.
De Is. et Os. 373d4 ff.: αὐχμῶν δ᾽ ἐν ἀέρι καὶ πνευμάτων ἀτόπων, αὖθις τε πρηστήρων κτλ., “[Seth
is the cause] of droughts in the air, as well as enormous winds and hurricans (vel tornados)”;
Antiph. fr. 29 Pendrick (= 87 B 29 DK): ὅταν οὖν γένωνται ἐν τῷ ἀέρι ὄμβροι τε καὶ πνεύματα
ὑπεναντία ἀλλήλοις, τότε συστρέφεται τὸ ὕδωρ (...) καὶ συνεστράφη ὑπό τε τοῦ πνεύματος
εἰλλόμενον (...). Exactly as in PDerv., πνεῦμα in such contexts means “wind,” not “breath.” An-
tiphon explains the formation of hail (cf. Pendrick [2002] comm. ad loc.), but similar language
is used by the Hippocratic author of Aer. 8 in the explanation of the formation of rain (ὁκόταν δέ
κου ἀθροισθῇ καὶ ξυστραφῇ ἐς τὸ αὐτὸ ὑπὸ ἀνέμων κτλ.). It could be used in the description of
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   515

bodies move to the center of the vortex, and light ones move to the perifery: this
explanation fits perfectly with καὶ τὰ κάτω [φερό]μενα in l. 1. The conjunction
καί presupposes τὰ ἄνω φερόμενα in the preceding lines. In col. XVII, the author
interpreted the ‘Hymn to Zeus’ in terms of Anaxagorean cosmogony. In Anaxago-
ras’ cosmogony the operation of the Nous (identified by the Derveni author with
Zeus) produces a vortex.
We take πνεῦμα as “wind,” not as “breath” or “air” in general. The expres-
sion ἐν τῶι ἀέρι  [πνε]ῦμα (XVIII.2) is a translation into κοινά of the ‘idiomatic’
expression μοῖρα Διός. The link between Μοῖραν | ἐπικλῶσαι (XVIII.3–4) and the
air-cosmogony is transparent: both κλώθω and δινέω mean “to spin”; the author
most likely interprets “the spinning of Moira” as “whirling of wind.” Moira and
ananke pertain to the same semantic field and are often associated with each
other (cf. PDerv., col. XXV.7). The identification of δίνη and μοῖρα may be com-
pared with Democritus ap. Diog. Laërt. 9.45: πάντα τε κατ’ ἀνάγκην γίνεσθαι,
τῆς δίνης αἰτίας οὔσης τῆς γενέσεως πάντων, ἣν ἀνάγκην λέγει.70 The concept of
Nous/Vortex determining the past, present, and future derives from Anaxagoras
(59 B 12 DK). It is obvious that δίνη is intended as an etymon of Δία. Taking into
account the uniqueness of this etymology, we can identify Ar. Nub. 380 and 828
as quotations from Derv.T.
PDerv., col. XVIII also contains a remarkable parallel to the ‘linguistic mistake’
theory of the origin of religion in Tiresias’ logos. According to the Derveni author,
when Orpheus said Ζεὺς ἐγένετο, “Zeus happened,” he meant that a cosmogon-
ical vortex started in the air; people misunderstood his words (οὐ γινώσκοντ]ες
τὰ λεγόμενα, XVIII.14) and decided that someone called “Zeus” was “born.” As
a result of this misunderstanding, an anthropomorphic pseudo-god Zeus is still
worshipped by the Greeks. In fact, they worship a cosmogonical vortex in the air
(which is identical with the cosmic mind, φρόνησις) and when they say Μοῖραν
ἐπικλῶσαι (XVΙΙI.4), they erroneously think of a mythical Moira, the spinner; the
original – and the correct – meaning (= whirlwind in the air) intended by Orpheus
has been forgotten, so they use the correct words without understanding their
meaning: λέγοντες μὲν ὀρθῶς, οὐκ εἰδότες δέ (XVIII.5).

the formation of world-masses with equal success. In his comment on Antiph. fr. 29 Pendrick,
Galen (in Epid. 3.33, p. 17a681 Kühn = pp. 128.5–9, 129.1–8 Wenkelbach) overstates his thesis that
εἰλούμενον means “is condensed” and nothing else. The verb συστρέφεσθαι makes it clear that
the connotation of “rolling” and “winding” is also present; on συστροφή “whirlwind,” see LSJ
s.v. II, 3.
70 = 68 A 1 DK. Ἀνάγκη is a buzzword and a fundamental concept in Democritus’ cosmogony
and mechanics: see the texts 22–30 collected by Luria (1970) 33–35 under the heading Necessitas
naturalis.
516   Andrei Lebedev

(T5) Aristophanes [II]

There are more parallels between PDerv. and Aristophanes’ Clouds. See, first of all,
PDerv., col. XIX.14–15: ἀρχὸν δὲ [ἁπάντων ἔφη εἶναι α]ὐτὸν | [ὅτι πάντα ἄρ]χεται
διὰ [τοῦτον κτλ. This is one of the earliest attestations of what has become later
the standard philosophical etymology of the name of Zeus Δία = διά: Zeus is a
universal causa activa that determines everything.
The cosmogonical motif of the “vortex” reappears twice in col. XXIII.11:
“ἶνας δ᾽ ἐγκατ[έλε]ξ᾽ Ἀχελωΐου ἀργυ[ρ]οδίνε[ω.”] | τῶ[ι] ὕδα[τι] ὅλ[ως τίθη]σι
Ἀχελῶιον ὄνομ[α. ὅ]τι δὲ | τὰ[ς] δίνα[ς ἐγκαταλ]έξαι ἐστ[ι ]δε ἐγκατῶ[σ]αι .
The commentator takes Achelous as a general term for the element of water and
reinterprets ἐγκαταλ]έξαι71 “built in” as ἐγκατῶσαι “threw down,” i.e. Zeus/Air
“pushed down water by vortex.” This is a plausible source of Ar. Nub. 376–381:
ΣΩ. ὅταν ἐμπλησθῶσ᾽ ὕδατος πολλοῦ κἀναγκασθῶσι φέρεσθαι (sc. Νεφέλαι)  /
κατακριμνάμεναι πλήρεις ὄμβρου δι᾽ ἀνάγκην, εἶτα βαρεῖαι / εἰς ἀλλήλας
ἐμπίπτουσαι ῥήγνυνται καὶ παταγοῦσιν. / ΣΤ. ὁ δ᾽ ἀναγκάζων ἐστὶ τίς αὐτάς – οὐχ
ὁ Ζεύς; – ὥστε φέρεσθαι; / ΣΩ. ἥκιστ᾽, ἀλλ᾽ αἰθέριος Δῖνος. ΣΤ. Δῖνος; τουτί μ᾽
ἐλελήθει, / ὁ Ζεὺς οὐκ ὤν, ἀλλ᾽ ἀντ᾽ αὐτοῦ Δῖνος νυνὶ βασιλεύων.
There can be little doubt that Dinos/Zeus derives from the same Sophistic
source as ἀμέτρητ’ Ἀήρ (v. 264) and the whole ‘atheistic’ meteoroleschia of the
Clouds. This source is almost certainly Prodicus of Ceos who is mentioned by name
in v. 361 as a king of meteorosophistai second only to Socrates.72 Nephelai would
not believe any other meteorosophistes except Prodicus because he surpasses all
other sophists in wisdom and judgement: οὐ γὰρ ἂν ἄλλῳ γ᾽ ὑπακούσαιμεν τῶν
νῦν μετεωροσοφιστῶν / πλὴν ἢ Προδίκῳ, τῷ μὲν σοφίας καὶ γνώμης οὕνεκα, κτλ.
(vv. 360–361).
It has been thought by some that the cryptic allusions to mysteries and
initiation in the text of the comedy are connected with the Eleusinian myster-
ies.73 However, we should rule out a limine the possibility that Aristophanes is
mocking the Eleusinian mysteries. The language of mysteries and initiation in
Aristophanes is a metaphorical code that exclusively belongs to the iconic, and
not to the referential, level of text.74 On the referential level, we have the target
of these allusions: Socrates and Prodicus, who represent all sophists and the
new education perceived as a danger to traditional religion and morality. The

71 West (1983) 115.

72 Ambrose (1983) esp. 138 on Dinos.
73 Byl (1994) and (2007).
74 Incidentally, the ‘initiatory’ metaphors and analogies were used seriously by philosophical
schools themselves, especially in the Pythagorean and Platonic tradition. See Riedweg (1987).
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   517

φροντιστήριον is assimilated to the Eleusinian τελεστήριον by an allusive homoi­

oteleuton. Socrates is assimilated to a hierophant (v. 359: λεπτοτάτων λήρων
ἱερεῦ),75 his teaching to initiation, and natural phenomena, deified according to
Prodicus’ theory of religion, are assimilated to the new gods: “Oh my Lord, the
Infinite Air,” Vortex/Zeus. The Clouds are sources of all kinds of useful knowl-
edge that provide the sophists with money and means of living (τὰ ὠφελοῦντα
τὸν βίον).76 The hyponoia – for those who understand correctly – of this allusions
was that Socrates “introduces new divinities not recognized by the polis.” By 423
BC, the psephisma of Diopeithes had been already enacted, so Aristophanes’ allu-
sions look like a cryptic message addressed to Socrates and Prodicus, an accusa-
tion of asebeia and a threat at the same time. Mayhew has pointed to additional
possible allusions to Prodicus’ Horai in Aristophanes’ lost comedy Ὧραι. In this
comedy, both Chaerephon, Socrates’ associate, and Prodicus’ associate Callias,
whose house was a famous club of sophists and intellectuals in Athens, appear.77
Xenophon the Socratic admired Prodicus. Prodicus’ art of precise distinction of
near-synonyms and Socrates’ quest for the exact definition of moral concepts
shows a clear similarities and have been compared.78
Dover’s perception of the image of ‘Socrates’ in the Clouds as a composite
portrait of a contemporary sophist is essentially correct.79 All attempts to take
the meteoroleschia of Socrates at face value and to ascribe it to some ‘early stage’
of his philosophical career are ill-founded.80 Such attempts would make us
believe that if we weigh the consensus of Plato, Aristotle, Xenophones, and other
Socratics that the historical Socrates was predominantly or exclusively a moral
philosopher who dismissed, on the one hand, the Ionian ‘natural history’
(including Anaxagoras) as worthless, and an isolated, grotesque, and malicious
caricature in a politically motivated comedy, on the other hand, the latter will
have more weight. However, Dover somewhat underestimated the ‘proportion’
of Prodicus’ features in this composite portrait.81 In what Dover describes as a

75 This is a unique metaphor in Aristophanes: cf. Taillardat (1962) 287 and 507.
76 Ar. Nub. 331 ff. This is an exact parallel to the birds, the new gods in Aristophanes’ Birds, who
claim to be the source of beneficial things for humans.
77 Ar. frs. 583–584 PCG. Cf. Mayhew (2011) 247–248.
78 On this point, see Reesor (1983).
79 Dover (1968) xlix ff.
80 Contra Janko (2001) 13, who tries to revive the implausible hypothesis of Winspear/Silverberg
(1960) 11 ff.
81 This was corrected by Willink (1983) 26: “(…) the arch-sophistic ‘Socrates’ satirised in the play
is in several features (e.g. fee-taking, philological quibbling, heretical cosmology) specifically
modelled on what we may take as to have been the popular view of arch-sophist Prodikos.”
518   Andrei Lebedev

“grotesque anticlimax” (vv. 359–363),82 the Clouds assure Socrates that they
would not listen to any other “meteorosophist” except Prodicus and Socrates,
the former because of his wisdom and judgment, and the latter because of his
meaningless wanderings barefoot through the streets as he endured all kinds of
discomfort. Prima facie this anticlimax looks like a comical absurdity, but behind
it lurks Aristophanes’ excuse for ascribing the cosmological ‘wisdom’ of Prodicus
to Socrates. It is Prodicus who has knowledge of this science and is the leading
‘meteorosophist’; Socrates is just an uneducated and wretched vagabond. The
image of an ἄστεγος vagabond enduring evils (κακά) is an allusion to the popular
Socratic motif of καρτερία, i.e. to Socrates’ ethics, and not to a physical doctrine
he never held, whereas the alleged ‘ignorance’ of Socrates may be Aristophanes’
mocking parody of Socrates’ thesis ἓν οἶδα ὅτι οὐδὲν οἶδα.

(T6) Aristophanes [III]

The quasi-Orphic ornithogony in Aristophanes’ Birds, vv. 709 ff., is introduced

by a direct reference to Prodicus. Indeed, the choir of birds sings (Av. 690–692):

690  ἵν᾽ ἀκούσαντες πάντα παρ᾽ ἡμῶν ὀρθῶς περὶ τῶν μετεώρων,
φύσιν οἰωνῶν γένεσίν τε θεῶν ποταμῶν τ᾽ Ἐρέβους τε Χάους τε
εἰδότες ὀρθῶς, παρ’ ἐμοῦ Προδίκῳ κλάειν εἴπητε τὸ λοιπόν.

(...) you (= humans) will hear from us everything in the correct way about celestial
things, / the nature of birds, the origin of gods, as well as of rivers, of the Chaos
and Erebos, / and once you know all this correctly, you may tell Prodicus to weep
for the rest of his life.

The Birds’ cosmogony is with good reason included in the editions of Orphica
as early evidence of the Attic version of the Orphic theogony with the primeval
Nyx (rather than Kronos as in the Rhapsodies), who produces the world-egg from
which the firstborn god (Eros) comes out. But it would be preposterous to take
this text as a parody of ‘Orpheus’ theogony’ itself. First, mocking a Hieros logos
in Athens after the psephisma of Diopeithes was a risky enterprise, and second,
the emphatic mention of Prodicus from the start is left unaccounted for and
unintelligible. Since we know now that Prodicus wrote an allegorical naturalistic
interpretation of Orphic theogony, we must admit that the target of Aristophanes’
agonistic mockery is Prodicus’ allegorical interpretation of the Orphic theogony

82 Dover (1968) lv.

 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   519

rather than the Orphic theogony itself.83 It is hard to imagine that a rather tra-
ditional poet could mock a Hieros logos in his system of values. And it is only
natural that he ridicules an ‘atheistic’ interpretation of a Hieros logos.
The birds’ version of the origin of the world and their ‘ornithological’ explana-
tion of the origin of gods (agonistically counterposed to Prodicus’ ‘meteorosophis-
tic’ version) and of the meaning of the Orphic cosmic ‘egg’ will surpass Prodicus in
their alleged “correct understanding” (ὀρθῶς εἰδέναι). Thus, one may forget about
Prodicus’ history of the human race and his theory of the origin of religion allegedly
supported by the ‘evidence’ of the ‘ancient poetry’ of Orpheus. The adverb ὀρθῶς,
correctly, is emphatically repeated twice; it alludes to Prodicus’ terminology and
his claims of correctness, ὀρθότης: the phrase εἰδότες ὀρθῶς in Av. 692 looks like
a quotation of ὀρθῶς γινώσκουσιν in PDerv., col. XXIII.2. Aristophanes knew and
perfectly understood that Prodicus’ playful interpretation of Orphic theogony as
an alleged ancient proof of Anaxagoras’ physiologia was a hoax and a mockery of
religious conservatives like Diopeithes. In this case, the purpose of his mock cos-
mogony was to surpass Prodicus in mockery and to ridicule the Sophistic Kultur­
geschichte, thus defending the traditional values of an ordinary Athenian. Mayhew,
with a very good reason, criticizes DK for underestimating the importance of the
chorus’ parabasis in Birds as evidence for Prodicus’ doctrines. Therefore, he prints
under test. 69 the vv. 685–725 that expand the cosmogony in a narrow sense by
preceding vv. 585–589 (the original miserable condition of humanity) and fol-
lowing Prodicus’ appearance in vv. 693–722 that, apart from theogony, contain a
parody of Prodicus’ ‘utilitarian’ theory of religion. We understand these verses as
follows: after you hear our Theogony, you may say goodbye to Prodicus’ version.
Prodicus’ Horai are parodied in the context of Ar. Av. 708 ff.:

πάντα δὲ θνητοῖς ἐστιν ἀφ᾽ ἡμῶν τῶν ὀρνίθων τὰ μέγιστα.

πρῶτα μὲν ὥρας φαίνομεν ἡμεῖς ἦρος χειμῶνος ὀπώρας·
710  σπείρειν μέν, ὅταν γέρανος κρώζουσ᾽ εἰς τὴν Λιβύην μεταχωρῇ·
καὶ πηδάλιον τότε ναυκλήρῳ φράζει κρεμάσαντι καθεύδειν,
κτλ.

And the greatest things for mortals are from us, the birds. / First, we make known
the seasons: spring, winter, and summer; / when migrating to Libya, the crane
cries “Sow your seeds” / – and tells the shipowner “Time to hang up your rudder
and sleep” – etc.84

83 For a survey of modern opinions see Bernabé’s OF II.1, 73 ad fr. 64.

84 Transl. by R. Mayhew.
520   Andrei Lebedev

The “greatest things” (τὰ μέγιστα) in this context are synonymous with the
“most useful things.” According to Prodicus’ theory of the origin of religion,
humans first deified τὰ ὠφελοῦντα, things beneficial for the human race; the
elements, the sun and the moon, which are indispensable for agriculture. PDerv.,
col. XXIV describes the usefulness of the moon for telling time and recognizing
the seasons: without the moon, agriculture and navigation would be impossi-
ble. The choir of the birds, after announcing a competition with Prodicus, claims
that thumans have been taught by the ‘signals’ that the birds sent to them to
recognize the seasons; without birds, there would be no agriculture and naviga-
tion. Exactly the same crafts are mentioned in exactly the same order in PDerv.,
col. XXIV.8–9. The hyponoia of this in Aristophanes’ Birds is: the utility of birds
for the human race far surpasses that of the traditional gods and of Prodicus’
“useful things,” therefore the birds win the agon with Prodicus, and they should
be deified for their utility and proclaimed new gods. A number of other useful
crafts accomplished by birds’ signals is adduced in the following lines: the crane
signals when to weave (ὑφαίνειν) a winter cloak, “the kite appears after this to
make known the change of season (ἑτέραν ὥραν), / when it’s the season to shear
(πεκτεῖν) the sheep’s wool, in spring; then the swallow / appears when it’s nec-
essary to exchange (πωλεῖν) the winter cloak and buy (πρίασθαι) some summer
clothes.”85 The birds are equally indispensable for trade, for acquiring the means
to live, and for man’s marriage.86 None of these crafts (except agriculture and
navigation) is attested nominatim either in Prodicus or in PDerv., but this may
be due to chance and the fragmentary state of our sources. Themistius’ enco-
mium of agriculture ascribes the theory that agriculture is the cradle of religion,
civilization, and all human crafts to Prodicus. It is hardly accidental that in the
birds’ competition with Prodicus, different crafts are correlated with different
“Seasons” (Ὧραι).
The protogonos Eros “similar to the windy whirlwinds” (εἰκὼς ἀνεμώκεσι
δίναις) in v. 697 alludes to the cosmogonical vortex and connects the ‘ornithogony’
of the Birds with the ‘cosmology’ of the Clouds.

(T7) Aristophanes [IV]

The very idea of ‘surpassing’ Prodicus’ allegorical cosmogony in the comical agon
in Aves by substituting the natural elements with the image of ‘birds,’ the new

85 Ar. Av. 713–715 (transl. by R. Mayhew).

86 Ar. Av. 718: πρός τ᾽ ἐμπορίαν, καὶ πρὸς βιότου κτῆσιν, καὶ πρὸς γάμον ἀνδρός.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   521

gods of the dream city of eternal happiness, more powerful and more ‘beneficial’
for the human race than Zeus and the Olympians, seems to have been suggested
to Aristophanes by another passage of Derv.T (Prodicus), i.e. col. II in which we
propose some new readings:

PDerv., col. II.6–9

ἔτι δ᾽ ἐξαιρέ]τους τιμὰς [χ]ρὴ

κ[αὶ τῆι Μήτ]ιδι νεῖμ[αι, δαίμοσι δ’] ἑκάστο[ι]ς ὀρνί θ ειόν τι
κα[ίειν. καὶ] ἐπέθηκε[ν ὕμνους ἁρμ]οστο[ὺ]ς τῆι  μουσ[ι]κῆι.
τούτων δὲ] τὰ σημαι[νόμενα ἔλαθε το]ὺς κτλ.87

And besides that (sc. besides honouring Erinyes), one should offer exceptional
honours to Metis and burn something avian. And he (sc. Orpheus) added hymns
[or poems] that suit the music, but their meaning escapes (sc. those who lack
understanding) etc.

The reading τ[ῆι Εὐμεν]ίδι at the beginning of l. 7 proposed by KPT is unlikely for
two reasons. First, such a “collective singular” (KPT, 144) is unlikely as such and
is nowhere attested. Second, honouring Erinyes has already been mentioned in
the preceding lines, and this fact makes ἔτι, “and besides that,” pointless. In ll.
6–7, the author adds to the honouring of Erinyes the honouring of yet another
(ἔτι ~ καί) daimon and the requirement of avian offerings to all daimones (i.e. not
only Erinyes/Eumenides). It is hard to find a more plausible name of a daimon
ending on -ιδι in the dative than Metis attested in col. XV.13: Μῆτιν κάπ[πιεν ἠδὲ
λάβ]εν88 βασιληίδα τιμ[ήν], “[Zeus] swallowed Wisdom (Metis) and received the
royal honor.”
The author of the Derveni theogony (Onomacritus, according to Aristotle)
borrowed from Hesiod the epithet of Zeus μητίετα which is attested in PDerv.,
col. XV.6 and 11. It is hard to see why he could not borrow the kataposis of Metis
in Hes. Theog. 886–900 as well. The phrase βασιληίδα τιμ[ήν (XV.13) quotes Hes.
Theog. 892.89 He adapts it to the Orphic narrative: Zeus follows the prophecy of
Night and Kronos rather than that of Ouranos and Gaia, and Metis is not just a
personification of Wisdom and not Zeus’ “first wife” (Rhea/Demeter in col. XXII),
but one of the names of the daimon Protogonos.

87 The supplements κ[αὶ τῆι Μήτ]ιδι in l. 7 and ἔλαθε το]ὺς in l. 9 are ours, the rest by KPT.
88 κάπ[πιεν Kotwick (2017) 324 : κάπ[πινεν Santamaría (2012) 71 : ἠδὲ λάβ]εν vel ἠδ᾽ ἔλαβ]εν
temptavi.
89 Contra KPT, 213, who are on this point vague and indecisive.
522   Andrei Lebedev

It is tempting to take ὀρνίθ ειόν τι in col. II.7 as a reference to the egg.90 The
Derveni author must have discussed the cosmogonical egg from which Protogonos
“sprouted first” in the lost parts of the papyrus. It has been preserved in Aristo-
phanes’ ornithogony:91 the Derveni author may have allegorically interpreted it
as an Anaxagorean mixture of various ‘seeds’ of all things (a similar naturalistic
interpretation of the Orphic egg can be found in the ps.­Clementina).92
Avian offerings are for the second time mentioned in col. VI.8–11: “Mystai
perform preliminary sacrifice (προθύουσι) to Eumenides in the same way
as magoi, for Eumenides are souls (ψυχα[ὶ). For this reason (vel therefore, ὧν
ἕνεκ[εν) one who is going to sacrifice to gods [would] first offer something avian
(ὀ[ρ]νίθ[ε]ιον) etc.” Why is the identification of Eumenides/Erinyes with the souls
presented as a necessary reason to sacrifice first “something avian”? This prima
facie strange inference can be explained only on the grounds of the allegorical
interpretation of the Eumenides-souls as ‘air.’ In Greek popular ‘folk-zoology’
and in Empedocles, the three elements (world-masses) of earth, sea, and air (sky)
were correlated with three kinds of animals: terrestrial animals, fishes, and birds.
The Derveni author is not a priest and he does not give in these lines ritual pre-
scriptions: he ‘decodes’ in the teletai established by Orpheus the same ‘ancient
wisdom’ as in his poetry. The commentator assumes that first offerings are due to
the first gods. Both magoi and mystai converge in that they first make offerings to
the souls that, like birds, reside in the air and (according to the commentator) are
nothing but air.93 It follows that ancient religion accords with modern science:
both in Orpheus and in the Anaxagorean physics, ‘air’ is the original source of
everything.94 Once we admit that PDerv. is a work of Prodicus parodied by Aristo-
phanes in the Birds, it is reasonable to conclude that the choice of ‘birds’ as ‘new
gods,’ more ‘ancient’ than Olympians, was also suggested to Aristophanes by the
same work on the origin of religion and was intended as a mocking parody of it.

90 See our objections to Janko’s text in n. 4 above.

91 So rightly Brisson (1990) 2876–2877; contra Betegh (2006) 148.
92 [Clem. Rom.] Recogn. 6.5.2: ὠιόν (...) Στοιχεῖα καὶ χρώματα παντοδαπὰ ἐκτεκεῖν δυνάμενον.
93 A similar logic underlies the discussion of the etymology of Hestia in Pl. Cra. 401c1–d7: Hes-
tia’s genealogical priority can be deduced from the fact that she comes first in the order of sacri-
fices. Cf. Sedley (2003) 99 ff.
94 Some modern commentators of PDerv. do not seem to realize that in Anaxagorean physics
there is no contradiction between the conception of matter as a mixture of various ‘seeds’ (sper­
mata) and ‘air.’ Both in Anaxagoras and in Democritus the traditional four ‘elements’ are not
‘chemical’ elements (immutable simple substances, as in Empedocles), but phenomenal aggre-
gate states of matter: gaseous, liquid, solid. In Anaxagoras’ cosmogony the original (pre-cosmic)
universal mixture appears in a gaseous state, i.e. it is described as ἀήρ καὶ αἰθήρ.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   523

(T8) Aristophanes [V]

A metaphorical scene of prothysis appears in another comedy that targeted Prodi-

cus’ air-cosmogony and exposed its ‘atheistic’ implications. In Nub. 606–608,
Strepsiades experiences sacred awe as he enters the phrontisterion, the entrance
of which is compared with a ritual katabasis to the oracular cave of Trophonius; he
asks Socrates to give him first (πρότερον) a sacrificial honey-cake (μελιτοῦτταν).
Before the initiation (τελετή) into the mysteria of Sophistic wisdom inside
the phrontisterion, the old man wishes to perform the “preliminary offering”
(πρόθυσις) of honey-cakes to placate the “wise souls” that inhabit the school of
Socrates (cf. Nub. 94: ψυχῶν σοφῶν τοῦτ᾽ ἐστὶ φρονιστήριον). All this looks like
a parody of PDerv., col. VI. For further evidence on avian imagery and Prodicus
see § (IX) below.

(T9) Plutarch [I]

Plutarch’s fragmentary work Περὶ τῶν ἐν Πλαταιαῖς Δαιδάλων seems to draw on

several sources, one of which looks like a summary of something very similar to
the Derveni treaise:95
Plut. fr. 157 Sandbach ap. Euseb. Praep. evang., proem. 3.1.1: Λαβὼν ἀνάγνωθι
τοῦ Χαιρωνέως Πλουτάρχου τὰς περὶ τῶν προκειμένων φωνάς, ἐν αἷς σεμνολογῶν
παρατρέπει τοὺς μύθους ἐφ᾽ ἅς φησιν εἶναι μυστηριώδεις θεολογίας, ἃς δὴ
ἐκκαλύπτων τὸν μὲν Διόνυσον τὴν μέθην εἶναί φησιν (...) τὴν δὲ Ἥραν τὴν
γαμήλιον ἀνδρὸς καὶ γυναικὸς συμβίωσιν· εἶθ᾽, ὥσπερ ἐπιλελησμένος τῆς
ἀποδόσεως, ἑτέραν ἑξῆς ἐπισυνάψας ἱστορίαν τὴν Ἥραν οὐκέτι ὡς τὸ πρότερον
ἀλλὰ τὴν Γῆν ὀνομάζει, λήθην δὲ καὶ νύκτα τὴν Λητώ· καὶ πάλιν τῆν αὐτὴν τῇ
Λητοῖ φησιν εἶναι τῆν Ἥραν· εἶτ᾽ ἐπὶ τούτοις εἰσάγεται αὐτῷ ὁ Ζεὺς εἰς τὴν
αἰθέριον δύναμιν ἀλληγορούμενος. καὶ τί με δεῖ ταῦτα προλαμβάνειν, αὐτοῦ παρὸν
ἀκοῦσαι τοῦ ἀνδρὸς ὧδέ πως ἐν οἷς ἐπέγραψεν Περὶ τῶν ἐν Πλαταιαῖς Δαιδάλων τὰ
λανθάνοντα τοὺς πολλοὺς τῆς ἀπορρήτου περὶ θεῶν φυσιολογίας ἐκφαίνοντος;
Ὅτι μὲν οὖν ἡ παλαιὰ φυσιολογία καὶ παρ᾽ Ἕλλησι καὶ βαρβάροις λόγος ἦν
φυσικὸς ἐγκεκαλυμμένος μύθοις, τὰ πολλὰ δι᾽ αἰνιγμάτων καὶ ὑπονοιῶν ἐπίκρυφος,
καὶ μυστηριώδης, θεολογία τά τε λαλούμενα τῶν σιγωμένων ἀσαφέστερα τοῖς
πολλοῖς ἔχουσα καὶ τὰ σιγώμενα τῶν λαλουμένων ὑποπτότερα, κατάδηλόν ἐστιν
τοῖς Ὀρφικοῖς ἔπεσι καὶ τοῖς Αἰγυπτιακοῖς καὶ Φρυγίοις λόγοις· μάλιστα δ᾽ οἱ περὶ

95  Parts of this text in OF 671 (= Diag. fr. 94 Winiarczyk = FGrHist 800 T 9).
524   Andrei Lebedev

τὰς τελετὰς ὀργιασμοὶ καὶ τὰ δρώμενα συμβολικῶς ἐν ταῖς ἱερουργίαις τὴν τῶν
παλαιῶν ἐμφαίνει διάνοιαν. κτλ.
“Take up Plutarch of Chaeronea and read his statements about our subject,
statements in which he majestically converts the myths into what he says are
‘mystic theologies’; purporting to reveal these, he says that Dionysos is intox-
ication (...) and Hera the married life of husband and wife. Then, as if he has
forgotten this interpretation, he tacks on directly afterwards a different account:
contrary to his previous view he now calls Hera the earth, and Leto forgetfulness
and night. Then again he says that Hera and Leto are identical; next on top of this
Zeus is introduced, allegorized into the power of aether. Why should I anticipate
all this, when we can listen to the fellow himself? In the work he entitles On the
Festival of Images at Plataea he discloses what most men are unaware of in the
secret natural science that attaches to the gods, and does so as follows.
Ancient natural science, among both Greek and foreign nations, took the
form of a scientific account hidden in mythology, veiled for the most part in
riddles and hints, or of a theology as is found in mystery-ceremonies: in it what
is spoken is less clear to the masses that what is unsaid, and what is unsaid gives
more speculation than what is said. This is evident from the Orphic poems and
the Egyptian and Phrygian doctrines. But nothing does more to reveal what was
in the mind of the ancients than the rites of initiation and the ritual acts that are
performed in religious services with symbolical intent.”96
Note the following similarities of Plutarch’s source with the Derveni treatise.
The enigmatic Orphic poetry and mysteries are taken as remnants of the ancient
physiologia, and alternative rationalistic interpretations confuse the reader: the
equation of gods Ge = Hera = Leto is stated; Zeus is an airy substance; Hera is
also ἀνδρὸς καὶ γυναικὸς γαμήλιος συμβίωσις; Leto is night and a shadow of the
earth that eclipses the sun. The identification of Hera with Ge is found in PDerv.,
col. XXII.7. Dionysos’ association with wine is attested for Prodicus in test. 71, 74,
and 76 Mayhew and in the passage of Themistius quoted above (test. 77 Mayhew).
Λητώ = λήθη is found in Pl. Cra. 406a8. The etymology of the name of Apollo in
Plutarch’s fr. 157 Sandbach (§ 5: [...] Ἀπόλλων δ’ ὡς ‘ἀπαλλάττων’ καὶ ‘ἀπολύων’
τῶν περὶ σῶμα νοσηματικῶν παθῶν τὸν ἄνθρωπον. κτλ.) is paralleled in Pl. Cra.
405b9–c1 (κατὰ μὲν τοίνυν τὰς ἀπολύσεις τε καὶ ἀπολούσεις, ὡς ἰατρὸς ὢν τῶν
τοιούτων, “Ἀπολούων” ἂν ὀρθῶς καλοίτο). The common source must be Prodi-
cus/the Derveni author.

96 Transl. by F. H. Sandbach, with slight alterations.

 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   525

(T10) Plutarch [II]

Plut. De Pyth orac. 407b5 ff.: Ὀνομάκριτοι δ᾽ ἐκεῖνοι καὶ Πρόδικοι (Botzon :
προδόται MSS) καὶ Κιναίθωνες (Botzon : κινέσωνες MSS) κτλ. Bernabé identi-
fies the Plutarchean Prodicus with Prodicus Φωκαεύς, the alleged author of the
Minyas (test. 3, PEG I, 137). However, Plutarch gives a list not of epic poets qua
poets, but of χρησμολόγοι and (from his point of view) pretentious charlatans
who discredited oracles with their theatrical grandeur (τραγῳδία καὶ ὄγκος),
which he contrasts with the simple style of the genuine oracles of the Pythia.
The Rhapsodic Theogony was not a literary ‘poem’ composed by an ordinary
poet: Ἱεροὶ λόγοι means that it was conceived and presented as divine word, as
a kind of χρησμός inspired by Apollo, with Orpheus as his prophet. It is possible
therefore that Ὀνομάκριτοι (...) καὶ Πρόδικοι in Plutarch is a kind of ‘hendiadys’
that refers both to the bombastic Theogony of ps.-Orpheus falsified by Onoma-
critus and its disreputable and scandalous (in Plutarch’s opinion) interpreter
Prodicus.97

(T11) Epiphanius

Apart from the sun and the moon, Epiphanius also includes the four elements
in the list of the deified ‘beneficial’ things from Prodicus’ theory of religion:
Πρόδικος τὰ τέσσαρα στοιχεῖα θεοὺς καλεῖ, εἶτα ἥλιον καὶ σελήνην· ἐκ γὰρ τούτων
πᾶσι τὸ ζωτικὸν ἔλεγεν ὑπάρχειν,98 “Prodicus calls ‘gods’ the four elements, and
then the sun and the moon, for it is from them, in his opinion, that all men get
their means of living.” All six are attested in the allegoresis of PDerv. as ‘real’
referential meanings of the mythical names: according to the Derveni author, air
(and mind) was deified as ‘Zeus,’ fire and sun as Protogonos, the water element
as Achelous, earth (Ge) as Demeter, the moon as Selene. A very similar natu-
ralistic interpretation of Greek mythology was parodied as ‘atheistic’ already by
Epicharmus.99

97 Clem. Al. Strom. 1.131.3 (= OF 707) attributes Orpheus’ ‘Descent to Hades’ to a certain Prodi-
cus of Samos: (...) τήν τε εἰς Ἅιδου κατάβασιν Προδίκου (τοῦ Σαμίου sc. εἶναι λέγουσι); Suda s.v.
Ὀρφεύς (= OF 709) has Προδίκου τοῦ Περινθίου.
98 Epiph. Exp. fid. 9.25, p. 507 Holl (= Prodic. test. 78 Mayhew). Cf. Cole (1990) 156.
99 Epich. fr. 199 PCG. For a detailed comparison with PDerv., see Lebedev (2017d) 19–22.
526   Andrei Lebedev

(T12) Orion of Thebes and George Syncellus

Sync. Chron. 1.140c, pp. 174–175 Mosshammer (= 61 A 6 DK): ἑρμηνεύουσι δὲ οἱ

Ἀναξαγόρειοι τοὺς μυθώδεις θεοὺς νοῦν μὲν τὸν Δία, τὴν δὲ Ἀθηνᾶν τέχνην, ὅθεν
καὶ τὸ “χειρῶν ὀλλυμένων ἔρρει πολύμητις Ἀθήνη,” “The followers of Anaxagoras
interpret the mythical gods as follows: Zeus is mind and Athena is technical skill,
whence the verse ‘once the hands have perished, the skilful Athena is gone’.”
Orion Theb. Etymol., lett. Χ, 163.23–25 Sturz: <χεῖρες>. ἀπὸ τῆς χρήσεως,
ὡσανεὶ χρήσιες (...). οὐδεμία γὰρ τέχνη προκόπτει δίχα χειρῶν, <καθὼς καὶ ὁ
ποιητὴς> Ὀρφεὺς <φησίν>· χειρῶν (...) Ἀθήνη, “The word kheires ‘hands’ comes
from khresis ‘use’ (…). For no skill advances without hands; [as the poet] Orpheus
[says]: ‘once the hands (…) Athena’.”
This is rare evidence that directly links the Anaxagorean allegoresis of
the Greek mythology specifically with the Orphic poems.100 DK identify these
‘Anaxagoreans’ with Metrodorus of Lampsacus.101 But there is no evidence that
Metrodorus worked on Orphic poems, the attested title of his allegorical work is On
Homer, and all cited examples of his allegorical interpretations concern Homeric
gods and heroes. The interpretation of Zeus as mind (nous) is attested in PDerv.,
but not for Metrodorus. According to Tatian, Metrodorus interpreted Athena not
as τέχνη, but as a physical element or an arrangement of elements.102 Prodicus’
theory of religion originating from agriculture and other τέχναι useful for the
human race seems to be a more plausible source. The battle of ideas between
Ionian naturalists (adept at naturalistic monism) and religiously minded dualists
in the second half of the 5th cent. BC in Athens was perceived by contemporaries
as a conflict between Anaxagoreioi and Pythagoreioi. Most Sophists joined the
former camp.
The verse is quoted by three Byzantine authors and by the 5th-cent. AD gram-
marian Orion. Only Orion attributes the verse to Orpheus. Followed by Meletius
(9th cent. AD), he quotes the verse on Athena as τέχνη to support the etymology
χεῖρες ~ χρήσεις. Syncellus (8th cent. AD) and Cedrenus (11th cent. AD) quote it as
supporting the rationalistic interpretation of the myth about the creation of man
by Prometheus. Both Kern and Bernabé are right when they print in their editions
of Orphic fragments πολύεργος, a very rare epithet unlike πολύμητις, the stan-
dard epithet of Odysseus in Homer.103 But πολύμητις is not a corruption due to

100 OF 856.
101 Cf. Sider (1997) 138.
102 Metrod. Lamps. 61 A 3 DK (= Tatian. Ad Gr. 21).
103 Kern explained it as a poetic equivalent of the epiklesis Ἐργάνη. It does not mean “hard-
working” as in Nicander (Ther. 4: πολύεργος ἀροτρεύς), but rather “master of many works,”
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   527

chance: authors who connect the verse with “hands” prefer “one of many works,”
whereas the authors who cite it in support of the allegorical interpretation of
another famous mythical trickster, Prometheus, prefer “one of great prudence.”
It is striking that both the etymology of χεῖρες and the allegorical interpretation
of the name Prometheus seem to be related with Prodicus’ ‘utilitarian’ theory of
the origin of religion: χρῆσις, χρήσιμον is a synonym of ὠφέλιμον, ‘useful,’ and
both Athena and Prometheus fit perfectly into the category of πρῶτοι εὑρεταί
that played an important role in Prodicus’ second stage. Since the interpretation
of Zeus as ‘mind’ is attested in PDerv., chances are that Athena and Prometheus
were mentioned in the lost parts of the papyrus.
Τhe myth about Prometheus moulding (πλάττειν) man from clay is
explained in Syncellus’ source as an allegory of forming man by knowledge
and reshaping him from apaideusia state to the state of paideia. Both Syncellus
and a scholiast on Aesch. PV 120.17 add to this allegory a quotation from the
Σοφισταί of Plato Comicus (fr. 145 PCG): προμηθία γάρ ἐστιν ἀνθρώποις ὁ νοῦς.
Some have thought that the title Sophists refers to tragic poets and musicians
only, but the evidence for this is weak.104 The group of Sophistai mocked in the
comedy may well have included both poets and sophists in the familiar sense,
like Prodicus.
One puzzle remains unsolved. The verse about Athena as a “master of many
works,” i.e. τέχναι, is very different from the verses of Orphic theogony quoted in
PDerv.: it looks like a gnome or a verse from elegy rather than a fragment of epic
mythical narrative. It is hard to imagine what its original context in a theogony
might have been. And even more puzzling is the fact that the author of this verse
seems to share Prodicus’ somewhat unholy explanation of traditional gods as
personifications of ‘useful’ τέχναι. Can it be a playful fabrication of Prodicus
himself?
Philochorus has been plausibly identified as the source of these quotations.105
Dirk Obbink, on independent grounds, has convincingly argued that Philochorus
quoted the Derveni Papyrus.106 Objections to Obbink’s thesis (e.g., Philochorus

i.e. presiding over different crafts (τέχναι). Πολύτεχνος is the epithet of Athena (and Hephaestus)
in Solon’s fr. 13.49 West.
104 The scholiast on Ar. Nub. 331a (= Plato Com. fr. 149 PCG) commenting on σοφισταί tells
us that the word is applied not only to those who study celestial phenomena, but – improperly
(καταχρηστικῶς) – also to specialists in all kinds of knowledge, even to a flute player Bacchylides
in Plato Comicus’s Sophistai. He does not tell that all Sophistai in this play were musicians like
Bacchylides: on the contrary, he quotes Bacchylides as an extraordinary case.
105 Hussey (1999) 315.
106 Obbink (1994) 110–135. FGrHist 328 F 185 is to be compared with Phld. De piet., PHerc.1428,
col. 6.16–26 Henrichs (= Chrysipp. SVF II 1078).
528   Andrei Lebedev

and the Derveni author may quote the same source independently)107 do not take
into account Philochorus’ general predilection for rationalistic and ‘euhemeristic’
interpretations of myth which can be best explained by the influence exerted on
him by Prodicus’ work on religion and Orphic theogony.108 Philochorus wrote a
Περὶ μυστηρίων and a Περὶ μαντικῆς in which he mentioned Orpheus and quoted
two Orphic verses on prophecies.109 Therefore, he may well have consulted the
influential work of Prodicus on the same subject. Furthermore, neither ἡ αὐτή (sc.
ἐστίν) in PDerv., col. XXII.7 nor τὴν αὐτὴν εἶναι in Philodemus’ On Piety (PHerc.
1428, col. 5.3 Henrichs) is a part of the verse, i.e. of the supposed ‘common source.’
Unlike the names of the gods, it is in both cases a piece of the commentary or a
paraphrase and therefore reflects the commentator’s linguistic preference (which
is the same). It is hard to imagine that the identities of the three goddesses were
stated in a hymn in such plain, prosaic language. Expressions like ἥν τε καὶ Γῆν
καλέουσι are conceivable or, alternatively, the same goddess was called by three
different names in the invocation.
A striking sample of ‘linguistic archaeology’ reminiscent of PDerv. is pro-
vided by Philochorus’ rationalistic and naturalistic explanation of the names Tri-
topatores and Apollo. Cf. FGrHist 328 F 182 (verbatim quotation in Harpocration):
Φιλόχορος δὲ τοὺς Τριτοπάτορας πάντων γεγονέναι πρώτους· “τὴν μὲν γὰρ Γῆν
καὶ τὸν Ἥλιον (φησίν), ὃν καὶ Ἀπόλλωνα τότε110 καλεῖν, γονεῖς αὑτῶν ἠπίσταντο
οἱ τότε ἀνθρωποι, τοὺς δὲ ἐκ τούτων τρίτους πατέρας.” Prehistoric men spoke an
original, natural language not yet corrupted by misunderstanding and correctly
applied the name ‘Apollo’ to the sun.111

(T13) Philodemus

According to Philodemus, Epicurus exposed the atheistic views of Prodicus,

Diagoras, and Critias and accused them of madness; their method was that of
“changing letters in the names of gods”: De piet., PHerc. 1077 N, col. 19.1–23 = ll.
519–541 Obbink (ibid. 16–18 = ll. 534–536 Obbink: παραγραμμίζ[ουσι] | τὰ τ[ω ⌢]ν
⌢
θεων [ὀνόμα]|τα). 
Pace Winiarczyk, παραγραμμίζειν means “to change, to

107 Betegh (2006) 98–99 n. 20; Bremmer (2014) 65 n. 60; Vassallo (2015b) 98.
108 Chances are that the collection of hymns quoted by Prodicus was no longer extant or avail-
able some 150 years after Philochorus.
109 FGrHist 328 F 77 (= OF 810). The fragment is odd: Orpheus speaks in the first person and
boasts that his prophecies are infallible. Is it a proem to a collection of χρησμοί?
110 For no good reason Jacoby deletes τότε.
111 On Orphic Physica and Tritopatores see Gagné (2007) 1–24 and Bremmer (2014) 62 ff.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   529

alter letters” (with a connotation of “to distort,” “to falsify,” by analogy with
παραχαράττειν), not “to rearrange.”112 The reference is apparently to the rational-
istic etymologies based on assonance between the divine name and its supposed
etymon. Examples of this technique are found in PDerv., cols. XIV.7 (Κρόνος =
κρούων νοῦς) and XXII.9–10 (Δημήτηρ by change of letter δ to γ becomes Γῆ
Μήτηρ). The Derveni author (Prodicus) himself uses a similar expression in col.
XXVI.11, γράμματα παρακλίνοντα, to describe the possible change of μητρὸς ἐᾶς
to μητρὸς ἑοῖο. The phrase μικρὸν παρακλίνω “alter slightly,” exactly with the
same meaning, occurs in Pl. Cra. 400c (the change of only one letter in Orphic
etymology σῶμα/σῆμα) and 410a (the Phrygian pronunciation of the word πῦρ
that “slightly deviates” from the Greek).113 Most of the etymologies of the divine
names in Plato’s Cratylus are based on assonance between the name of a god
and its etymon.

(T14) Galen

On several occasions (in four different treatises!) Galen angrily rebukes Prodicus
for using the term for phlegm (φλέγμα) not in its commonly accepted sense of a
cold and dense liquid in the body, but in the unusual sense of something “burnt”
on the ground of its etymological derivation from φλέγω, “to burn.”114 Cf. De
nat. fac. 2.130.5 ff. Kühn: Πρόδικος δ’ ἐν τῷ περὶ φύσεως ἀνθρώπου γράμματι τὸ
συγκεκαυμένον καὶ οἷον ὑπερωπτημένον ἐν τοῖς χυμοῖς ὀνομάζων φλέγμα παρὰ τὸ
πεφλέχθαι (…). ἀλλὰ τοῦτό γε τὸ πρὸς ἁπάντων ἀνθρώπων ὀνομαζόμενον φλέγμα
τὸ λευκὸν τὴν χρόαν, ὃ βλένναν ὀνομάζει Πρόδικος, ὁ ψυχρὸς καὶ ὑγρὸς χυμός
ἐστιν κτλ. The unusual periphrastic expression “as it is called by all men” instead
of “common name,” according to a whole corpus TLG search, does not occur else-
where, except in another passage of Galen (De loc. aff. 8.74 Kühn), but it strikingly
resembles the distinction between the ‘peculiar’ expressions of Orpheus and the
‘spoken names,’ “which have been called by all men” (PDerv., col. XVIII.8–9: ἐξ
ὧν ἅπαντες ἄνθρωποι | ὠνόμασαν).

112 LSJ s.v. παραγραμμίζω interpret παραγραμμίζουσι ὀνόματα θεῶν in Philodemus as “makes

the gods nugatory” and thus mark its use as metaphorical. In our view the verb παραγραμμίζω
(variant παραγραμματίζω) has the literal meaning “to change or to distort letters”: it is the result
of such change that makes the gods nugatory and reduces them to trivial, non-sacred things like
food and drink, elements, etc.
113 Another similar phrase in Cratylus is παράγειν γράμμα: cf. 400c9 and 407c1–2.
114 Prodic. test. 63–65 Mayhew.
530   Andrei Lebedev

(T15) Plato [II]

Another common feature of Prodicus and the Derveni author is the attention to
synonyms and similar phraseology in semantic analysis. It might seem prima facie
that they follow different or even contrasting procedures: Prodicus was renowned
for his subtle distinctions of words (ἀκριβολογία) with similar meanings, the
Derveni author, in contrast, emphasizes “the same meaning” (ταὐτὸ δύναται, cf.
cols. X.3, 8; XI.5). But there can be little doubt that Prodicus mastered his teacher
Protagoras’ art of arguing both ways: (...) Πρόδικος διῃρεῖτο τὰς ἡδονὰς εἰς χαρὰν
καὶ τέρψιν καὶ εὐφροσύνην· ταῦτα γὰρ πάντα τοῦ αὐτοῦ, τῆς ἡδονῆς, ὀνόματά
ἐστιν. (...), “(...) Prodicus divided pleasures into joy, merriment and delight, for all
these names denote the same, namely of pleasure.”115 Compare this triad of names
with the triad γινώσκειν/μανθάνειν/πιστεύειν in PDerv., col. V.9–12 and λέγειν/
φωνεῖν/διδάσκειν in col. X.1–3. Although the author asserts ad hoc the semantic
identity of the three words (ταὐτὸ δύναται), this passage betrays a professional
knowledge of synonyms. The two different procedures are best explained by his
two different goals: in his teaching of general rhetoric, Prodicus aimed to teach
students orthoepeia, the correct use of names based on subtle semantic distinc-
tions between synonyms. In his allegorical interpretation of divine names, his
aim was exactly the reverse: naturalistic monism (“everything is air”) imposed an
emphasis on “the same meaning.” Prodicus’ terminology of the semantical analy-
sis (διαίρεσις) imitated in Pl. Prt. 340a8 ff. (= Prod. test. 50 Mayhew) is very similar
to the terminology we find in PDerv.: (...), ᾗ τό τε βούλεσθαι καὶ ἐπιθυμεῖν διαιρεῖς
ὡς οὐ ταὐτὸν ὄν, (...) ταὐτόν σοι δοκεῖ εἶναι τὸ γενέσθαι καὶ τὸ εἶναι, ἢ ἄλλο; κτλ.

(T16) Plato [III]

῾Υπερβατόν occurs in PDerv twice: in col. IV.10 in the authorial comments on Her-
aclitus’ quotation, and in col. VIII.6 applied to the verses of Orpheus (τ]αῦτα τὰ
ἔπη ὑπερβατὰ ἐό[ν]τα λανθάν[ει). In both cases, it is a rhetorical and grammatical
term for irregular word order: see § (IV) below for details. In both cases, it is used
to reveal the cause of the ambiguity of the text and the reason behind its mis-
readings. A third mention of hyperbaton is probably found in col. VII.3–4: [κ]αὶ
εἰπεῖν οὐχ οἷόν τ[ε τὴν τῶν ὀ]νομάτων | [θέ]σιν, “and it is impossible to determine
the position of names.”116 “Position” here means the syntactical position, i.e. πῶς

115 Arist. Top. 2.6.112b22 ff. (= Prod. test. 47 Mayhew).

116 θέ]σιν Janko, Bernabé : λύ]σιν KPT. Paсe KPT, λύσιν cannot mean here “solution” in the
sense of interpretation. As a grammatical term, λύσις can only mean “looseness,” i.e. asyndeton,
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   531

κεῖται τὸ ὄνομα, i.e. whether it should be taken with what precedes or with what
follows, as in the case of the word αἰδοῖον. Hyperbaton is an exegetical tool which
Protagoras, the teacher and friend of Prodicus, used in his interpretation of poetic
texts (Pl. Prt. 343e3: ὑπερβατὸν δεῖ θεῖναι ἐν τῷ ᾄσματι τὸ ἀλαθέως). This word is a
hapax in Plato, and since Plato puts it into the mouth of Protagoras, it may well be
an authentic term of Sophistic hermeneutics. Plato probably regarded this tech-
nique with suspicion since it could easily be used for ‘sophistry’: the substitution
of a “penis” for a “venerable god” in PDerv., col. VIII.6 by admitting a hyperbaton
is a case in point.

(T17)

In the Ionian dialect of Ceos (group of the Central Ionian) Atticisms are attested
in the last quarter of the 5th cent. BC.117 This perfectly agrees with the dialect of
PDerv. which Tsantsanoglou describes as “an Ionic text liberally sprinkled with
Attic features,” and Willi characterizes as “a curious mixture of Attic and Ionic.”118

(T18)

We do not rule out that one of the sources of the physical allegoresis of Orphic
theogony in [Clem. Rom.] Recogn. 6 may be PDerv., especially in regard to the
reduction of Olympian gods to different forms of air in 6.8–9: Zeus is θερμότατος
and καθαρώτατος αἰθήρ; Hera is the sublunar ἀήρ which is not so clean, and
her ability to beget refers to the εὐκρασία ἀέρων; Athena is very hot air (ἄκρως
θερμόν), which is unable to generate anything, hence the myth that she is a
virgin; and Artemis is the lowest part of the air that is extremely cold, hence the
similar myth of virginity. The name of Dionysos refers to the exhalations upwards
and downwards (a ‘Heraclitizing’ tenet!). In 6.9.5 can be read: Αφροδίτην εἰς μῖξιν
καὶ γένεσιν. Orpheus is one of τῶν πάλαι ἀνδρῶν σοφώτατοι who concealed true
knowledge of the divine from the unworthy in the form of myth: Kronos never cas-
trated Ouranos, and Zeus never seized royal power from Kronos, never swallowed

LSJ II, 4 (f). But this does not fit the context because asyndeton is always obvious. Demetrius
(Eloc. 191), following Aristotle, explained the obscurity of Heraclitus by lysis.
117 See the burial law ap. SGDI III.2, 5398.27 (ταύταις)
118 KPT, 11–14; similarly West (1983) 77 and n. 11; Willi (2010) 114. On the dialect see also Brem-
mer (2014) 64. On the alleged Doric νιν see § (VII) below (on Diagoras).
532   Andrei Lebedev

Metis, and never gave birth to Athena from his head and Dionysos from his thigh
(6.2). All mythology is a result of a misreading of Orpheus’ text.

(T19)

= App. (3).

4 (IV) The text and interpretation of PDerv., col. IV 

119
In establishing the text of col. IV and in their commentary, KPT (148 ff.) move
in the right direction when they supply τά[ξιν in l. 4 and understand διὰ τό]νδε as
διὰ τὸν νοῦν. The cosmic order results from the action of the cosmic mind (= Zeus).
But almost all other supplements in col. IV call for serious doubts since they are
based on the false assumption that the words κοινά αnd ἴδια echo epistemological
terms of Heraclitus as well as, based on the outdated physicalist interpretation,
of his so-called “cosmic measures.” Kouremenos (KPT, 155) explains: “If τὰ κοινά
and τὰ ἴδια in the Derveni text echo Heraclitus’ use of ξυνόν and ἴδιον, it can be
plausibly assumed that τὰ κοινά are the truths revealed by Heraclitus’ everlast-
ingly true account (…), whereas τὰ ἴδια are the false beliefs held by uncompre-
hending people.” The following objections can be raised against this assumption
and interpretation. 1) The opposition of ‘private’ and ‘common’ and the collo-
cation of words κοινός/ἴδιος in extant Greek literature of all possible genres are
very common, as are other common and non-specific oppositions like ‘good’ and
‘bad,’ ‘big’ and ‘small,’ etc. To postulate ‘echoes’ of one text in another on the
ground of ‘coincidence’ of such common and non-specific words is methodolog-
ically questionable. A TLG proximity search for κοιν(ός) and ἴδι(ος) within five
lines for the period from the beginning to the end of 2nd cent. AD (pre-Patristic
and pre-Neoplatonic literature) yields 1077 occurences. Only one of these is found
in a doxographicum related to Heraclitus (Sext. Emp. Math. 9.133): in the over-
whelming majority of cases, the reference is to the ‘common’ vs. ‘private,’ or ‘one’s
own’ vs. ‘common’ with no relation whatsoever to metaphysics or epistemology.
In other words, the probability that the occurence of the opposition κοινός/ἴδιος
in any text ‘echoes’ Heraclitus’ usage is less than one in a thousand. 2) Heraclitus
never uses the plur. neut. forms τὰ κοινά and τὰ ἴδια. Such neuter substantives

119 This section supersedes the text and interpretation in Lebedev (1989b), although the basic
approach to koina/idia and to the general meaning of Heraclitus’ fragment remains the same.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   533

with an article are not typical for Heraclitus’ archaic and poetic prose. Even on
formal linguistic grounds, such language is unlikely in Heraclitus: he uses an
article only in rare cases, and he regularly omits it when he speaks about phe-
nomenal opposites.120 3) Such terminology in Heraclitus is unlikely not only on
linguistic, but also on philosophical grounds: plur. τὰ κοινά in an epistemologi-
cal or ontological sense is ruled out in Heraclitus’ work since τὸ ξυνόν (22 B 114
DK = fr. 133 Lebedev) means ‘one’ by definition and is opposed to ‘many.’ Ξυνὸς
λόγος is the only one true logos and is opposed to many false logoi of poets and
other philosophers. Sound mind (τὸ φρονεῖν) is also one and the same for all: it
is “common to all” (ξυνὸν πᾶσι) and opposed to the plurality of imaginary worlds
of dreamers and poets. Heraclitus’ authentic word for “false beliefs” or subjective
opinions is δοκέοντα (22 B 28 DK = fr. 138 Lebedev), without an article, not τὰ ἴδια.
Following this false assumption, KPT try to supplement verbs that would reflect
Heraclitus’ rejection of ‘private’ (IV.3: σίνεται; IV.6: κατ[αστρέ]φει τὰ ἴδ[ι]α) and
approval of ‘common’ (IV.5: μα[ρτυρόμενος] τὰ κοινά), but this attempt results in
strange and artificial Greek. The verb καταστρέφει to my ears sounds like modern
Greek. In modern Greek, this (very popular) verb can be used in a wide variety of
contexts not confined to physical destruction (e.g. καταστρέφει τὴν ὁμορφιά, τὸ
νόημα, etc.), but in classical Greek it is used predominantly in military contexts
and literally means “ruining,” or “destroying,” or “setting upside down” (a city).
We could not find in lexica or TLG a single instance of this verb in a grammatical
or rhetorical context: it simply does not convey the notion of “rejection,” “avoid-
ing,” etc. The same a fortiori can be said about the verb σίνεται, which is used
exclusively for physical violence, looting, plundering, damaging property, etc.
Such verbs could not be used by a literary critic in a stylistic analysis and could
not be used by a commentator as descriptions of what Heraclitus was doing either
in his life or in his philosophy. For example, σίνεται could be appropriately used
when Herostratus set the Artemision on fire. The only possibility of making sense
of this opposition in col. IV is to admit that τὰ κοινά and τὰ ἴδια, “common and
peculiar names,” are rhetorical terms of the Derveni commentator himself with
ὀνόματα or ῥήματα implied: the “common names” are plain words of ordinary
language which are in common usage and have a transparent meaning intelli-
gible to everybody; they are the same as the “names used by all men” in col.
XVIII.8–9 and the “spoken and (commonly) recognized words” in col. XXIII.8.
The “peculiar” names are poetic metaphors and divine names whose meaning
escapes the understanding of hoi polloi and requires the Sophistic art of inter-
pretation. Common words existed in the beginning before the “peculiar” ones;

120 Lebedev (2014) 53.

534   Andrei Lebedev

peculiar words seem to be a later invention of poets like Orpheus. This can be
inferred from col. XVIII, according to which Orpheus metaphorically applied an
already existing common name, μοῖρα (“part”), both to the wind (of cosmogonical
vortex, l. 2) and to the intelligence (φρόνησις) of the god (ll. 7–9). The opposition of
κοινά/ἴδια ὀνόματα in col. IV corresponds to the opposition ἄνθρωποι ὠνόμασαν/
Ὀρφεὺς ὠνόμασεν in col. XVIII. Furthermore, the distinction between earlier
“common names” and later “peculiar names” recalls the distinction between
“first” and “second” names in Plato’s Cratylus (see § [II] above). Plato may have
borrowed this distinction from Prodicus. The time when only “common” names
were in use probably corresponds to the original phase of civilization discussed
in Protagoras’ Περὶ τῆς ἐν ἀρχῇ καταστάσεως. The worship of anthropomorphic
gods of official Greek religion at that time could not exist since the names of the
gods had not yet been invented by poets. Humans living at that time either were
natural atheists or worshipped natural phenomena, “things that really exist” (τὰ
ἐόντα, τὰ πράγματα), like the stars and the elements, and, first of all, things that
were useful for human life (τὰ ὠφελοῦντα τοὺς ἀνθρώπους), like the sun and
the moon. The false mythological religion of poets was the result of the subse-
quent ‘disease of language,’ of the misreading and misunderstanding of Orpheus’
poetic cosmogony by the ignorant polloi.
Both Orpheus and Heraclitus, according to the Derveni author, use idiomatic
cryptic language to convey to “those who understand correctly” similar philo-
sophical ideas (in this case on the cosmic mind producing cosmic order) and at
the same time to conceal these ideas from “the many.” It becomes clear that in
this case the subject of μεταθέμενος is also Heraclitus (and not Zeus or the cosmic
mind) and that the object of this verb is again ὀνόματα.
The term μεταφορά for what we call a metaphor is not attested in poetics
and rhetoric before Isocrates, Anaximenes of Lampsacus, and Aristotle in the 4th
cent. BC. But words and concepts are not the same thing, so it does not follow that
5th-cent. BC Sophists had no concept of metaphorical language. We have good
reason to suppose that ἴδιον ὄνομα or τὰ ἰδιάζοντα was one of the early (5th-cent.
BC) terms for the metaphor.121 The 5th-cent. BC usage was still followed by

121 This usage is semantically related to the grammatical term ἰδίωμα (peculiarities of style,
idiomatic expressions, LSJ s.v. II) and the common grammatical phrases ἰδίως λέγεσθαι, ἰδίως
λεγόμενα (or κοινῶς λέγεσθαι), but should be distinguished from ἴδια ὀνόματα “specific, i.e. ap-
propriate” words in Plato (Resp. 9.580e) and Aristotle (Rhet. 3.5.1407a31), as well as from the
logical term τὸ ἴδιον to mean “specific or essential feature” in Aristotle and the Stoics, on which
see Reesor (1983). An exact parallel to the usage in PDerv. is found in Antiphan. Com. fr. 207.1–3
PCG: πολύ γ᾽ ἐστὶ πάντων τῶν ποιητῶν διάφορος / ὁ Φιλόξενος. πρώτιστα μὲν γὰρ ὀνόμασιν /
ἰδίοισι καὶ καινοῖσι χρῆται πανταχοῦ.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   535

Epigenes (ap. Clem. Al. Strom. 5.49) in his allegorical interpretations of Orpheus’
poetry: οὐχὶ καὶ Ἐπιγένης ἐν τῷ Περὶ τῆς Ὀρφέως ποιήσεως τὰ ἰδιάζοντα παρ᾽
Ὀρφεῖ ἐκτιθέμενός φησι (...)· “μῖτον” δὲ τὸ σπέρμα ἀλληγορεῖσθαι, και “δάκρυα
Διὸς” τὸν ὄμβρον δηλοῦν, “Μοῖρας” τε αὖ τὰ μέρη τῆς σελήνης, τριακάδα καὶ
πεντεκαιδεκάτην καὶ νουμηνίαν· διὸ καὶ “λευκοστόλους” αὐτὰς καλεῖν τὸν Ορφέα
φωτὸς οὔσας μέρη. κτλ. The term τὰ ἰδιάζοντα, “peculiar expressions,” for poetic
metaphors is not a part of Clement’s own lexicon. It occurs only once in a quota-
tion from Epigenes and therefore most probably belongs to Epigenes. The Derveni
author also conveys the concept of metaphorical language by the participles of
the verb εἰκάζω: Orpheus compared time to snow (XII.11), the sun to the phallus
(XIII.9), and Zeus to a king (XIX.8). A common name becomes metaphorical
(“peculiar”) by re-attaching it (προσφέρειν) to a different object. The term προσ-
φέρειν will be changed in the 4th cent. BC to μετα-φέρειν.
Scholars who attempted to restore the text of the Heraclitus quotation have
often been misguided by the long ago antiquated physicalist approach to Hera-
clitus’ philosophy in the tradition of Kirk and Marcovich that derives from Burnet
and Reinhardt. Scholars of this trend dogmatically denied the authenticity of the
world-conflagration (ekpyrosis) in Heraclitus, regarding it as a Stoic distortion
of the alleged theory of “cosmic measures” which, as we said, emphasized sta-
bility rather than change: Heraclitus’ dynamic cosmic cycle, unanimously rec-
ognized by all ancient readers of his book, has been replaced by trivial ‘mete-
orological’ changes on a regular basis (like day and night) in a stable, eternal
cosmos. Since the cyclical cosmogony is firmly linked with the notions of Time
and Fate, they rejected the ‘universal flux’ as Plato’s invention (another imag-
inary ‘projection’) and interpreted the image of the cosmogonical god of Time
(Aion) as a trivial saying about human fortune. Diels had already wrongly rele-
gated authentic verbatim fragment of Heraclitus on Fate to Spuria.122 The days
when such an approach to Heraclitus was dominant have passed. Charles Kahn
was right when he remarked that “the Stoics were the Heracliteans of the ancient
world” and when he emphasized in his criticism of Burnet, that if there was any
theory of cosmic ‘measures’ in Heraclitus, it was a theory of “measure or equality

122 22 B 137 DK (= fr. 53 Lebedev). We defend its authenticity in the commentary to our edition
(Lebedev [2014] 362–364) and restore the text as follows: ἔστι γὰρ εἱμαρμένα <πάντα> πάντως,
“all things (or events) are in all ways determined by fate.” Stobaeus is an excellent and trustwor-
thy source; γράφει indicates a verbatim quotation. Diels dismissed it with a surprising dogmatic
verdict: “Zitate Heraklits gibt es in Placita nicht.” The Derveni Papyrus demonstrates how wrong
Diels was: the doxa on the size of the sun is a verbatim quotation with a transposition of only
one word (εἱμαρμένα is found already in Thgn. 1.1033 and need not be a ‘projection’ of Stoic
εἱμαρμένη).
536   Andrei Lebedev

preserved over time” in a diachronically structured pattern.123 We have on many

occasions criticized and refuted physicalist interpretations of Heraclitus. Both
the theory of universal change and of periodic ekpyrosis, as well as the idea of
Fate and dynamic cosmogony rather than static cosmology, are genuine doctrines
of Heraclitus attested both by his ipsissima verba and by an impressive consen­
sus of independent ancient readers (first of all by Aristotle and the Stoics).124
Precise analysis of Heraclitus’ metaphorical language leaves no doubt that in 22
B 90 DK he speaks of the dynamic process of the alternation and interchange
(ἀνταμείβεται, and not a static ἀνταμοιβή, is the reading of all MSS of Plutarch)
of “all things” and “fire.” Burnet’s interpretation of the “cosmic measures” in
Heraclitus as a kind of quanta of matter or stable “aggregate bulk of every form of
matter” was based on a shaky foundation from the start.
Formal papyrological considerations and restrictions imposed by them are
no doubt very important in our case as in any other restoration of a papyrus text.
However, although necessary, they are not sufficient. Any attempt to restore the
original text of Heraclitus’ quotation in col. IV that ignores the general purpose of
Heraclitus’ book and pays no attention to the original context of the sun fragment
is doomed to failure. All supplements and interpretations proposed hitherto that
focus on the size of the sun and understand the “limits” with reference to the
size of the solar disk are misguided by Burnet’s, Kirk’s, and Marcovich’s physi-
calist approach to Heraclitus. Heraclitus was not a scientist; nay he attacked the
Milesian mechanistic vortex cosmogony as an absurdity refuted by the beautiful
harmony of the cosmos (22 B 124 DK = fr. 38 Lebedev). Cosmic order and harmony
point to the existence of a providential cosmic Mind (Gnome) that “steers” the
whole universe (22 B 41 DK = fr. 140 Lebedev). Of the three logoi (chapters) of his
book (Περὶ τοῦ παντὸς, Λόγος πολιτικός, and Λόγος περὶ θεῶν), only in the second
half of the First logos were cosmos and natural phenomena discussed: this dis-
cussion amounts to about 1/6 or so of the total text. But even this ‘cosmological’
section had little in common with the contents of a standard Ionian Peri physeos.
There is not a single authentic (quoted verbatim in the Ionian dialect) fragment
of Heraclitus that contains an aetiological explanation of natural phenomena
typical for Ionian physikoi. Theophrastus could not find in Heraclitus’ work a
consistent physical theory and attributed the contradictions to his melancholia.
Instead of a unified scientific physical theory (like that of Anaximenes or Anaxago-
ras), we find in the extant fragments a plurality of poetico-metaphorical models
of the cosmos:125 cosmos as liber naturae (λόγος ὅδε), cosmos as templum naturae

123 See Kahn (1981) 147–153 (Excursus I: On the traditional interpretations of the cosmic cycle).
124 See Lebedev (1985b), (2014), and (2017a).
125 We argue for this in extenso in Lebedev (2014) 59–90.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   537

(from which the sacral metaphor of πῦρ ἀείζωον derives), cosmos as a stadion
with a cosmic race (ἐναντιοδρομία) of opposite forces, cosmos as a battlefield in
which the four world masses (Pyr, Prester = Wind/Air, Sea, and Earth) are engaged
(22 B 31 DK = frs. 44–45 Lebedev), winning and losing in turn at predestinated
periods of time ‘measured’ by fate, cosmic cycle as a pesseia game conducted by
the divine child Aion (22 B 52 DK = fr. 33 Lebedev), etc. Most of these metaphorical
models present a diachronically, and not spatially (i.e. geometrically) structured
pattern of the “road up and down” (ὁδὸς ἄνω κάτω) by which all things travel.
All cosmic phenomena, including the elements and stars, incessantly move from
a minimum to a maximum (“way up”) and backwards (“way down”), in a kind of
swaying motion, like a pendulum. It is from this section of Heraclitus’ book, from
a series of empirical “proofs” (tekmeria) of the universal “divine law” of regular
“reversals” (tropai, amoibai) of opposite forces that the Derveni fragment of Hera-
clitus about the sun derives. 22 B 120 DK (= fr. 55 Lebedev), which in our edition
immediately precedes the Derveni quotation from Heraclitus (fr. 56 Lebedev),
speaks about the “turning posts” (τέρματα) of the Morning and Evening and
identifies one of these points with οὖρος αἰθρίου Διός, “the limit of (the period)
of clear Zeus = Sky,” i.e. “with the autumnal equinox.”126 And the Oxyrhynchus
fragment on the moon (fr. 60 Lebedev) that follows soon after the Derveni frag-
ment speaks about the number of days (fourteen), i.e. again about the time, not
about size. The Hippocratic author of De diaeta 1 summarizes Heraclitus’ theory
of cosmic change with more precision and accuracy than Plato in his passages
on the ‘universal flux’ in Theaetetus and Cratylus.127 It is to these temporal limits
and “turning points” of the “way up and down” (increase and diminution), and
not to the size of the stars and material masses that Heraclitus applies the term
ὅροι (synonymous with τέρματα “turning posts”), τροπαί (“turns” like those of a
wheel), ἀμοιβαὶ ἀναγκαῖαι (“fated changes”), and παλίντροπος (“turning back”)
in the extant authentic fragments. Therefore, in the quotation in PDerv., col. IV,
ὅρους refers to the “fixed terms” of the year-cycle, i.e. to the summer and winter
solstices (τροπαὶ ἡλίου) which the sun will “never exceed.” The mention of the
“fixed month” (μηνὶ τακ[τῶι) in col. IV.13 makes this interpretation certain (see our
commentary on this line below). The regular change (increase and diminution) of

126 Lebedev (1985b) and (2014) 368–373.

127 However, contra Reinhardt, Kirk, Marcovich and their modern followers, the theory of
universal change was a genuine doctrine of Heraclitus. It was not invented by Plato since it is
attested in earlier independent sources, such as Hippoc. De diaet. 1, and in ancient Sophists.
Why would Plato ascribe to Heraclitus, Protagoras, and poets a theory that he invented himself?
PDerv. has proved that ancient Sophists indeed studied and quoted Heraclitus. There can be no
doubt that Protagoras did so before his disciple Prodicus.
538   Andrei Lebedev

all cosmic phenomena is not due to chance: the temporal “limits” are set by a
divine Supervisοr and Umpire (ἐπιστάτης καὶ βραβεύς), the supreme ruler of the
universe represented in the current cosmological phase by the sun, the remnant
of the original pyr aeizoon. In Heraclitus’ mythopoetical universe, the sun is not
a celestial body like the “ignited lump” of iron in Anaxagoras: it is a living god
imbued with a mind and probably identified with Apollo.128 “Being the size of
a human foot” is a rhetorical phrase that emphasizes the modesty of the ideal
monarch: the sun is ‘tiny’ in size when compared with the huge masses of the Air
(Prester), the Sea, and the Earth, and yet he rules over all of them because he is
the mind of the universe. The supreme cosmic god is the size of man’s foot: this
is political and theological rhetoric, and not physical science.129 The rule of “one
the best” (εἷς ἄριστος) over many kakoi is “according to nature” (κατὰ φύσιν). He
is the παράδειγμα of the best ruler, because he strictly obeys the θεῖος νόμος of 22
B 114 DK (= fr. 131 Lebedev). According to Diodotus, Heraclitus’ book was not περὶ
φύσεως, but περὶ πολιτείας, τὰ δὲ περὶ φύσεως ἐν παραδείγματος εἴδει κεῖσθαι
(Diog. Laërt. 9.15). Heraclitus points to the ‘paradigmatic’ form of government in
the polis of Zeus (monarchy of the sun) in order to demonstrate that popular rule
(the rule of ‘many’) is unnatural. And the law-abiding monarch is, at the same
time, juxtaposed with the tyrant.130 The clause on Erinyes in Heraclitus’ fragment
is a rhetorical circumlocution (imitating the style of Loxias’ oracles) “because the
sun is bound by the unbreakable horkos,” where horkos is an archaic metaphor
for the law of the cosmos, viz. the ‘divine law’ of the universe in B 114. The pecu-
liar function of the Erinyes was to punish those who commit perjury (ἐπιόρκους).
Therefore oaths may have been ‘sealed’ by a potential curse: “if I break the oath,
let the Erinyes, ministers of Justice, find me out and seize me!” See, on this regard,
the “decree of Ananke sealed by wide oaths (ὅρκοις),” i.e. the divine law of trans-
migration in Empedocles’ 31 B 115 DK. As in Heraclitus, cosmic ‘oaths’ determine
fixed periods of time. Additional confirmation seems to be provided by §9 of
Janko’s text of PDerv., where ὅρκοι μεγάλοι are associated with δίκης ὑπερήται (=
Δίκης ἐπίκουροι).
Having these considerations in mind, we propose the following reconstruc-
tion of the text of col. IV:

128 Probabilia, frs. 12–13 Lebedev.

129 The doxographers, hunting for rare doxai, wishfully tore out the phrase about the sun from
its theologico-political context and placed it in the chapter Περὶ μεγέθους ἡλίου (Plac. 2.21.4). See
our commentary on l. 8 below.
130 Heraclitus attacks popular rule in 22 B 104 DK (= fr. 130 Lebedev) and the hybris of tyranny
in B 43 (= fr. 135 Lebedev). Praise for monarchy and the rule of one: B 33 (= fr. 132 Lebedev) and B
49 (= fr. 128 Lebedev) et passim.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   539

PDerv., col. IV

]ου ε.[ θ]εῶν[

ὁ κείμ[ενα] μεταθ[έμενος  ]ουναι
μᾶλλ[ον τ]είνεται [πρὸς τὸν νοῦν ]· τὰ τῆς τύχης γὰ[ρ
οὐκ εἴ[η λα]μβάνειν. ἆρ᾽ οὐ τέ[τακται διὰ τό]νδε κόσμος;
5 κατὰ [Ὁρφέ]α Ἡράκλειτος με[ταθέμενος] τὰ κοινὰ
̲ ̲κατ[αγρά]φει τὰ ἴδ[ι]α· ὅσπερ ἴκελα [ἱερο]λόγωι λέγων· [νόος
ἥλιος [κόσ]μου κατὰ φύσιν, ἀνθρωπ[ηΐου] εὖρος ποδὸς [ἐὼν,
τὸ μ[έτριο]ν οὐχ ὑπερβάλλων· εἰ γά[ρ τι οὔ]ρους ἐ[οικότας
ὑπερβαλε]ῖ, Ἐρινύε[ς] νιν ἐξευρήσου[σι, Δίκης ἐπίκουροι.
10  οὕτω δὲ ἔφη ἵνα ὑπερ]βατὸμ ποῆι κ[αὶ ἀσαφῆ τὸν λόγον.
]θυ[
]α δίκης [
] μηνὶ τακ[τῶι τροπὰς ποιεῖ ὁ ἥλιος
14 ]ισ [

3 τ]είνεται [πρὸς τὸν νοῦν supplevi || 5 [Ὁρφέ]α et με[ταθέμενος] supplevi || 6 κατ[αγρά]φει

Jourdan : [ἱερο]λόγωι Sider || [νόος supplevi || 7 [κόσ]μου et [ἐὼν Lebedev (1989b) 39 || 8 οὔ]ρους
ἐ[οικότα]ς Tsantsanoglou || 9 ὑπερβαλε]ῖ  Tsantsanoglou || 10 supplevi || 13 fin. [τροπὰς ποιεῖ ὁ
ἥλιος temptavi e.g.

[names?] of gods (...) “(...) he (sc. Orpheus) changes the established names (...) [the
name of Zeus] rather alludes to the mind since it would be impossible to under-
stand [the origin of the cosmos] as something due to chance. Isn’t the cosmos set in
order by the mind? In accord with Orpheus, Heraclitus [also] changes the common
names and uses in his writings peculiar expressions. Speaking similarly to the
author of Hieros logos, he says: ‘the sun is the mind of the cosmos by nature, being
one man’s foot in width and not exceeding the set limits. For if he does exceed the
appropriate limits, Erinyes, the ministers of Justice will find him out.’ He said so in
order to make his speech obscure and based on inverse word order (hyperbaton)
(…) justice (…) the sun makes reversals (i.e. solstices) in a fixed month.”

Commentary

Col. IV.2: The subject of μεταθ [ έμενος (or any other verb with similar semantics)
is Heraclitus, not a mysterious “one of the gods” (pace KPT, 129) or Nous (in the
commentary). The participle κείμ[ενα] (something already “set” and “established”)
cannot refer to the primordial mixture of chaotic matter, and μεταθ [ έμενος vel sim.
540   Andrei Lebedev

would be unparalleled as a cosmogonical operation of god/mind. Both words are

grammatical terms: κείμ[ενα] refers to ὀνόματα, whether mentioned in the preced-
ing context or implied; μετατίθεσθαι ὄνομα is a well-attested phrase: τοὔνομα,
Arist. fr. 519 Rose; ὀνόματα, to change the use of words in Epicurus (cf. GE, 435);
ἐπωνυμίας, Hdt. 5.68; τῇ μισθαρνίᾳ ταῦτα μετατιθέμενος τὰ ὀνόματα (sc. φιλία
καὶ φιλοξενία), transferring the names “friendship and hospitality” to the wage-
earning, Dem. 18.284. In Demosthenes’ passage the phrase refers to the use of
words not in their proper, commonly accepted sense. Of special interest for us is the
use of μετατιθέναι ὄνομα in Plato’s Cratylus in close proximity to the reference to
Prodicus’ 50-drachmas lecture on the “correctness of names” (384b). In 384d Her-
mogenes, who argues for a conventional understanding of all names and denies
that there is “any other correctness” except “convention and agreement” (συνθήκη
καὶ ὁμολογία), contends that if someone establishes a name for a thing (ἂν τίς τῳ
θῆται ὄνομα), it will be correct, and if he re-establishes (μεταθῆται) another name, it
will be equally correct, as is the case when we rename (μετατιθέμεθα) our servants.

Col. IV.3: LSJ s.v. τείνω A, I, 4: “aim at, direct upon a point,” explained as a meta-
phor: originally, “to stretch, i.e. to point a bow at someone” (cf. Pl. Phd. 63a7–8:
εἰς σὲ τείνειν τὸν λόγον). It is also used in commentaries and scholia (not in LSJ):
Eust. In Il. 4.955.22 (τὸ δὲ “οὐδ’ αὐτὸν” ὡς πρὸς τὸν Ἕκτορα τείνεται); Ar. Plut. 379
(τὸ στόμ’ ἐπιβύσας κέρμασιν τῶν ῥητόρων).

Col. IV.4: We agree with KPT, 153 that εἴ[η is an impersonal optative potential
without ἄν as in col. XXV.8, but the verb has nothing to do with cosmogonical
processes. Like κείμ[ενα] μεταθ[έμενος in l. 2, τ]είνεται is a grammatical term,
which means “to take in a certain sense,” “to interpret” (LSJ s.v. λαμβάνω, I, 9,
b–c; cf. ἐκλαμβάνω, V). The perfect-tense verb τέτακται (with an allusion to cos-
mogony) goes better with διὰ τόνδε than the present tense τάξιν έχει. Cf. Dem.
4.36.1–2: ἅπαντα νόμῳ τέτακται. Α striking parallel from Aristotle’s Metaphysics
Λ, ch. 10 in a ‘Heraclitizing’ context: in the universe (ἡ τοῦ ὅλου φύσις) the good
(τὸ ἀγαθόν) exists both as something separate (like a general of the army) and as
something immanent (the order, τάξις in the army): πάντα δὲ συντέτακταί πως,
(...). πρὸς μὲν γὰρ ἓν ἅπαντα συντέτακται, ἀλλ᾽ ὥσπερ ἐν οἰκίᾳ τοῖς ἐλευθέροις
ἥκιστα ἔξεστιν ὅ τι ἔτυχε ποιεῖν, ἀλλὰ πάντα ἢ τὰ πλεῖστα τέτακται, κτλ. (1075a16
ff.). It is emphasized that order in the army exists because of the general, but
not vice versa: 1075a15, οὐ γὰρ οὗτος διὰ τὴν τάξιν ἀλλ᾽ ἐκείνη διὰ τοῦτον ἐστιν.
Τhis imposed order, as in col. IV under discussion, and does not leave things up
to chance (ἔτυχε). The analogy between strategos/army on the iconic level and
god/universe on the referential level looks Heraclitean: in Heraclitus, Polemos
(= Zeus) is the supreme commander in the cosmic war of elements, and god is
conceived as νοῦς (= γνώμη in the Ionian dialect of Heraclitus).
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   541

Col. IV.5–7: The reading [ἀστρο]λόγωι proposed in KPT is unlikely. In its early usage,
ἀστρολόγος could only mean “astronomer,” but astronomers do not speak about
Erinyes: mythical language is appropriate for a ἱερολόγος. According to the Derveni
author, Heraclitus, like Orpheus, uses mythical names to describe cosmic processes
and cosmic order, not in the sense intended by hoi polloi: in Heraclitus, Erinyes are
not terrible mythical creatures, but physical forces that sustain the cosmic order.
These are “peculiar names” (ἴδια ὀνόματα), the meaning of which is accessible only
to “those who understand correctly” (οἱ ὀρθῶς γινώσκοντες). What we expect at the
end of l. 6 is either a verb meaning “to rule,” “set in order,” on which the genitive
[κόσ]μου depends (e.g. ἄρχει κόσμου), or a noun meaning something like “mind”
(νόος or φρήν) or “ruler” (e.g. ἄναξ, if ἀρχός and βασιλεύς are too long). If these
supplements are too long, we should postulate a lacuna between ll. 6 and 7, since
ἥλιος cannot stand on its own without a verb or a nominal predicate. A nominal
clause [νόος] | ἥλιος [κόσ]μου with asyndeton and hyperbaton, instead of the ordi-
nary ἥλιός ἐστιν νόος τοῦ κόσμου, is both possible and quite likely in Heraclitus:
the omission of articles and nominal clauses with asyndeton is well attested in the
verbatim fragments of Heraclitus: ἄνθρωπος ἐν εὐφρόνῃ φάος (22 B 26 DK = fr. 75
Lebedev); ὁ θεὸς ἡμέρη εὐφρόνη (22 B 67 DK = fr. 43 Lebedev); νέκυες γὰρ κοπρίων
ἐλβλητότεροι (22 B 96 DK = fr. 143 Lebedev); αὔη ψυχὴ σοφωτάτη (22 B 118 DK =
fr. 73 Lebedev); ἠοῦς καὶ ἑσπέρας τέρματα ἡ Ἄρκτος (22 B 120 DK = fr. 55 Lebedev);
etc. Cleanthes’ identification of the sun with the “heart of the cosmos,” the seat of
the cosmic mind, and the “ruling principle” (τὸ ἡγεμονικόν) of the cosmos131 has
ancient roots and can be traced back to Heraclitus. It is attested both in a verbatim
quotation from Heraclitus and by a remarkable convergence of several independent
testimonia in the Heraclitean tradition. In Heraclitus’ 22 B 100 DK (= fr. 57 Lebedev),
the sun is ἐπιστάτης καὶ σκοπός who supervises the cosmic agon of the seasons
(Homeric σκοπός is Heraclitus’ authentic word, ἐπιστάτης seems to be Plutarch’s
gloss of it). Cf. Hippoc. De diaet. 1.10.17: ἐν τούτωι (= ἡλίωι) ψυχή, νόος, φρόνησις,
κτλ.; ps.-Heraclit. Ep. 5.1.8–11 Tarán: ἐγὼ εἰ οἶδα κόσμου φύσιν, (...), μιμήσομαι θεόν,
ὃς κόσμου ἀμετρίας ἐπανισοῖ ἡλίῳ ἐπιτάττων; Macrob. In Somn. Scip. 1.20.3 (sol
dux, princeps et moderator reliquorum) hunc ducem et principem quem Heraclitus
fontem caelestis lucis apellat; Pl. Cra. 413b4–5 (= Heraclit. fr. 81 [b] Marcovich): (ety-
mology of δίκαιον) τὸν ἥλιον· (...) ἐπιτροπεύειν τὰ ὄντα; Scythinus of Teos, fr. 1
West ap. Plut. De Pyth. or. 402a (= Heraclit. fr. probab. 13 Lebedev).

Col. IV.8–9: cf. οὐχ ὑπερβήσεται μέτρα in Plutarch’s quotation De exil. 604a; for the
phrase τὸ μ[έτριο]ν οὐχ ὑπερβάλλων, cf. Democrit. 68 B 233 DK: εἴ τις ὑπερβάλλοι

131 See the list of occurrences in SVF IV 67, s.v. Ἥλιος = ἡγεμονικόν.

542   Andrei Lebedev

τὸ μέτριον; [Pl.] Def. 415e9–10: ἕξις (...) ὑπερβάλλουσα τὸ μέτριον; Dion. Hal.
Ant. Rom. 5.74.3.8–9: κἀν ταῖς ὑπερβαλλούσαις τὸ μέτριον εὐτυχίαις. The reading
μ[έγεθο]ς (KPT) should be ruled out for several reasons: a) it is an Attic and koine
form: Herodotus has only μέγαθος; b) it is pleonastic and duplicates εὖρος; c) it is
imposed by the mistaken ‘quantitative’ interpretation of cosmic ‘measures’ in Hera-
clitus; d) in restoring the original text of Heraclitus’ fragments, we adhere to the
general rule that a verbatim quotation in Ionian dialect should not be ‘emended’
on the basis of a doxographical paraphrase. But τὸ μέγεθος is not even a part of
paraphrase. Περὶ μεγέθους ἡλίου in ps.-Plutarch’s Placita is a heading of a chapter
in a handbook of physics of imperial times.132 Heraclitus was an ethico-religious
and political thinker, not a physical scientist like Anaxagoras or Democritus. The
‘size’ of the heavenly bodies was the last thing in which he was interested; for him,
as later for Socrates, πολυμάθεια was worthless. In his politico-theological ‘cos-
mology,’ he was primarily interested in the regularity of the cosmic cycles of alter-
nating opposites (day/night, summer/winter, koros and chresmosyne of the Megas
eniautos), which is directly linked with his theory of the natural law (‘cosmic
justice’). In his ethico-political discourse, τὸ μέτριον is often associated with τὸ
μέσον and τὸ δίκαιον, similarly to Plato in the Politicus and the Laws and Aristotle
in the Nichomachean Ethics. Already Democritus anticipates Aristotle by equating
the best disposition of the soul (εὐθυμίη) with a μέσον between ὑπερβολή and
ἔλλειψις. The sun god in the polis of Zeus sustains the perfect balance of opposite
forces in the cosmos by alternating periods of heat (summer) and cold (winter).133
The verbs ὑπερβάλλω (in the papyrus) and ὑπερβαίνω (in two Plutarch’s quota-
tions) are roughly synonymous, but the former is more often used in the sense of
“exceeding” a term (like the dates of τροπαί) or a period of time (cf. LSJ A II, 2), a
context very similar to Heraclitus’ Oxyrhynchus fragment about the phases of the
moon (ἐν ἡμέραις τεσσαρακαίδεκα).134 The reading οὔ]ρους ἐ[οικότας is strongly
supported by προσήκοντας ὅρους in Plut. De Is. et Os. 370d6–7, since the two words
are synonymous. Cf. also Gorg. 82 B 11a.28 DK: εἰκότα, (...) προσήκοντα; Pl. Resp.
2.362c5: προσήκειν ἐκ τῶν εἰκότων; Dem. 18.69.4: εἰκότως καὶ προσηκόντως.

Col. IV.10: When reconstructing and interpreting a defective text, one should care-
fully study the usage of the given author and take it into account, as well as always
respect Greek grammar and morphology. Those who mistranslate ὑπερβ]ατόν

132 On the origin of the doxographical tradition of Placita philosophorum see Lebedev (2016).
133 Cf. Alcmaeon’s concept of isonomia: in Lebedev (2017c) we have argued that Heraclitus may
have used the term ἰσονομία in his cosmological historiosophy.
134 POxy. LIII 3710, col. II.43–47 (= Heraclit. fr. 60 Lebedev). Cf. also Hippoc. De hebd. 26.10–12 Ro-
scher: ὅταν δὲ τούτους τοὺς ἀριθμοὺς ὑπερβάλλῃ, χρονίη ἤδη γίνεται ἡ κατάστασις τῶν πυρετῶν.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   543

in IV.10 as “transgression”135 violate both of these principles at the same time: they

neglect the evidence for the author’s usage provided by col. VIII.6 (τ]αῦτα τὰ ἔπη
ὑπερβατὰ ἐό[ν]τα λανθάν[ει), and they show a total disrespect for elementary
Greek morphology by translating ὑπερβατόν as a nomen actionis. By all stand-
ards of Greek morphology, a nomen actionis from ὑπερβαίνω will be ὑπέρβασις
or ὑπερβασία, not ὑπερβατόν!136 Both in col. VIII and in col. IV, ὑπερβατόν has
nothing to do with physical processes and “cosmic measures,” but is a grammat-
ical and rhetorical term for the transposition of words.137 Attention to hyperbaton
was a characteristic feature in Protagoras’ intepretation of poetry (Pl. Prt. 343e),
and Protagoras was regarded as a teacher of Prodicus. The mention of the figure
hyperbaton in a commentary on Heraclitus’ style is to be expected, since Heracli-
tus from early times on was known as “Obscure” (ὁ Σκοτεινός); the lack of clarity
in his prose (τὸ ἀσαφές) was commonly attributed by ancient critics to the use
of words in a improper sense (lexical means), and asyndeton (or lysis), hyper­
baton, and ambiguity (amphibolia) in the syntax and word order. The authentic
fragments of Heraclitus contain at least 9 instances of the syntactical ambiguity
(amphibolia) that Aristotle had already noticed.138 Hyperbaton and syntactical
ambiguity are related phenomena: whereas Demetrius attributes the obscurity
of Heraclitus to lysis (asyndeton), Theon Alexandrinus ascribes it to the heavy
abuse of syntactical ambiguity (amphibolia) resulting from the difficulty of divid-
ing the text (diairesis, the same as diastixis in Aristotle’s passage). The discussion
of hyperbaton and the ambiguity of αἰδοῖον in PDerv., cols. VIII + XIII, which can
be construed either with the preceding ἔλαβεν (VIII.8) or with the subsequent
κατέπινεν (XIII.4), looks similar to Aristotle’s discussion of the ambiguous posi-
tion of ἀεί in Heraclitus’ 22 B 1 DK (= fr. 2 Lebedev). In Heraclitus’ fragment about
the sun in PDerv., col. IV, there is a clear occurrence of at least one hyperbaton in
l. 7: ἀνθρωπ[ηΐου] εὖρος ποδὸς, with the emphatic position of the adjective in the
first position;139 ‘natural’ word order is restored in the quotation of these three
words in Plac. 2.21.4: εὖρος ποδὸς ἀνθρωπείου.140

135 Laks/Most (1997) 11; Sider (1997) 141 (in an otherwise excellent study full of fine observa-
tions); Betegh (2004) 11; Janko (2001) 19 (“surpassing”).
136 The original source of this mistranslation seems to be Mouraviev (1985) 131. We pointed to
this already in Lebedev (1989b) 39 and n. 1.
137 Betegh (2004). On hyperbaton, see Kühner/Gerth (1982), II/2, 600, § 607; Devine/Stephens (2000).
138 Lebedev (2014) 48–49.
139 Hyperbaton type Y1, according to Devine/Stephens (2000) 31 and 33 ff.; Denniston (1952) 47:
“emphatic word placed early in violation of natural word order”.
140 Stob. Ecl. 1.25 (= Heraclit. 22 B 3 DK = fr. 56 [b] Lebedev). We do not quote ‘Aëtius,’ one of the
many distortions of pagan names in Theodoret. For a detailed criticism of Diels’ mistaken attri-
bution and of the neo-Dielsian doxographical theory of Mansfeld and Runia, see Lebedev (2016).
544   Andrei Lebedev

Col. IV.12–13: This is an excellent and virtually certain supplement of KPT. The
“fixed month” is a month of the solstice: June for the summer solstice and Decem-
ber for the winter solstice. Solstices (τροπαὶ ἡλίου) were of greatest importance in
Heraclitus’ theory of cosmic justice, and δίκη is mentioned in l. 12. If ὑπερβατόν
is a rhetorical term of the commentator, then ll. 11–13 are not by Heraclitus, but
a part of the commentary. In any case, something like τροπὰς ποιεῖ (or ποιεῖται)
after μηνὶ τα[κτῶι seems very likely: a TLG proximity search for this phrase yields
60 instances (τροπὰς ποιεῖ or ποιεῖται) in astronomical texts: it was a fixed phrase
that was used with a dativus temporis specifying the month of the solstice. The
phrase occurs in the doxography of Anaximander (12 A 27 DK = Ar 8, 66 & 84
Wöhrle), Anaximenes (13 A 15 DK = As 40 & 125 Wöhrle), and Anaxagoras (59 A
42 DK); it is hard to imagine something very different from this in the original
Preplatonic texts. Nevertheless, it looks like an explanation of Heraclitus’ mytho-
poetic ‘peculiar’ expressions in plain ‘common words.’ Janko’s ἀμήνιτα (accepted
by Kotwick) is unfortunate: it is an archaic and poetic word (Archilochus, thrice
in Aeschylus) derived from the Homeric μῆνις, unknown in prose (with a single
exception, Hdt. 9.94) for more than 500 years until it resurfaces in Plutarch (10
instances), the lover of antiquarian lore. The probability of its occurrence in
5th-cent. BC Sophistic prose is close to zero. Furthermore, ἀμήνιτος is a charac-
teristic (ἀοργησία in classical philosophical prose) possessed by the gods and
the wise. The sing. neut. form τὸ ἀμήνιτον is conceivable and attested (once in
Plutarch), but the plur. neut. ἀμήνιτα is hard to imagine and unattested, just as τὸ
ἀόργητον (= ἀοργησία) is conceivable and attested, whereas the plural ἀόργητα
is not found. Therefore, Janko’s reading should be ruled out with certainty: there
is no alternative to μηνὶ τακ[τῶι of the KPT text.

5 (V) The title and date of the Derveni Treatise:

its relation to the psephisma of Diopeithes
Let us start with a list of candidates from extant sources.
1) Themistius quotes Prodicus’ allegorical interpretation of Orphic theogony
with the remark πᾶσαν εὐσέβειαν, “all piety,” which might imply the title
Περὶ εὐσεβείας.
2) The combination of two possible quotations of Prodicus’ etymologies of
divine names in Plato’s Cratylus (409a9) and Plutarch’s fr. 157 Sandbach
might suggest Περὶ παλαιᾶς φυσιολογίας or Περὶ ἀρχαίας φυσιολογίας.
3) Given that the author of Derv.T is Prodicus of Ceos, a disciple of Protago-
ras, and that through its literary genre, the Derv.T is related to the Sophistic
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   545

Kulturgeschichte, two titles of Protagoras’ works seem theoretically conceiv-

able: Περὶ θεῶν and Περὶ τῆς ἐν ἀρχῇ καταστάσεως. The latter is imitated in
Plato’s Protagoras where Prodicus is also mentioned.
4) In the Cratylus, Plato discusses etymologies of the divine names similar to
those found in PDerv. after an emphatic (in the very beginning) reference
to Prodicus’ “fifty drachmas” lecture On the Correctness of Names (Περὶ
ὀρθότητος τῶν ὀνομάτων) as a kind of a classic of the genre.
5) In Aristophanes’ parody of Prodicus’ allegorical interpretation of the Orphic
theogony (Av. 709), one of the ‘greatest’ gifts of birds to the human race is
the ability to tell time and distinguish between different seasons (ὥρας): cf.
PDerv., col. XXIV.10–11.

Of all the candidates, the last one seems to be the most promising and better docu-
mented. Ὧραι or Seasons was considered already by Prodicus’ contemporaries as
his masterpiece. According to the scholiast, it contained the famous protreptic to
virtue, the story of Heracles. In earlier scholarship, the word Horai was understood
in a narrow sense as a reference to Heracles’ maturity.141 According to Wilhelm
Nestle, it was much broader in scope and consisted of three parts: a) praise of
agriculture, b) the origin of religion, and c) the story about Heracles.142 According
to Robert Mayhew’ ingenious reconstruction, Horai consisted of two parts: Part 1
on the early ‘seasons’ of the human race and Part 2 on the seasons of human life
(including the story of Heracles).143 The first part included: a) the miserable life
of the wretched primitive people alluded to in Aristophanes’ Birds (685–687); b)
the origin of religion, stage one: humans deify beneficial natural phenomena; c)
the origin of religion, stage two: humans deify the inventors of τέχναι with special
emphasis on agriculture and viticulture. In both stages, according to Mayhew,
“etymologically appropriate names are given” to the objects of deification. Our
reconstruction and reading of the Derveni treatise perfectly fits into Mayhew’s
Part 1. However, one difficulty remains: Prodicus was famous for his exquisite
style, and Heracles story (allegedly part of Horai) was praised by Xenophon as a
literary masterpiece. The style of the Derveni treatise is anything but Kunstprosa
(with the exception of cols. V, XX, and XXII, on which see § [X] below). To resolve
this difficulty, we must admit that the text of PDerv. is a Sophistic lecture based
on Horai. This hypothesis explains the sporadic change of style from simple to
exquisite one: it was recommended by Prodicus as a didactic device to keep his

141 DK, II, 312 n. 20.

142 Nestle (1976).
143 Mayhew (2011) xxii. On the early history of the philosophical topos ‘the seasons of life,’ see
also Lebedev (2017c).
546   Andrei Lebedev

listeners awake.144 Col. XX looks like an “insertion” (παρεμβολή) from the “fifty-
drachma” lecture.145 Pace Nestle and Mayhew, we have some doubts about the
possibility of integrating both Heracles’ choice and the treatise on the origin of
religion and civilization into one and the same work. The former has nothing to
do with agriculture and Kulturgeschichte; the latter has nothing to do with practi-
cal ethics. Stylistic differences alone make this integration unlikely.146 The choice
of Heracles is quoted by many authors, but it is cited under the somewhat surpris-
ing title Seasons only once in a scholium to Ar. Nub. 361. This section would fit
much better into a historical work in which agriculture was an important subject:
in Greek linguistic consciousness, the word ὧραι was closely associated with the
yearly agricultural cycle (ὧραι αἱ πάντα φέρουσι). The scholiast may have con-
flated Prodicus’ two most famous and influential works into one. Diels suggested
that Ὧραι was an artificial title like Ἡροδότου Μοῦσαι invented by the Alexandri-
ans.147 The alleged Muses of Herodotus refers to nine books, just as the Φιλολάου
Βάκχαι (a sculpture group of three bacchants) refers to the three books of Philo-
laus’ Περὶ φύσεως: in the same way, Prodicus’ Seasons might have been attached
by librarians to a collection of different speeches and works in four books. But
this is unlikely since the title Ὧραι is alluded to already in Aristophanes (both in
Birds and the neglected fragment from the Seasons) and in Xenophon (Mem. 4.4:
see App. [3] below). In Themistius, ὧραι are also associated with Prodicus’ theory
of religion, but not with Heracles’ choice. In the moral parable about virtue, Hera-
cles is a conventional literary fiction; in Prodicus’ history of religion, he would
have been presented as a deified king in the second stage.

The date. The relation of Derv.T to the psephisma of Diopeithes and to the
trial and death of Anaxagoras.

A firm terminus ante quem is established by the production year of Aristophanes’

Birds: 414 BC. However, in view of the close relationship of the cosmogony of
Birds with the cosmology of Clouds (dinos-motif), and especially in view of the

144 Arist. Rh. 3.14.1415b12 (= Prod. test. 41 Mayhew).

145 But this is uncertain. The style and the sarcastic tone of col. XX resembles that of col. V,
which displays affinity with Heraclitus.
146 In the controversy on the authenticity of Xenophon’s exposition of Heracles’ choice, we side
with Sansone (2004) and Mayhew (2011) 204 against Gray (2006). One of the disputed 15 words
is καθαρειότης. Pollux (Onom. 6.27) condemns καθάρειος as vulgar (ἰδιωτικόν), i.e. non-Attic,
despite one instance of καθαρείως in Xen. Cyr. 1.3.8.10. Plato has only καθαρός/καθαρότης, never
καθάρειος/καθαρειότης. The latter form seems to be Ionic and therefore reflects Prodicus’ rather
than Xenophon’s own regular usage.
147 DK, II, 312 n. 20.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   547

allusion to teletai in both comedies and possible quotations from Derv.T in Aris-
tophanes’ Clouds, the terminus ante quem should be pushed up to 420/417 (the
extant version of Clouds) or even 423 (the first version), since the image of Clouds
cannot be separated from the ‘air’ and the vortex cosmogony. A plausible termi­
nus post quem is the psephisma of Diopeithes (433/432 BC)148 or rather the trial
(c. 430) or even death (428) of Anaxagoras, since the Derv.T looks like a ‘response’
to these events. Thus the Derveni treatise should be dated most likely between
432 and 423 BC. A date soon after the trial of death of Anaxagoras, i.e. the early
twenties, looks especially plausible. How do we know that the Derveni Treatise
was written after and in response to the psephisma of Diopeithes rather than
before it? Why not suppose that it was one of Diopeithes’ targets? The first possi-
bility better explains the extravagant figure of Orpheus the Anaxagorean. Before
the psephisma, any Anaxagorean or Sophist could express his views on nature,
the cosmos, and τὰ μετάρσια without fear. Now one had to be cautious to avoid the
charge of impiety. Orpheus the Anaxagorean was at the same time a parody (or a
polemical peritrope: see App. [2] below), a protective device against the charge of
impiety and an apology for Anaxagoras. The psephisma of Diopeithes introduced
the prosecution by eisangelia (i.e. as offenders against the state) of those who do
not recognize the traditional religion of the polis and teach astronomical theories
(logoi) that deny the divinity of heavens.149 The traditional views about the gods
and religious institutions were commonly referred to as τὰ πάτρια and πάτριοι
λόγοι. Just as the buzzwords of conservative political discourse were πάτριος
πολιτεία and πάτριοι νόμοι, the catchwords of the lexicon of religious conser-
vatives were πάτριος λόγος or νόμος.150 It is conceivable that in the original for-
mulation of the psephisma briefly paraphrased by Plutarch, πάτριοι λόγοι περὶ
θεῶν or μεταρσίων were opposed to conflicting “new doctrines,” the target being
Anaxagoras and the sophists who teach new astronomy and corrupt the young.
In any case, the author of the Derv.T could not be formally accused of rejecting the

148 On Pericles’ trial and Diopeithes’ psephisma, see Rubel (2014) ch. 2.5–6, who argues for a
date after 430. Contra Mansfeld (1980) 88, who proposes 438/437 BC. See the status quaetionis
accurately outlined by Vassallo’s paper in this volume.
149 Plut. Per. 32: (…), καὶ ψήφισμα Διοπείθης ἔγραψεν εἰσαγγέλλεσθαι τοὺς τὰ θεῖα μὴ νομίζοντας
ἢ λόγους περὶ τῶν μεταρσίων διδάσκοντας, κτλ.
150 Aristotle begins On Heaven’s Book 2 by prudently asserting that his views on the divinity
of the heavens are in perfect agreement with “ancestral doctrines” (De cael. 2.1.284a2 ff.: διόπερ
καλῶς ἔχει συμπείθειν ἑαυτὸν τοὺς ἀρχαίους καὶ μάλιστα πατρίους ἡμῶν ἀληθεῖς εἶναι λόγους,
ὡς ἔστι ἀθάνατόν τι καὶ θεῖον κτλ.). Cf. also ps.-Arist. Mund. 6.397b13–15: ἀρχαῖος μὲν οὖν τις
λόγος καὶ πάτριός ἐστι πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις ὡς ἐκ θεοῦ πάντα καὶ διὰ θεὸν συνέστηκεν, κτλ. In Plut.
Cons. ad ux. 611d8–9, πάτριος λόγος is the doctrine of the immortality of the soul as taught in the
mysteries of Dionysos.
548   Andrei Lebedev

‘ancestral doctrines’: on the contrary, he expressed ‘admiration’ for the ancient

wisdom of Orpheus and offered only a ‘corrected’ interpretation of his poetry. By
proving that Anaxagoras’ astronomy is in perfect agreement with the ‘ancestral
wisdom’ of Orpheus, the founder of Greek religion, Prodicus also attempted to
absolve Anaxagoras from the charge of asebeia. About the same time, another
disciple and friend of Anaxagoras, Euripides, in his Hippolytus (428 BC) launched
an attack against “the books of Orpheus” and the puritanic Orphic life, targeting
the ideology of Diopeithes & Co. Euripides probably did this on the occasion of
Anaxagoras’ death in Lampsacus the same year. The angry invective of the father
of the Athenian demos, Theseus, against the ‘insane’ obsession of the egocentric
Hippolytus with ritual purity contains a hyponoia with a counter-accusation of
‘impiety’: the Orphico-Pythagorean vegetarian diet (ἄψυχος βορά) contradicts
the ‘ancestral law’ of Greek religion, that of animal sacrifice (Hipp. 928 ff.). Now,
the restoration of the correct reading in PHerc. 245, fr. 7.1–4 provides a unique
new piece of evidence that Anaxagoras was tortured (μασ]|τιγωθείς) during the
interrogation (anakrisis) at his trial.151 We take this evidence at face value as a
historical fact since it comes from a series of trials of philosophers, the historic-
ity of which cannot be doubted. The Herculanean evidence sheds new light on
the meaning of two cryptic passages on Tantalos in Euripides’ Orestes (4–10 and
982–984). We interpret them as a veiled commemoration of the 20th anniversary
of Anaxagoras’ death disguised as a parabel about the punishment of the ancient
physiologos Tantalos by Zeus for his licentious tongue (ἀκόλαστος γλω ⌢σσα): the
‘rock’ hanging over Tantalos’ head is conceived as the Anaxagorean lump (bolos)
of the sun. The ‘tortures’ of the mythical Tantalos allude to the real tortures of
Anaxagoras at his trial, and the ‘rock’ that still hangs over the heads of those
who investigate the nature of the stars is the charge of impiety. A Zeus who pun-
ishes audacious physiologoi alludes to the ‘Servant of Zeus,’ Dio­peithes, who
punished Anaxagoras by his psephisma. In a kind of makarismos, Anaxagoras
is praised by Euripides as an innocent martyr of science and a victim of reli-
gious fanaticism.152 It is tempting to view the grotesque αἰδοῖον κατέπινεν scene
in col. ΧΙΙΙ.4 (Zeus “swallowed”) as an obscene joke intended by Prodicus as a
personal insult towards Diopeithes, whose name etymologically means “the one
who obeys Zeus.” Prodicus was the leading expert in the language and style of
his time: it is inconceivable that he would so blatantly misread a perfectly clear
text in which any reader would take αἰδοῖον as “venerable” (an epithet of a god)

151 See, in this volume, Vassallo’s DAPR, T7.

152 For a detailed discussion of the Tantalos’ paradigm in Orestes see § (VIII) below and Willink
(1983).
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   549

rather than as a substantive meaning “penis.”153 After Anaxagoras’ exile, Arche-

laus became the leading figure in post-Anaxagorean physiologia in Athens. It is
around this time that the book of Heraclitus becomes fashionable in Socratic
and Sophistic circles in Athens. Euripides and Socrates are among the first read-
ers;154 Prodicus was connected with both. Prodicus and Euripides were friends,
and both of them were disciples of Anaxagoras. After the death of Anaxagoras in
428 BC, they probably joined their efforts in a counter-attack against Diopeithes
& Co. in order to restore the immaculate name of Anaxagoras and to absolve him
of the false accusations of impiety. The author of De diaeta 1 (possibly Herodi-
cus of Selymbria) in his cosmology and physics exhibits a strikingly similar syn-
thesis of Anaxagoras and Heraclitus phrased in strikingly similar language; on
independent grounds we date it to the same decade 430/420 BC.155 Possible influ-
ences of Democritus on PDerv. during or after his visit to Athens in the twenties
would also support our date. It is reasonable to suppose that Prodicus was nick-
named Tantalos after he wrote Horai (Derv.T). Willink arrives at 420/410 (between
Aristophanes’ Clouds and Euripides’ Orestes) as the most plausible date of Prod-
icus’ sobriquet Tantalos.156

6 (VI) The philosophical sources of the Derveni

author (Prodicus of Ceos)
The Derveni author (Prodicus) apparently relied on the same version of ‘Orpheus’
Theogony’ as the one alluded to in Aristophanes’ Birds in 414 BC. In the 4th cent.
BC it was summarized by Eudemus in his History of Theology (fr. 150 Wehrli)

153 Contra Burkert (1980) 32; Kirk ap. KRS (1983) 32–33; Janko (2001) 24; Betegh (2004) 111 ff.;
Bernabé (2007) 107, and others. The correct view (αἰδοῖον masc. acc., “the reverend,” sc. Δαίμονα)
is that of West (1983) 84 ff., KPT, 133 and Sider (2014) 231, among others. Detailed and persuasive
refutation can be found in Santamaría (2016). Sider (2014) 241 has pointed out the important fact,
neglected by the supporters of the former view, that the sing. τὸ αἰδοῖον, “penis,” is a prosaic
form not attested before the late 5th cent. BC (Hippocrates, Herodotus) and therefore unlikely in
a 6th-cent. BC epic poem. In early 5th-cent. BC Ionian prose, we still find the epic plur. αἰδοίοισιν:
cf. Heraclit. 22 B 15 DK (= fr. 148 Lebedev). The masculine pronoun ὅς in PDerv., col. XIII.4 alone
makes it clear that αἰδοῖον is masc. acc. from the epithet αἰδοῖος applied to acc. δαίμον[α] κυδρόν
at the end of the preceding verse (col. VIII.5). If αἰδοῖον means “penis,” then Olympus means
“time,” Oceanus means “air,” Moira of Zeus means “vortex in the air,” and so on.
154 Diog. Laërt. 2.22 (= 22 A 4 [III] DK).
155 Lebedev (2014) 27–42.
156 Willink (1983) 33.
550   Andrei Lebedev

and was dismissed as a fake by Aristotle in his lost On Philosophy (frs. 25–26
Gigon). Chances are that already Herodotus and Ion of Chios in the 5th cent.
BC expressed doubts concerning its authenticity and attributed the Orphic doc-
trine to the Pythagoreans. We call it the ‘Attic version’ of the Orphic Theogony.
Its distinctive feature is the generation from Night as an initial stage rather than
from the ageless Kronos of the Rhapsodic Theogony known to the Neoplatonists.
According to the reliable (and for no good reason often neglected) evidence of
Aristotle, supported by such learned and discerning minds as Plutarch, Pausa-
nias, and Sextus, this ancient Attic version was composed in the late 6th cent. BC
by the professional mantis Onomacritus in Athens. Onomacritus may well have
been influenced by Pythagoras’ doctrine of the immortal soul as well as by the
authentic Theogony of Epimenides of Crete composed c. 600 BC in which: a) the
world originates from Night and a cosmic egg; b) the doctrine of reincarnation is
alluded to in Epimenides’ fr. 33 [I] Bernabé.157 According to Aristotle, Onomacri-
tus was “trained in the art of divination” in Crete, and the Cretan μαντικὴ τέχνη
was no doubt that of Epimenides. Pausanias’ report that Onomacritus invented
the myth of the sparagmos of Dionysos at the Titans’ hands look plausible, if not
strictly demonstrable.158 In a sense, Onomacritus was a sophos aner of a not so
distant past who invented a new religion for the masses: the ‘Orphic’ anthropo-
gony explaining the dualistic nature of man is a transparent popularization in
mythical terms of Pythagoras’ metaphysical dualism of peras and apeiron, the
same and the ‘other,’ the body as source of evil and the divine soul.159 A religion

157 We argue for the authenticity of Epimenides’ Theogony in Lebedev (2015) 555 ff., on the
Selene fragment and reincarnation 561 ff.
158 Contra Edmonds (1999) 43, who quotes in support of his hypercritical thesis Linforth (1941)
353: “No one else [sc. except Pausanias – A. L.] throughout antiquity quotes the works of Ono-
macritus or makes an allusion to them (…).” But this is blatantly wrong: Aristotle in his Περὶ
φιλοσοφίας, fr. 26 Gigon ascribes to Onomacritus the Orphic Theogony.
159 On ταὐτὸν καὶ ἄλλο as first principles of Pythagoras (sic) cf. Arist. fr. 152 Gigon. On Ar-
chytas see Lebedev (2017c) 242 ff. and (2017d) 23–24. We argue that, in Metaphysics Α, Aristotle
ascribes the table of 10 opposites to Pythagoras (sic) and 6th cent. BC Pythagoreans contempo-
rary with Alcmaeon and distinguishes this ancient group (oἱ πρὸ τούτων) from Philolaus and
5th-cent. BC Pythagoreans contemporary with Empedocles and Anaxagoras (οἱ ἐν τούτοις). In
this table, the corporeal changing substance (τὸ ἑτερόμηκες) is correlated with evil (τὸ κακόν)
and darkness (σκότος), and the immutable substance of the soul (τετράγωνον) with good (τὸ
ἀγαθόν) and light (φῶς). The square was a Pythagorean geometrical symbol of the immortal
self-identical soul. Cf. Lyd. Mens. 2.9 Wünsch: ψυχὰ γὰρ ἀνθρώπου, ὡς Πυθαγόρας ἔφη, ἔστι
τετράγωνον ὀρθoγώνιον (Archytas is a probable source). An unfinished square with two di-
agonals is pictured on the reverse side of the ‘Orphic’ bone plate (West [1983] 61 pl. 3) which
on the obverse has a graffito with the name of Dionysos and pairs of opposites σῶμα ψυχή,
ψεῦδος ἀλήθεια.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   551

of guilt is a godsend for tyrannical regimes, since it lowers man’s dignity and self-
esteem and makes him more submissive and easier to manipulate: the original
sin is perceived as a χρέος. Prodicus most likely knew that ‘Orpheus’ theogony’
was a fake. Orpheus was an exemplary mantis of the mythical past; Onomacritus
was a chresmologos and mantis who served the tyrannical regime of the Pisistrati-
dae and made the falsification of oracles his profession; Diopeithes and Lampon
were contemporary manteis who swore by the holy name of ‘Orpheus’ and fought
against Ionian natural science, which posed a threat to their profession. This
explains the freedom with which Prodicus, a leading representative of the ‘liberal
intelligentsia’ of his time, proposed fantastic fake interpretations of a fake ‘sacred
discourse.’
Now, as regards Prodicus’ (= the Derveni author’s) properly philosophical
sources, we should distinguish two areas: historical anthropology, origin of reli-
gion, philosophy of mythology, and philosophy of language on the one hand, and
physics and cosmology, on the other. In “human things” (τὰ ἀνθρώπινα) his main
sources of inspiration were Protagoras’ ‘Humanism’ and Sophistic Kulturgeschichte,
above all Protagoras’ On the Original Condition (sc. of the Human Race). In the phi-
losophy of religion and mythology, he combined the crypto-atheism of Protagoras’
On Gods with Heraclitus’ devastating criticism of theological anthropomorphism,
‘insane’ rituals, and mystery cults. The names of Protagoras and Heraclitus are
emphatically joined as two main representatives of the ‘universal flux’ school of
thought in Plato’s Theaetetus and Cratylus, in contexts that are at the same time
ontological and theological. If we translate Plato’s language into familiar modern
terminology, he regards (and ironically dismisses) them as knowledgeable of the
Ionian naturalistic pantheism, in which the divine is not separated from cosmic
processes and is conceived as constantly moving and changing. Plato himself sided
with Western Greek philosophical theology, the Pythagoreans and Eleatics, who
conceived god as set apart from matter and always ἀκίνητον. As a matter of fact,
historical Heraclitus was not an atheist like Prodicus: his cosmic god is a genuine
providential god, like the god of Stoics; his concept of the universal Logos paved
the way to the Stoic theological doctrine; and his archaic term for cosmic Ιntelli-
gence and Providential Will (Γνώμη) was ‘translated’ by the Stoics into familiar
Attic idiom as πρόνοια. Therefore, by joining Heraclitus with Protagoras and the
Sophists, Plato rather targeted the Sophistic reception of Heraclitus and may well
have had Prodicus in mind as well. In Plato’s Cratylus, the ancient inventors of
divine names like Rhea and Kronos are presented as prehistoric Heracliteans who
held the ‘universal flux’ doctrine. Whether Prodicus’ (Derveni author’s) theory of
the ‘agricultural’ origin of religion and deification of ‘beneficial things’ was antic-
ipated in Protagoras is difficult to determine, since too little is known about the
552   Andrei Lebedev

contents of Protagoras’ relevant treatises.160 The same holds true for the distinc-
tion between two successive stages in the parallel development of language and
religion: the original stage of simple and clear “common names” (κοινὰ, λεγόμενα
ὀνόματα) denoting “real things” (τὰ ἐόντα), and the later stage when “peculiar
names” (ἴδια ὀνόματα), like divine names, were invented by poets like Orpheus and
added to the common names. Those who spoke the original, simple language were
natural atheists: they venerated only real things (like the sun, the moon, the crops,
etc.) that were ‘useful’ for survival. The cult of the anthropomorphic gods of Greek
religion with strange and unintelligible (to hoi polloi) names appeared only at the
second stage as a result of the ‘linguistic mistake’ of mortals. In the Derveni treatise
(Prodicus), this mistake is attributed to the intentional ambiguity and enigmatic
character of “peculiar names” invented by Orpheus rather than to the spontane-
ous ‘disease of language’ posited by Max Müller. The anthropomorphic polytheism
of Greek mythology was dismissed as an invention of poets (Homer and Hesiod)
already by Xenophanes and Heraclitus in the late 6th to early 5th cent. BC. The
specific theory of the ‘linguistic mistake’ (a form of linguistic idealism) explaining
the origin of the mythopoetic gods was held by both Heraclitus (c. 490 BC) and
Parmenides (c. 480 BC). In Heraclitus the phenomenal world of plurality derives
from the wrong diairesis of the “common logos” (ξυνὸς λόγος) of the universe: the
meaningless ‘letters’ of the ‘book of nature’ were mistaken by the poets for names
that gave rise to imaginary individual objects and the plurality of gods; “wisdom
consists in knowing all things as one.”161 In Parmenides, the phenomenal world
of Doxa results from another linguistic mistake: one of the two names posited by
mortals for the supposed two primary elements (Light and Night = soul and body)
should not have been posited at all since Night is not a separate substance, but
just an absence of light, a non-entity.162 Parmenides’ influence on Prodicus and the
Sophists is ruled out: Gorgias’ parody of Parmenides makes it clear that the heirs of
Ionian ‘Enlightenment’ dismissed the idealist Eleatic ontology with a smile.

160 The lack of evidence on the contents of Protagoras’ Περὶ θεῶν (as compared with the rela-
tively abundant evidence on the analogous work of Prodicus) may be due to the fact that most
existing copies after his condemnation were confiscated and burned by the keryx on the agora:
Diog. Laërt. 9.52 (ἀναλεξάμενοι παρ᾽ ἑκάστου τῶν κεκτημένων). Prodicus’ work escaped this
fate because it was protected by his alleged respect for the ancient wisdom of Orpheus and the
ἀρχαῖαι δόξαι about gods. Prodicus could easily acquit himself of the charge of impiety by point-
ing out that the law, as formulated in the psephisma of Diopeithes, forbids teaching the new λόγοι
περὶ τῶν μεταρσίων, whereas he teaches the ancient doctrines.
161 Keeping the MSS’s correct reading εἰδέναι: Heraclit. 22 B 50 DK (= fr. 1 Lebedev: σοφόν ἐστιν
ἓν πάντα εἰδέναι).
162 Parmenid. 28 B 8.54 DK: τῶν μίαν οὐ χρεών ἐστιν – ἐν ὧι πεπλανημένοι εἰσιν. See Lebedev
(2017b) 512 ff.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   553

We have noticed above that in the philosophy of language, Heraclitus antic-

ipated the Derveni author’s (Prodicus’) theory of nomination and functionalist
semantics. The idea that in their ritual practices, hoi polloi do not realize what
they are doing and that the meaning of sacred objects escapes their understand-
ing is of fundamental importance in Heraclitus’ criticism of popular cults and
mysteries: e.g. those who perform Bacchic rites and honour Dionysos with a
hymn to the phallos (αἰδοῖον), a symbol of life and generation, do not realize
that in fact they venerate the god of death (Ἀΐδης).163 Heraclitus probably meant
that the ritual was instituted by a wise man who knew that life and death are
one and the same thing, but his ambiguity and cryptic language have misled the
many. Similarly, the Derveni author points out that, although the mystai sacrifice
to the Erinyes popana polyomphala with good reason, they do not understand
the symbolism of these offerings: if they did, they would have realized that the
traditional image of the Erinyes is a figment of poetic imagination and that in
fact they feed the air. Theophrastus’ superstitious man, deisidaimon, who goes
to the Orpheotelestai (πρὸς τοὺς Ὀρφεοτελεστάς) every month, also buys sacri-
ficial cakes (πόπανα) on the 4th and 7th day and remains insane the entire day
(ἀφρονεῖ ὅλην τὴν ἡμέραν).164
In his physics and cosmology, the Derveni author (Prodicus) strictly adheres
to Ionian naturalism: no trace whatsoever of Empedocles, Pythagoreans, or Ele-
atics can be found.165 As has been rightly seen by many commentators, his main

163 Heraclit. 22 B 15 DK (= fr. 147 Lebedev). For interpretation see Lebedev (2014) 449.
164 Theophr. Char. 16.10–11a Steinmetz. Pythagorean approval: Diog. Laërt. 8.13; Iambl. VP
11.54; 28.150.
165 Contra Janko (2016), followed by Kotwick (2017) 107–108. A reconstruction of Parmenides’
verse B 1.1 from a few letters seems too bold. See the criticism of Tsantsanoglou (2017) and (2018).
The attempt to connect Parmenides’ proem (interpreted as katabasis) with the oracle of Night in
PDerv. cannot hold out against criticism: in Parmenides, Night is the source of ignorance (B 8.59:
νύκτ’ ἀδαῆ), not of knowledge. In the opposition Light/Night of the Doxa, Night is axiologically
marked as a negative element, exactly as in the Pythagorean table of opposites where it is corre-
lated with κακόν, and Light with ἀγαθόν. The goal of kouros’ flight (sic) are the celestial gates (B
1.11–13: πύλαι [...] αἰθέριαι), and the revealing goddess is called in the neglected fragment νύμφη
ὑψιπύλη, the “maiden of the high gates.” She proclaims ‘Night’ (i.e. the corporeal substance)
an empty name, a linguistic mistake of mortals (B 8.54). Furthermore, in the geocentric cosmos
of Parmenides (who knew the cause of eclipses) there is no place for Hesiod’s Tartarus. In the
Pythagorean cosmos, Hades is the sublunar word, and we are dead now: for details see Lebedev
(2017b). A quotation from Parmenides is a priori unlikely: in the fight between the Anaxagoreioi
and Pythagoreioi, the Derveni author sides with the former, and Parmenides, ἀνὴρ Πυθαγόρειος
(Strabo), with the latter. If, by any chance, Janko nevertheless is right, we would suggest that the
reason for quoting Parmenides is, as in Heraclitus’ case, allegorical language: Sextus interpreted
the proem of Parmenides allegorically.
554   Andrei Lebedev

source is Anaxagoras and the Anaxagorean school. It is not necessary to postulate

that he knew the works of Diogenes of Apollonia, since the similarities are super-
ficial and the differences essential.166 Diogenes was an obscure figure before his
works were discovered by Aristotle and Theophrastus; there is no evidence that
he ever visited Athens, let alone influenced Athenian intellectual life at the time
of Socrates.167 The selection of texts in 64 C 1–2 DK with the alleged 5th-cent. BC
allusions to Diogenes in Aristophanes and Euripides is arbitrary and mislead-
ing.168 The identification of Zeus with ‘air’ was commonplace in Preplatonic phi-
losophy and needs not be associated with Diogenes in particular. In Anaxagoras’
own cosmogony (59 B 1 DK), the initial mixture of spermata was conceived as ἀήρ
and αἰθήρ. Naturalistic pantheism, according to Aristotle, was held by “most of
the physiologoi,”169 not by Diogenes alone. It would be incorrect to claim that the
quasi-teleological argument in PDerv., col. XXI.9–10 cannot antedate Diogenes of
Apollonia; the theory that makes Diogenes the first ‘teleologist’ overlooks Hera-
clitus and the Pythagoreans whose philosophy of nature was much more teleo-
logical than that of Diogenes. The Derveni author derives ἀήρ from αἰωρεῖσθαι in
col. XVII.3–9. The mechanistic understanding of ‘air’ as a ‘suspension’ of small
particles has little in common with Diogenes’ biomorphic idea of an animated
continuum that transforms itself into different bodies (ἑτεροίωσις: cf. 64 B 5 DK).
The physical system of the Derveni author is predominantly Anaxagorean,
with three modifications: a) Nous is not a separate substance, but is inherent in
the ‘air’; b) in the cosmogony, fire plays the extraordinary role of material causa
movens; c) the sun and the moon are not solid ‘lumps,’ but agglomerates of hot
particles. These are exactly the three modifications that Archelaus of Athens
introduced into Anaxagoras’ system.170
We follow Luria in recognizing that “independent (from Democritus) tradi-
tion on Leucippus did not exist.”171 Therefore, when we discuss possible traces of
atomistic doctrines in PDerv., we should have only Democritus in mind, regard-
less of how one solves the problem of the historicity of Leucippus.172 In any case,

166 Contra Janko (1997) 80 ff., correctly Betegh (2006) 306 ff.

167 τοῦτον in DK II, 51.40 refers to Anaxagoras, not Diogenes; so rightly Diels ad loc.
168 The source of Ar. Nub. 828 (on Dinos) and 264 (on Aer) is Prodicus, not Diogenes. The source
of Eur. Tro. 884–889 is Anaxagorean.
169 Cf. Arist. Ph. 3.4.203b3–30 (= 12 A 15 DK = Ar 2 Wöhrle): Anaximander and “most of the
physiologoi” (οἱ πλεῖστοι τῶν φυσιολόγων) identify infinite matter with “the divine” (τὸ θεῖον).
170 The importance of Archelaus as a source of PDerv. has been rightly emphasised by Betegh
(2006) 306 ff.
171 Luria (1947) 132 ff. and (1970) passim.
172 Our position differs from Luria in that we, following Epicurus, doubt the historicity of Leu-
cippus: preliminary arguments in Lebedev (1984) 13–15, but see now Vassallo (2017b) 46–50.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   555

Leucippus is never mentioned before Aristotle. On the contrary, Democritus is a

historical person made of flesh and blood, and his visit to Athens is documented
both by the biographical tradition and by his own words.173 Scholars who com-
pared PDerv. with Leucippus rather than with Democritus presumably did so on
chronological grounds, following the old view that Democritus’ doctrines were
not known before 420 BC. Luria has questioned this view and has argued that
Democritus had formulated his basic doctrine already by 430 BC.174 An addi-
tional confirmation of Luria’s date of the dissemination of Democritus’ works
is provided by the plausible traces of Democritus’ atomic theory in Hippocratic
De diaeta 1, which we date between 430 and 420 BC, since it is criticized in the
Ancient Medicine dated by Mark J. Shiefsky between 420 and 410 BC.175 If the story
that Democritus wished to meet Anaxagoras in Athens, but was refused, is true,
Democritus visited Athens before 430, the supposed year of Anaxagoras’ trial and
flight to Lampsacus.176 If it was invented to explain his accusations of Anaxago-
ras’ plagiarism, the visit could have taken place later in the twenties. Democritus’
close ties with Protagoras would naturally bring him into contact with Sophis-
tic circles and with Prodicus. It is worth noticing that Plato’s reference to the
‘proto-language’ in Cratylus, which we connect with Prodicus, also alludes to Dem-
ocritus’ accusation of Anaxagoras.177 The Derveni treatise therefore might provide

Leucippus probably was either Democritus’ pseudonym or a literary figure invented by Democri-
tus, presumably an “ancient sage” (sophos aner) whose logos or logoi were ‘cited’ in the Megas
Diakosmos and On Mind. The author of MXG 6.980a6–9, who does not depend on Epicurus, but
also doubts his authorship, cites “logoi that are said to be by Leucippus” (ἐν τοῖς Λευκίππου
καλουμένοις λόγοις): this language resembles quotations of Socrates’ logoi from Plato’s dia-
logues. Alternative hypothesis is as follows: the proem to the Megas Diakosmos contained a story
about the ‘discovery’ of Leucippus’ ancient doctrines (inscribed on tablets) in ancient grave or
some distant and mysterious place. Democritus may have intended the figure of ‘Leucippus’ as
an Ionian reply to the Pythagorean ‘Orpheus.’ The author of the Genealogies of Acusilaus (which
contained an Orpheus-style theogony) claimed, presumably in a proem, that the text is based on
ancient “bronze plates” (ἐκ δέλτων χαλκῶν) discovered by his father when he was digging in the
yard of his house (3 A 2 DK).
173 “I came to Athens and nobody knew me,” ἦλθον γὰρ εἰς Ἀθήνας καὶ οὔτις με ἔγνωκεν, quot-
ed by Demetrius of Magnesia ap. Diog. Laërt. 9.36 (= Democrit. fr. xxiv Luria = 68 B 116 DK).
174 Luria (1947) 134.
175 Lebedev (2014) 27–42.
176 Diog. Laërt. 9.34; cf. Democr. fr. xxiv Luria and, on Anaxagoras, Vassallo’s paper (§ 2) in
this volume.
177 Diog. Laërt. 9.34–35 (according to Favorinus) λέγειν Δημόκριτον περὶ Ἀναξαγόρου ὡς οὐκ
εἴησαν αὐτοῦ αἱ δόξαι αἵ τε περὶ ἡλίου καὶ σελήνης, ἀλλὰ ἀρχαῖαι, τὸν δὲ ὑφῃρῆσθαι. διασύρειν
τε αὐτοῦ τὰ περὶ τῆς διακοσμήσεως καὶ τοῦ νοῦ, κτλ., “Democritus said about Anaxagoras that
his views about the sun and moon were not his own, but ancient, and that he had stolen them.
Democritus also ridiculed Anaxagoras’ view on cosmogony and the mind, etc.”
556   Andrei Lebedev

the earliest evidence on the influence of Democritus in Athens in the late thirties
or twenties of the 5th cent. BC. Commentators have rightly drawn attention to
discernible terminological similarities in the cosmogony of PDerv. and the Atom-
ists: necessity (ἀνάγκη), collision of atoms (κρούεσθαι), separation of matter into
small bodies (κατὰ μικρὰ μεμερισμένα), etc. The atomistic theory of matter and
the corpuscular theory of matter are not the same thing: every atomistic theory is
a corpuscular theory, but not every corpuscular theory is atomistic. Both Anaxi-
mander and Anaxagoras spoke of particles of matter (σπέρματα, μοῖραι), but they
did not regard them as indivisible. Hence the difficult question of whether the
Derveni author speaking of “tiny bodies” and particles has Anaxagoras’ divisible
“molecules” or Democritus’ indivisible atoms in mind. The cosmogonic vortex
(δίνη) and the mechanistic motion according to necessity featured already in
Anaximander’s cosmogony and even the equation of dine with moira/ananke
may have been a part of a common Ionian heritage.178 But the ‘collision’ of par-
ticles looks like a typically atomistic terminology, to which we should add the
even more striking case of θόρνυσθαι in PDerv., col. XXI.2–4, where it describes
the chaotic pre-cosmic motion of small particles of matter: ἐν τῶι ἀέρι κατὰ μικρὰ
μεμερισμένα ἐκινεῖτο | καὶ ἐθόρνυτο, θορνύμενα δ’ ἕκα<σ>τα συνεστάθη | πρὸς
ἄλληλα. The original meaning of this verb is “to thrust out,” “to extrude,” to
eject and ejaculate, hence it is used of copulation, hence θορός (“sperm”) and
θόρνη (“copulation”), on which the Derveni author comments (XXI.1).179 In non-
biological contexts it was also used for ‘shoot-like’ swift motion, e.g. of arrows
in shooting or of beans in winnowing.180 When applied to the movement of par-
ticles of matter, it is semantically very close, if not identical with ἐκθλίβεσθαι,
an important concept in the atomistic mechanics of the vortex, denoting the
‘extrusion’ or ‘pressing out’ of light particles to the periphery of the vortex.181
Democritus also uses the very same verb θόρνυμι/θρῴσκω in his description of
the swift motion of εἴδωλα.182 Neither κρούεσθαι, θόρνυσθαι, nor their synonyms

178 All cosmic processes in Anaximander’s 12 Β 1 DK (= Ar 163 Wöhrle) – cosmogonical vortex is

one of them – occur κατὰ τὸ χρεών, which is simply a poetic phrase for κατ’ ἀνάγκην.
179 The explanation in LSJ Suppl. “mating” is correct (contra KPT ad loc.): θόρνη denotes a
certain action or event rather than an object (sperm). It should be understood by analogy with
θοίνη (“feast, banquet”) rather than by analogy with γυνή: therefore, the form θόρ{ν}ηι (KPT) is
unlikely. At least the Derveni author himself took it as “copulation.”
180 Cf. Hom. Il. 13.589: “beans tossed from the winnowing shovel” (LSJ).
181 Cf. Plac. 1.4.2 (= 67 A 24 DK = fr. 383 Luria); Arist. Cael. 4.2.310a10 (= 68 A 60 DK = fr. 368
Luria); Simpl. In Cael. 712.27 Heiberg (= 68 A 61 DK = fr. 368 Luria): (...) τὸ πῦρ ἐκθλιβόμενον (...)
ἄνω φέρεσθαι (...). It can also refer to the respiratory motion of the psyche (cf. Arist. De respir. 10
(4).471b30 ff. = fr. 463 Luria) or to growth of grain (cf. Ael. NA 12.18 = 68 A 153 DK = fr. 541 Luria).
182 68 Α 77 DK.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   557

occur in Anaxagoras’ fragments, and this is not due to chance: in Democritus this
concept emphasized that the motion of atoms is not spontaneous or resulting
from an inner vital force or psyche, but is produced by external mechanical force,
by πληγή and ἀνάγκη. Democritus rejected and ridiculed Anaxagoras’ teleologi-
cal concept of Mind,183 but the Derveni author does not care about such blatant
contradictions, since he is an amateur in physics and the aim of his work is not
to construct a consistent physical theory of matter and material change, but to
reconstruct the “ancient” physiologia of Orpheus and to demonstrate that Greek
anthromorophic religion is the result of “ignorance” (amathia) and the ‘disease
of language.’ In col. XIV.1, ἐ]κθόρηι refers to the “sprouting out” of Protogonos
and the formation of the sun. The Derveni author ‘detects’ a mechanistic concept
of the contemporary science in an epic word suitable for a pious description of
divine birth.

7 (VII) Unlikely candidates proposed as authors

of the Derv.T: Epigenes, Euthyphron,
Stesimbrotos, and Diagoras of Melos

Epigenes

All the allegorical interpretations of Orpheus’ “peculiar expressions” (τὰ ἰδιάζοντα

in Epigenes,184 without exception, are connected with agriculture: ploughs
(ἀρότροις), furrows (αὔλαξι), semen (σπέρμα), rain (ὄμβρον), time, and the sea-
sons.185 Moirai are the phases of the moon. The influence of Prodicus (Derv.T)
on Epigenes is obvious. Epigenes used Prodicus’ theory as a hermeneutical basis
of his work; his term ἰδιάζοντα therefore most probably was also suggested to
him in Prodicus᾽ distinction between ‘common’ and ‘peculiar’ names (PDerv., col.
IV). Epigenes, the author of Περὶ τῆς εἰς Ὀρφέα ἀναφερομένης ποιήσεως, may
be identical to Epigenes the Socratic, son of Antiphon of Cephisia (P. Natorp
ap. RE VI.1, 64, s.v., no. 15), who may be the same as Epigenes the grammarian
(L. Cohn ap. RE VI.1, 64–65, s.v., no. 16).186 If so, considering the close connec-
tions between Socrates and Prodicus, he may have “heard” (ἤκουσε) Prodicus’

183 Diog. Laërt. 9.35.

184 Suggested as the author of PDerv. by Kapsomenos (1964).
185 OF 407 and 1128.
186 Cf. Nails (2002) 140.
558   Andrei Lebedev

lectures. He cannot be the author of the Derveni treatise because his exegeti-
cal style is different and because he denied the authenticity of Orpheus’ poems
(ἀναφερομένης), whereas the Derveni author pretends to accept it. It is not nec-
essary to assume that he was as ‘atheistic’ and iconoclastic as Prodicus or the
Derveni author: he seems to be a genuine allegorist and more sympathetic to
myth and religion.

Euthyphron

From what has been said above, it becomes clear that the attribution of the
Derveni treatise to Euthyphron proposed by Boyancé and Kahn cannot be cor-
rect.187 As William D. Furley has convincingly demonstrated,188 Euthyphron was
not a religious innovator and ‘sectarian’ (Burnet), but a religious orthodox and
conservative. As a professional soothsayer, he must have opposed natural philos-
ophy of the Ionian type (and its Sophistic applications to the history of religion)
and approved of the psephisma of his colleague Diopeithes banning the teaching
of ‘meteorology’ in Athens. The Derveni author, in turn, almost certainly must
have classed people like Euthyphron with τέχνην ποιούμενοι τὰ ἱερά, whom he
sarcastically attacks in col. ΧΧ. If our attribution of the Derveni treatise to Prodi-
cus is correct, and if Euthyphron, as Wilamowitz suggested,189 wrote a book on the
etymology of divine names, the relationship between their works must have been
polemical. Euthyphron should most likely be credited with ‘pious’ and mystical
etymologies of divine names: Ἀθηνᾶ = ἁ θεονόα, “divine mind,” or Ἥφαιστος =
φάεος ἵστωρ, “knower of light,” cited by Plato in Cra. 407b5 and c4. The purpose
of these etymologies was apparently apologetic: to defend and to preserve the
traditional images and functions of the gods as divine personalities, in conscious
opposition to the rationalistic and naturalistic interpretations of the ‘Anaxagore-
ans’ and Prodicus. Plato was well aware of both trends, and he mentions them
explicitly in Cra. 397a1, εἴτε τῶν ἱερέων τις εἴτε τῶν σοφιστῶν, where “priests”
primarily refers to Euthyphron, and “Sophists” to Prodicus. It would be natural to
conclude that the two versions of the philosophy of Orpheus in Plato (as above)
correspond to the hermeneutical approaches of Prodicus (the Ionian ‘Orpheus’)
and Euthyphron (the Pythagorean ‘Orpheus’).

187 Boyancé (1974) and Kahn (1997).

188 Furley (1985) 201–208.
189 Wilamowitz (1919) II, 77.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   559

Stesimbrotos of Thasos (Περὶ τελετῶν)

This attribution190 cannot be accepted for the following reasons: 1) Strictly speak-
ing, ἀρχὴν | (...) ἔ[λ]αβ[εν in PDerv., col. VIII.4–5 is determined by the Orphic
verse and does not constitute a linguistic preference of the Derveni author. Not
is only the combination of ἀρχήν/βασιλείαν with λαμβάνειν/ἀφαιρεῖν a are very
common expression (as Burkert recognized himself), but it is also attested in
similar mythographic contexts with no relation to Orphica or Stesimbrotos.191 2)
The succession Rhea/Zeus/Artemis/Athena in Stesimbrotos does not seem to be
‘Orphic’ and cannot be reconciled with the Derveni theogony; the similarities with
the Rhapsodies and especially the marriage of Zeus with Demeter/Rhea in col.
XXII point to Dionysos as the successor to Zeus. 3) Stesimbrotos was a rhapsode,
and his approach to myth in the extant fragments of Περὶ τελετῶν (FGrHist 107
F 12–20) is traditional and somewhat naïve, with no trace of philosophical inter-
est or allegorical interpretation. In the only extant sample of his etymology of a
divine name, Διόνυσος is derived from Διόνυξος, “piercing Zeus,” on the grounds
that when Dionysos was born, he was horned and therefore ‘pierced’ the thigh of
Zeus (FGrHist 107 F 13). Stesimbrotos’ method is exactly the reverse of the Derveni
author’s. He does not reduce the mythical to the rational and the commonsensi-
cal; he firmly believes in the traditional myth of Dionysos’ miraculous birth from
the thigh of Zeus. Leaving the myth as it is, he tries to bring the name of the god in
accord with it.192 He is a highly unphilosophical mind; therefore, his identity with
the Derveni author should be ruled out with certainty.

Diagoras of Melos

Richard Janko made a move in the right direction with his general view of PDerv.
as an ‘atheistic’ work rather than a piece of religious philosophy or a work by
an Orphic initiate. But the attribution to Diagoras of Melos he proposed193 lacks
documentary basis altogether and is utterly unlikely. Betegh and Winiarczyk
have submitted Janko’s hypothesis to devastating and well-argued criticism.194

190 Proposed by Burkert (1986) 5.

191 Ps.-Apollod. Bibl. 1.3.7 ff.: (Titans) τῆς δὲ ἀρχῆς ἐκβαλόντες (sc. τὸν οὐρανὸν) τούς τε
καταταρταρωθέντας ἀνήγαγον ἀδελφοὺς καὶ τὴν ἀρχὴν Κρόνῳ παρέδοσαν. (…) τὴν ἀρχὴν
ἀφαιρεθήσεσθαι, κτλ.
192 Consequently, there is no ‘similarity’ with PDerv. whatsoever, pace Novokhatko (2015) 38.
193 Janko (1997) and (2001).
194 Winiarczyk (2016) 117–126, also criticized by Betegh (2004) 373–380.
560   Andrei Lebedev

We accept as valid all their arguments except those which are based on the false
assumption that the Derveni author was an ‘Orphic’ himself. The attribution of
PDerv. to Diagoras fails to meet the basic requirements for any reliable attribution
that we formulated above in the ‘Preliminary remarks’: nothing is known about
Diagoras’ philosophical views on religion (or any other subject), and this lack of
information is not surprising given that he was not a philosopher, but a dithyram-
bic poet; and there is not a single quotation (verbatim or not) from his works that
might be cited as proof of his authorship. Janko tries to support his thesis, inter
alia, by citing two instances of the pronoun νιν in PDerv. (IV.9 and XI.3), a ‘Doric’
form that allegedly points to the Doric island of Melos. The dialect of PDerv. is
Ionic with Atticisms (see test. [17] above): this combination fits Ceos with nearby
Athens much better than Melos. As regards the instance of νιν in PDerv., Nikolai
Kazansky, an expert in Greek dialectology, comments per litteras: “The form νιν
is regarded as being of later origin (μιν is attested already in Mycenean), but it is
essential that it occurs not only in the choral lyric, but also in tragedians outside
lyrical parts. Compared with the neutral αὐτόν, -ήν this form should point to the
tradition defined as literary Doric and typical for Epidaurus. I would not venture
to determine by this form someone’s local dialect. In Attic tragedy this form is
native, not epic. In Attic inscriptions it does not occur, but still it was in use, since
only in Sophocles it occurs 80 times, and in Euripides 260, and it does occur in
stichomythia. To try to determine by this form one’s local dialect seems to me
fundamentally wrong.” The form νιν is attested in an archaic inscription from
Amorgos, another island from the group speaking the ‘Central Ionic’ dialect, to
which Ceos also belongs.195
The Clouds provide no evidence whatsoever on any philosophical work of
Diagoras. As scholiasts saw, Μήλιος in v. 830 stands for ἄθεος. Aristophanes does
not ascribe the identification of Zeus with the vortex to Diagoras, but he quotes
Prodicus by name in v. 361 as the greatest meteorosophistes and eo ipso reveals
his source. As regards Athenagoras’ report that Diagoras “divulgated the Orphic
logos” and the Eleusinian mysteries,196 most other testimonia mention only Ele-
usinan mysteries, so the profanation of the Ὀρφικὸς λόγος in this context may be
explained by the popular Athenian belief that Orpheus was the founder of the
Eleusinian mysteries and by the existence in the late 5th cent. BC of a body of epic
poetry connected with Eleusinian cults. Fritz Graf has advanced and persuasingly
argued for this hypothesis.197 In PDerv. the ‘poetry’ of Orpheus is directly linked to

195 SGDI, II, 163. On ‘Central Ionic’ see Miller (2014) 161; cf. also EAGLL, II, passim.
196 Athenag. Pro Christ. 4 (= Diag. fr. 27 Winiarczyk).
197 Graf (1974) 22 ff.; see also Bremmer (2014). On the ‘Eleusinian connection’ of PDerv., col. II
(prothymata to Eumenides) see Henrichs (1984b) 266–268.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   561

his hierourgia, i.e. to teletai (col. VII.2–3). Once we admit the authorship of Prodi-
cus, who played an important role in the intellectual life of Athens in the last third
of the 5th cent. BC, the Derveni Papyrus brings support to and a confirmation
of Graf’s hypothesis. The discussion of the mysteries in the first columns is not
a separate subject. The Derveni author (Prodicus) shares (or pretends to share)
the late 5th-cent. BC belief of the Athenians that Orpheus was the founder of the
Eleusinian mysteries and, in accordance with his view that Orpheus encoded his
wisdom both in his poetry and in the sacred rites, applies the same allegorical
method to dromena and legomena. In a manner typical for the Sophistic age,
he also cites anthropological and ethnographical ‘parallels’ from the rituals of
the Persian Magi that allegedly support his thesis.198 The main reason for doing
so was probably his conviction that the barbarians (at least some of them) were
closer to the primitive men from the Sophistic Kulturgeschichte and therefore may
have preserved some archaic features that have been lost in Greek culture. Cf.
Porph. Quaest. Hom. ad Il. 10.153, p. 285 MacPhail: ἦν δὲ τοιαῦτα τὰ παλαιὰ οἷαπερ
καὶ νῦν ἐν τοῖς βαρβάροις, “ancient beliefs were like those which still exist among
the barbarians.”199 (Incidentally this Sophistic anthropological doctrine was
‘rediscovered’ by Edward B. Tylor in his influential essay Primitive Culture that
appeared in 1870, including the theory of ‘survivals.’) In the early Greek tradition
on the Persian Magi, it is noted as a peculiar feature that they have no temples
and venerate the elements. From the similarity of the ritual performed by the
Magi with that of the Eleusinian mysteries (a τεκμήριον), the author infers that
Erinyes and Eumenides was the original name for air (ψυχαὶ = ἀήρ), like almost
all other mythological names. It is probably no accident that Aristophanes chose
the Persian cock for his parody of Prodicus’ ‘linguistic archaeology’ (see § [IX]
below).

8 (VIII) Anaxagoras and ‘Tantalos paradigm’

in Euripides’ Orestes
The restoration of the original reading of Phld. De rhet. 4, PHerc. 245, fr. 7 by
Edoardo Acosta Méndez, confirmed by Christian Vassallo in this volume,200 is
important for two reasons: first, it provides a new and unique piece of evidence

198 Ahmadi (2014) has persuasively demonstrated that the magoi in col. VI are genuine Iranian
Magi, and not Greek charlatans.
199 Cf. Arist. Poet. 25.1461a3–4: οὕτω γὰρ τότ᾽ ἐνόμιζον, ὥσπερ καὶ νῦν Ἰλλυριοί.
200 See DAPR, T7.
562   Andrei Lebedev

on Anaxagoras’ trial, namely the reference to torture not attested elsewhere, and
secondly, it provides a clue for the elucidation of two very ‘tantalizingly’ obscure
passages in Euripides’ Orestes.
Philodemus uses the trial of Anaxagoras as a case in point in a list of misfor-
tunes of philosophers who failed to persuade judges or their fellow citizens and
therefore did not escape the death penalty or exile. Two other cases in the pre-
served portion of the list are those of Pythagoras and Socrates. Nobody has ever
doubted that Socrates indeed failed to persuade the judges in his apology and
was executed, and nobody doubts the general credibility of the ancient tradition
on Cylon’s uprising against Pythagoras and on the pogroms of the Pythagorean
synedria. Therefore, there is no reason whatsoever to doubt that Anaxagoras was
flogged (μασ]|τιγωθεὶς ) during the investigation and showed the stigmata201 to
the judges at his trial (μώλω|πας ἐπεδείκνυεν | τοῖς δικασταῖς): we should accept
this as historical fact. The language of Philodemus’s source is well illustrated
in the forensic speeches of classical orators. The phrase ἐπιδείκνυμι τεκμηρίωι
(-οις), “to demonstrate by proofs (facts),” or ἐπιδείκνυμι τεκμήρια, “to present
the proofs,” occurs in Lysias, Isaeus, and Demosthenes. Anaxagoras’ stigmata
were exactly such “proof” (τεκμήριον) of his torture that he “demonstrated”
(ἐπεδείκνυεν) to the judges (presumably, showing them his back). In a speech of
Hyperides, someone refers to the stigmata on the back of one of his opponent’s

201 The noun “bruises” is too mild a translation of the Greek μώλωπες. In the lexicographers,
it is a synonym of τραῦμα, πληγή, ἕλκος (Ael. Herod. De orthogr. 3.2, GG III.2.1, p. 593 Lentz). It
is regularly and specifically associated with flogging and scourge: in Theophrastus’ Physics (fr.
176 FHS&G), it illustrates a special kind of causation, scourge being the cause, and molops the
effect ([...] ἢ τρίτον ὑπὸ ἐντελεχείᾳ ὅλως ὄντος, ὡς καὶ ὁ μώλωψ· ὑπὸ γὰρ ἐντελεχείᾳ οὔσης τῆς
μάστιγος γίνεται, [...]). The μώλωπες bleed (πορφύρεοι, ἐρυθροί, φοινικοί) and may be the cause
of death (Luc. Philops. 20). As scars, they last for a long time: Plut. Aem. 19.9; Epict. Diss. 2.18.12
speaks of μώλωπες in the soul caused by the passions, which, unless completely wiped out from
the soul, become permanent scars and after the next emotional ‘flogging’ turn into open wounds
(ἕλκη). Showing one’s μώλωπες causes compassion. Lucian (Somn. 4), after his brother beat him
with a club, shows the stigmata to his mother and accuses him of “extreme cruelty” (πολλὴν
ὠμότητα); his mother becomes outraged, etc. In Machon Com. fr. 16.285–289 Gow, the hetaera
Gnathaina, after noticing οn the back of her lover μαστιγίας μώλωπας, exclaims: τάλαν, τάλαν,
ἄνερ, πόθεν ἔχεις ταῦτ᾽, ἔφη, τὰ τραύματα;, “Oh my poor, poor boy! From where have you gotten
these wounds?” In the New Testament, μώλωψ occurs once with a reference to the “healing
wound” of Christ the Saviour (Ep. Petr. 1 2.24); St. Paul (Ep. ad Gal. 6.17) speaks of στίγματα τοῦ
Ἰησοῦ and this expression becomes standard in Patristics. The distinction between μώλωψ as ἐκ
πολέμου γινομένη πληγή and στίγμα as a wound from flogging in the grammarian Ptolemaeus
(De diff. vocab., lett. μ, 99) is not supported by the early usage.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   563

slaves to prove that he was tortured: κρεμάσας ἐκ τοῦ κίονος ἐξέδειρεν, ὅθεν καὶ
μωλώπων ἔτι νῦν τὸ δέρμα μεστὸν ἔχει.202
The torture (βάσανοι) of Athenian citizens was forbidden by law, but free aliens
were not exempt from it.203 Classical orators attest to a number of cases in which
a free alien accused of a serious offence was tortured, either to extract a confes-
sion or as a punishment.204 In other words, in some cases, they were treated like
slaves, and that was the case of Anaxagoras. Physical pain aside, imagine how
unbearable the ‘Tantalic’ torture of the humiliation that deprived him the dignity
of eleutheros must have been for Anaxagoras. What kind of confession might the
interrogators of Anaxagoras have tried to extract from him? Since according to
Diodorus/Ephorus and Plutarch, the trial targeted Pericles, it is conceivable that
in addition to the confession of his own intentional asebeia, they were looking
for accomplices and threads leading to the ‘Olympian’ himself. Anaxagoras most
likely expounded his theory on the nature of the sun and the moon in his Peri
physeos published some 20 years before the trial. In Plato’s Apology, Socrates
asserts that it could be bought by anyone for one drachma from a bookstall in the
agora.205 The word μύδρος, “nugget,” that occurs in the reports about the prose-
cution is a rare and technical term (unlike the common πέτρος or βῶλος); there-
fore it looks like a verbatim quotation from his Peri physeos that probably figured
in the accusation. This word was enough for the accusation of disrespect towards
the νομιζόμενα of the polis, but to make their case even stronger, the investigators
probably were looking for tekmeria that the asebeia of Anaxagoras and his disci-
ples did not stop there, but went even further, i.e. that after rejecting traditional
beliefs they “introduced new gods” and new cults such as the ‘meteorosophistic’
initiations satirized in Aristophanes’ Clouds. The surprising accusation of Anaxa-
goras in medismos that presented him as an undercover Persian agent in Athens
was probably based on the alleged similarity between the non-anthropomorphic
‘naturalistic’ religion of the Persian Magoi (as perceived in early Greek tradition)
and the Anaxagorean physical allegoresis of traditional Greek mythology.
Keeping these considerations in mind, let us now turn to Euripides’ Orestes.
In vv. 4–10 the “blessed” (μακάριος) Tantalos “flies in the air fearing the rock that
rises over his head”; he “pays this penalty” for his “licentious tongue” (v. 10:

202 Hyp. fr. 200 Kenyon (= Poll. Onom. 3.79.6–7). Pollux remarks that ἐκδέρω, properly “to strip
the skin from somebody” in this passage is catachrestic. It should be taken as a rhetorical hyper­
bole: he whipped the slave so fiercely that it was like stripping the skin from him.
203 See MacDowell (1978) 246–247.
204 See the list in Macdowell (1978) 274 n. 562.
205 Pl. Ap. 26e1.
564   Andrei Lebedev

ἀκόλαστον ἔσχε γλῶσσαν, αἰσχίστην νόσον).206 In vv. 982 ff., again in connection
with Tantalos, Electra mentions “a rock suspended by golden chains between
heaven and earth, a lump from Olympus carried by whirlwinds (δίναισι).” A lump
or nugget (βῶλος) is a metallurgical term, with which Euripides renders Anaxa-
goras’ μύδρος with exactly the same meaning. In both cases, the ‘rock’ of the
Tantalos myth is identified with the sun. This, combined with the Anaxagorean
motif of the ‘vortex,’ leaves no doubt that Euripides blends together the Homeric
golden chain and Anaxagoras’ astrophysics. Some modern interpreters suggest
that these passages rely on a rationalistic interpretation of the Tantalos myth that
derives from an Anaxagorean milieu.207 But it must be proved that Euripides here
relies on an intermediate source. Euripides himself was a distinguished repre-
sentative of the ‘Anaxagorean circles’ in Athens. He was a pupil and friend of
Anaxagoras, he knew his doctrines from the original source, he was a creative
poet, not a compilator, and he could freely use the doctrines of Anaxagoras in his
tragedies. Thus in Melanippe the Wise, Melanippe (another ‘ancient physiologos’)
recounts the traditional myth of the marriage of Heaven and Earth in the terms
of Anaxagorean cosmogony.208 She attributes it to “her mother,” i.e. Hippo, the
daughter of Cheiron the wise, a great culture hero and the inventor of various
τέχναι. Therefore we should listen rather to the ancient interpreters of Orestes
who attribute the rationalistic myth to Euripides himself.209 To begin with, there
is no allegoresis in these passages. The identification of the sun with an ‘ignited
lump’ was a scientific theory of Anaxagoras, and not an allegorical interpreta-
tion of a myth. In both passages, we are dealing with a parable rather than alle-
goresis, a parable about crime and punishment. Tantalos, like Melanippe, was an
ancient sage and a physiologos who held210 that the sun was a flying rock or lump
driven by a vortex (δίναισι). For this cosmological blasphemy, for his ἀκόλαστος
γλῶσσα (v. 10), he was punished by Zeus. The hyponoia for those who under-
stand ‘correctly’ is this: that is what happened in our days to Anaxagoras and
this will happen to any intellectual who dares to undermine traditional beliefs
by his ‘licentious tongue.’ The frightening ‘rock’ over the head of any physiologos

206 Eur. Or. 4 ff.: ὁ γὰρ μακάριος (κοὐκ ὀνειδίζω τύχας) / Διὸς πεφυκώς, ὡς λέγουσι, Τάνταλος /
κορυφῆς ὑπερτέλλοντα δειμαίνων πέτρον / ἀέρι ποτᾶται· κτλ. Cf. LSJ s.v. ὑπερτέλλω incorrectly
renders ὑπερτέλλω πέτρον as a rock “hanging over” Tantalos’ head. This verb is regularly ap-
plied to the rising sun, and it retains this meaning here.
207 Di Benedetto (1965) 7. Willink (1983) 32 n. 47 agrees and suggests Metrodorus of Lampsacus
as a possible source.
208 Eur. fr. 484 TrGF (Kannicht).
209 Diog. Laërt. 2.8; Schol. in Pind. Ol. 1.91 Drachmann (= Anaxag. 59 A 20 DK); Eust. In Od.
1700.60.
210 Or discovered a secret hidden by the gods from mortals?
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   565

is the permanent threat of the γραφὴ περὶ ἀσεβείας and the psephisma of Dio-
peithes, the servant of Zeus. Willink compares the “licentious tongue” with the
ἀδολεσχία of the meteorosophists like Prodicus in the Clouds, where ἀδολεσχία
is virtually a synonym of atheism (asebeia). Euripides, no doubt, shared Anaxa-
goras’ cosmological ‘blasphemy,’ but he could not acknowledge this openly:
hence the characterization of free speech as αἰσχίστη νόσος. Note, however, that
this condemnation is phrased as a common perception placed in oratio obliqua
which quotes what people say about Tantalos; Euripides distances himself from
people’s accusations (ὡς μὲν λέγουσιν) and delicately alludes to his compassion
(οὐκ ὀνειδίζω τύχας). The second crime of Tantalos, according to people’s accu-
sations, was his desire to be a commensal of the gods, and thus to be equal with
gods. This is probably a hint to the motif of the apotheosis of the philosopher
widespread in early Greek thought and attested both in the mystical apotheo­
sis and deification in the Pythagorean tradition, and in the rather metaphorical
‘equation with the gods’ of a sophos in the Ionian humanist tradition: it is no
accident that the saying ὁ γὰρ νοῦς ἐν ἡμῖν θεός is attributed to Anaxagoras.211 In
both passages, Euripides speaks about ‘Tantalos’ with sympathy and compassion
for his tortures. If Anaxagoras indeed was tortured before the trial (as we believe
he was), Euripides must have known this fact. On these grounds, we venture to
propose a hypothesis that vv. 4–10 (coupled with 982 ff.) of Euripides’ Orestes are
a cryptic makarismos of Anaxagoras under the allusive name of Tantalos as an
innocent and heroic martyr of Greek ‘Enlightenment’ (cf. μακάριος in v. 4). Like
the mythical Tantalos, Anaxagoras endured unbearable tortures for revealing
the true nature of the heavenly bodies and the origin of the universe to human-
ity. The date of the production of Orestes is 408 BC: Euripides, quite probably,
commemorates the tragic fate of his teacher and friend on the occasion of the
20th anniversary of Anaxagoras’ death (428 BC). A similar makarismos of a man
who dedicated his life to the study of the laws of nature is found in Euripides’
fr. 910 Kannicht: ὄλβιος ὅστις τῆς ἱστορίας / ἔσχε μάθησιν, / κτλ. The adjectives
μακάριος and ὄλβιος are synonymous: in both passages, alluding to Anaxagoras,
they assert that the philosophical life is incompatible with the violation of law
(ἄδικοι πράξεις) and “nasty deeds” (αἰσχρὰ ἔργα); this looks like an apology of
Anaxagoras and a refutation of the false accusations against him in asebeia.212

211 Arist. Protr. fr. 110 Düring.

212 Anaxag. 59 A 30 DK. Contrast with ἀκόλαστος and αἰσχίστη in Eur. Or. 10. If, by any chance,
the rationalist version of the Tantalos myth is not Euripides’ original creation, but antedates
Orestes (the dramatic date of Plato’s Protagoras is 424 BC), Prodicus (rather than Metrodorus of
Chios) might be considered as a source: the language of Euripides’ passage (αἰωρήμασιν, δίναισι)
recalls the language of the astronomical passages in PDerv., cols. XVII.9, XXV.4, and XXV.7
566   Andrei Lebedev

The Tantalos parable in Euripides’ Orestes is a very rare example of a meta-

phorical construction on three levels. Normally, most metaphorical analogies in
philosophical texts,213 as well as in allegorical texts or philosophical allegoresis
of poetic and mythical texts, have two levels of meaning: the iconic level (tradi-
tional text) and the referential level (philosophical interpretation). The Tantalos
parable has two iconic levels and one referential: the first iconic level (the tradi-
tional mythical narrative about the crime and punishment of Tantalos) encodes
the second iconic level (an ancient physiologos who discovers the nature of the
sun and is punished by Zeus), and finally the second iconic level encodes the
referential meaning hidden from the eyes of polloi: the tragic fate of Anaxago-
ras (cf. Eur. Or. 2: ξυμφορὰ θεήλατος), his ‘tantalic’ tortures at the trial, and a
makarismos of the philosophical bios. Why so much ‘mysticopathy’? One gets an
impression that in 408 BC the fear of being charged with impiety was still felt
by anyone who spoke about Anaxagoras’ cosmological ‘blasphemy’, his theory
about the nature of the sun: Euripides covers his sympathy and compassion with
a double layer of protection against such charges. According to MacDowell, the
prosecution of Anaxagoras and Protagoras was brought by the εἰσαγγελία proce-
dure, while the prosecution of Socrates was brought by γραφή.214 The change can
be probably explained by the fact that in 403, the entire code of laws was rein-
scribed.215 Dressler draws attentiοn to the fact that in the indictment of Socrates
by Meletus, there is no mention of the atheistic “teachings about celestial things”
(λόγοι περὶ μεταρσίων), the second charge in the decree of Diopeithes.216 There-
fore, chances are that Diopeithes’ ‘amendment’ remained in force until 403 and
was still perceived as a threat to the freedom of speech by Euripides in 408.217
A question remains to be answered: how should we understand the relation-
ship between the sobriquet ‘Tantalos’ given to Prodicus in Plato’s Protagoras and
the Tantalos parable about Anaxagoras in Euripides’ Orestes? In Plato, Prodicus’
sobriquet has the pejorative connotation of a cosmological ‘blasphemer’ similar
to the prince of ‘meteorosophists’ mocked in Aristophanes’ Clouds. In Euripides’
parable, this connotation (ἀκόλαστος γλῶσσα) is present only on the surface level

(occurrences of the verb αἰωρέομαι). Willink (1983) ibid. compares ἀκόλαστος γλῶσσα with the
ἀδολεσχία of meteorosophistai like Prodicus mocked in the Clouds. But this would not affect our
interpretation of the Tantalos paradigm in Orestes.
213 For the distinction between metaphorical and natural analogy see Lebedev (2017a) 233–235.
214 Macdowell (1978) 201.
215 Macdowell (1978) 201; Garland (1992) 145.
216 Dressler (2014) 242.
217 Contra Dressler (2014) 241, who underestimates both the applicability and the impact of the
decree. See also Yunis (1988) 68 ff. and Rubel (2014) 35–37.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   567

of encoded message and is attributed to the ignorant polloi. Euripides himself

admires ‘Tantalos’ and his scientific discoveries; he glorifies him as an innocent
martyr and another Prometheus. It is only natural that the same image and sobri-
quet of Anaxagoras and his pupil is used in the pejorative sense by his theoretical
opponents and in the positive sense by his friends and disciples. There are follow-
ing possible explanations:
1) Prodicus’ or Anaxagoras’ sobriquet ‘Tantalos’ originated in the unfriendly
milieu of Diopeithes or his followers and was meant as “the enemy of the
gods.” Plato follows this anti-Anaxagorean tradition, while Euripides rein-
terprets the image of Tantalos as another Prometheus punished by Zeus for
helping humanity in a polemical peritrope.
2) Tantalos as an allusion to Anaxagoras originates from Euripides’ Orestes.
Plato, on the basis of these two passages, makes it into a generic nickname
for the Anaxagoreans and reinterprets it in a pejorative sense. Note that the
mention of Prodicus/Tantalos in Protagoras places him as a sinner in the
underworld, whereas in Euripides he flies in the sky like a god.
3) Both Plato and Euripides rely on a common source, i.e. a rationalistic inter-
pretation of the Tantalos myth either in Protagoras’ Περὶ θεῶν or in Prodicus’
Ὧραι. It is conceivable that Tantalos may have been mentioned in Prodicus’
second stage of the origin of religion as an ἀρχαῖος φυσιολόγος and a πρῶτος
εὑρητής of astronomy, a practically useful τέχνη for agriculture and naviga-
tion (cf. PDerv., col. XXIV). The interpretation of Prometheus as the inventor
of practical skills appears together with Athena/τέχνη in § (III) above. When
Democritus accused Anaxagoras of stealing “ancient doctrines” about the
nature of the stars,218 he could not mean the Milesians since both Anaxi-
mander’s and Anaximenes’ theories of the sun are very different from that
of Anaxagoras. By ἀρχαῖοι, Democritus rather meant mythical sages like
Orpheus, Cheiron, Atlas, Tantalos, or his own ‘Leucippus’ conceived as pre-
historic scientists.219 There is no evidence that Democritus knew the work of
Prodicus, but he certainly knew the work of Protagoras, whose ideas about
religion must have been very close to those of Prodicus.

Both (1) and (3) appear more likely than (2), but in the absence of definitive evi-
dence, we would rather leave this question open for further discussion. One
practical recommendation that follows from this investigation is that the Derveni

218 Diog. Laërt. 9.34 (= Democr. fr. 159 Luria).

219 Luria (1970) 458, comm. ad Democritus’ fr. 159 Luria,  excludes Leucippus and connects
ἀρχαῖαι δόξαι with “most ancient philosophers” alluded to in Pl. Cra. 409a–b (Anaxagoras and
the Anaxagoreans).
568   Andrei Lebedev

treatise should be included in any future edition of the remains of Prodicus or

ancient Sophists to come. Setting aside the epideictic paignia-speeches of Gorgias
and a collection of conflicting moral attitudes and customs known as Dissoi logoi,
the Derveni treatise (= Horai of Prodicus of Ceos) is the only extant philosophically
important Sophistic text of considerable length. It is of primary importance not
only as a document of the Sophistic ‘Enlightenment’ and Protagorean ‘Human-
ism’ inasmuch as it provides a vivid picture of the intellectual battles between
Anaxagoreioi and Pythagoreioi during the Peloponnesian War, but also as a clas-
sical text that illustrates the fundamental (for all Sophistic thought) conceptual
opposition between physis and nomos at work. The Greek concept of nomos is
much broader than our ‘law’ and covers customs, religion, and ritual in addition
to political laws. The Sophistic art of orthoepeia, i.e. of the semantical and etymo-
logical analysis of words and divine names (parodied in Plato’s Cratylus), restores
their ‘natural’ meaning and, in doing so, deconstructs and dismisses the whole
body of the ‘conventional’ traditional myth as antediluvian nonsense, as a λῆρος
βεκκεσέληνος.220

9 (IX) More reflections of the ‘avian’ theme

in PDerv., cols. II and VI. Prodicus and
Aristophanes᾽ Ὧραι; a neglected fragment
in the Suda Lexicon. Prodicus’ linguistic
archaeology and the cock who was an ancient
king in Aristophanes’ parody in the Birds
In Adler’s edition of Suda we read: Lex., lett. Epsilon, lemma 3812 Εὐφρόνη· ἡ νύξ.
τίς τὸν μεγιστόφωνον ἔνδον τῆς στέγης ἔπεισεν ὄρνιν ὡρολογεῖν τὴν εὐφρόνην;
The quotation that illustrates the use of εὐφρόνη in the sense of ‘night’ consists
of two iambic trimeters which, as it seems, have escaped the notice both of the
editors of Suda, and of the editors of comedy fragments.

τίς τὸν μεγιστόφωνον ἔνδον τῆς στέγης

ἔπεισεν ὄρνιν ὡρολογεῖν τὴν εὐφρόνην;

220 A comic word (Ar. Nub. 398) appropriated by the Epicureans as invective against Plato’s
doctrine of the divine Nous/Demiourgos: cf. ps.-Plut. Plac. 881a.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   569

Who persuaded the loud-voiced

bird to announce the hour at night?221

The two lines apparently come from a dialogue scene in an unknown comedy.
The ‘loud-voiced’ bird is no doubt a cock. Cocks normally signal the morning hour
outside the house. The speaker who presumably wakes up at night after a crow
of a cock, whether real or imitated by someone, is indignant and demands expla-
nation by pointing to the absurdity of the situation. The suspect who ‘persuaded’
the cock to crow at night must be a Sophist or a rhetorician: it is a comic allu-
sion to Gorgias’ famous definition of rhetoric as a “maker of persuasion” (πειθοῦς
δημιουργός: Pl. Grg. 453a, 455a = 82 A 28 DK). Sophistic rhetoric can perform
wonders, even to ‘persuade’ a cock to crow at night! If so, the ‘house’ that pro-
vides the setting of the comedy seems to be a meeting place of Sophists like the
house of Callias, a favourite target of mockery in ancient comedy. The speaker
has an ‘Ionian accent’: εὐφρόνη is a poetic and Ionian word, inconceivable in
colloquial Attic. The only Sophist in the extant sources whose name is associated
with the very rare verb ὡρολογεῖν is Prodicus of Ceos. In his Lampoons (Silloi),
Timon of Phlius calls Prodicus λαβάργυρος ὡρολογητής, viz. “money-grasping
speaker-about-the-horai.” This phrase is part of a hexameter and therefore a ver­
batim quotation from the Silloi.222 The noun ὡρολογητής is an absolute hapax,
most probably a neologism coined by Timon like his numerous other bombastic
words of abuse;223 μεγιστόφωνος is also hapax.224 But the verb ὡρολογέω from
which the nickname derives was in common use: this is proved by the fragment
from comedy and by an epigram of Posidippus.225 The sobriquet ὡρολογητής is
intentionally ambiguous: it alludes at the same time to the title of Prodicus’ work

221 We take τὴν εὐφρόνην adverbially, as acc. temporis (as it is used in Hdt. 7.188), not as direct
object of ὡρολογεῖν. Note that the preceding lemma in Suda (3811) illustrates the same meaning
of εὐφρόνη by quoting (also anonymously) exactly this passage of Herodotus: ταύτην μὲν τὴν
εὐφρόνην οὕτω ἔμεινον, ἅμα δὲ ὄρθρῳ κτλ. This fact alone leads us to expect in 3812 a quotation
from a classical author.
222 Ath. 9.71.406d–e (= Tim. fr. 18 Di Marco = fr. 792 Lloyd-Jones/Parsons = Prodic. test. 9 May-
hew).
223 More than 40 new formations in 135 fragments, according to Clayman (2009) 131.
224 It cannot be found either in LSJ or in the Supplement. TLG search yields, in addition to the
Suda passage, only one instance in Tzetz. Chil. 4.4.859, where it is used for the characterization
of a proverbial ‘fool’ who all the day ‘crowed’ “alpha, beta, gamma” like another fool who could
count only up to 3, and then started again “one, two, three,” etc. The source of Tzetzes is most
likely our passage in Suda: the verb ἀνέκραζε that he uses alludes to the cock’s ‘crow’: cf. Jo.
Chrys. HEph. 4.12.3 Montfaucon (PG 62.92).
225 Posidipp. fr. 52 Austin/Bastiniani.
570   Andrei Lebedev

Ὧραι and to his provebial philargyria: he charged for his lectures “by hour.”226
Ambrose and Mayhew have advanced a plausible hypothesis that the lost comedy
Ὧραι of Aristophanes was related to Prodicus’ work with the same title; accord-
ing to Mayhew, Aristophanes’ Seasons may have been a ‘reply’ to Prodicus’ work
of the same title or contained a parody of it.227 It is hard to imagine a more appro-
priate source for our fragment than a comedy with a title Ὧραι. In Aristophanes’
Seasons, Callias indeed was mentioned; he was described as “wealthy, pathicus,
ruined by prostitues, and feeding parasites (flatterers).”228 Socrates’ associate
Chaerephon was probably one of these κόλακες. It is tempting to suggest that
the speaker in our fragment is Prodicus (or a caricature of him under a different
name) and that the comic poet puts the verb ὡρολογεῖν (along with the Ionian
word for night) into his mouth as a distinctive feature of his discourse. But even
without this suggestion, ὡρολογητής is likely to be a mocking parody of Pro-
dicus’ terminology.229 An important question that is not so easy to answer with
certainty is this: can we explain the verbal coincidence of the comedy fragment
and Timon’s Silloi by the common source (i.e. Prodicus’ Horai) or by Timon’s ‘quo-
tation’ of Aristophanes’ Horai?230 Even if Timon depends on the comedy, we lose
nothing, since in this case he explicitly identifies the speaker in the Suda frag-
ment as Prodicus.
We know from Cicero that Aristophanes “attacked new gods and the nocturnal
vigils that accompany their worship, so that in his play Sabazios and certain other
immigrant gods are expelled from the city after a trial.”231 It is probably from the
final expulsion scene that the fr. 578 PCG comes: τὸν Φρύγα, τὸν αὐλητῆρα, τὸν
Σαβάζιον. Fr. 581, the most significant of the remaining fragments, is a dialogue

226 So in the Epitome of Ath. 5.2.2 (p. 22) and Eust. In Il. 4.901.3–4 (λαβάργυρον ἔφη ὡς ἐπὶ μισθῷ
ὡρολογοῦντα) in his quotation of the Athenaeus passage: cf. Mayhew (2011) 81.
227 Ambrose (1983) 137 ff.; Mayhew (2011) App. 4, 247–248.
228 Schol. (VΔ) in Luc. Iov. trag. 48, p. 83.16 Rabe (= Ar. [Horai] fr. 583 PCG).
229 In Posidipp. fr. 52 Austin/Bastianini the verb means “to count” the days rather than “to tell”:
see the explanation of parthenos as caryatis in Fain (2010) 105. In the derivatives ὡρολογεῖον
(later ὡρολόγιον), “clocks” (used both of sun dial and klepsydra), the second element of the
compound, also means “to measure, to count,” not “to speak.” Cf. Orion Theb. Etymol., lett. Ω,
170.26–28 Sturz: Ὡρολογεῖον· λέγειν τὸ μετρεῖν. ὡρολογεῖον οὖν, ἐν ᾧ τὰς ὥρας μετροῦμεν. οὕτως
Ἀπολλώνιος ἐν Γλώσσαις Ἡροδότου.
230 On the influence of Greek comedy and especially of Aristophanes on Timon’s Silloi, see Clay-
man (2009) 124–130.
231 Cic. Leg. 2.37 (= Ar. [Horai], PCG III.2, 296, test. *ii): novos vero deos et in his colendis noc­
turnas pervigilationes sic Aristophanes, facetissimus poeta veteris comoediae, vexat, ut apud eum
Sabazius et quidam alii dei peregrini iudicati e civitate eiciantur (transl. by J. Henderson). The
expression nocturnas pervigilationes suggests νυκτιπολεῖν, νυκτιπόλοι in the original Greek, and
the last words καταδικασθέντες ἐκβάλλονται ἐκ τῆς πόλεως.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   571

between two unnamed characters: (A) is a god who promises to turn the market of
Athens into a miraculous cornucopia of all kind of fruits, vegetables, poultry, etc.
available throughout the year, even in midwinter, as a reward “for honouring the
gods” (v. 13: ἐπειδὴ τοὺς θεοὺς σέβουσιν).232 His opponent (B) is a commonsensi-
cal skeptic: he does not believe in such miracles (instead of summer fruits in mid-
winter he expects rather to see a blinding dust-wind (v. 2) and warns that seeing
gourds (a summer vegetable) in midwinter would confuse people about the time
of the year (vv. 6–7), i.e. there will be confusion in telling time (sc. ὡρολογεῖν). In
the end, the skeptic (B) accuses (A) with indignation: “you have turned Athens
into Egypt!” (v. 15: Αἴγυπτον αὐτῶν τὴν πόλιν πεποίηκας ἀντ’ Ἀθηνῶν). In earlier
scholarship, (A) has been erroneously identified as Athena. Olson is right when
he points out that the choir of Seasons would sympathize with (B) since (A) is
their enemy who wishes to abolish seasons altogether. Olson also correctly asso-
ciates the speaker (A) with the new gods and (B) with the traditional ones. The
appearance of Egypt cannot be chalked up only to the stereotype of it as the land
without seasons (Hdt. 2.77.3); according to Olson’s penetrating suggestion, “the
more substantial point is that the city has no need of Egypt’s plethora of absurd
deities.”233 While accepting Olson’s general approach, we would venture to make
a further step in the same direction by specifying precisely both the identities of
the two speakers and of the “absurd deities” of Egypt. In later authors, Sabazios
was identified with the “chthonian Dionysos,” the son of Zeus and Persephone
distinguished from the traditional Greek Dionysos, the son of Semele. This Dio-
nysos was already in 5th cent. BC associated with Orpheus’ theogony (Hieros
logos) and the myth of sparagmos of the divine child by the evil Titans: in the
so-called ‘Orphic graffiti’ from Olbia dating from the second half of the 5th cent.
BC, he is named Διόνυσος Ὀρφικός.234 The dialogue in fr. 581 is between the ‘old
good’ Dionysos of Greek myth (in whose theatre the comedy was performed) and

232 Note that ἐπειδὴ τοὺς θεοὺς σέβουσιν is not a condition, but a statement of fact.
233 Olson (2007) 107.
234 We take ΟΡΦΙΚŌΙ as dat. sing., not as nom. plur.: Διο[νύσοι] Ὀρφικοί is a prescription to
sacrifice to Dionysos Orphikos, i.e. to Dionysos of Orpheus’ Theogony, the son of Persephone,
not the son of Semele. The ugly plate cannot be a dedication to Dionysos by a collegium of ‘Or-
phics.’ Ὀρφικοί is a late term: we know that the owners of the ‘Orphic’ lamellae called themselves
μύσται καὶ βάκχοι, and not Ὀρφικοί. According to our hypothesis, the Olbian bone plates were
kleromantic devices connected with astragalomanteia (7 astragaloi of Dionysos may be depicted
on one of the plates), ancient ancestors of the Tarot cards. Their owner was probably a “diviner of
Hermes” (θεοπρόπος Ἑρμοῦ) with a ‘royal’ Persian name Φαρνάβαζος known from other Olbian
graffiti. Pharnabazos either posed as a magos or was an Orpheotelestes, or both. He probably
had some competition with a rival street-diviner called Aristoteles: we interpret two ostraka pub-
lished by Rusyayeva and Vinogradov as an exchange of angry curse letters between them. He
572   Andrei Lebedev

the outlandish newcomer, his illegal half-brother who was worshipped at night.
Aristophanes portraits him as an impostor (probably targeting Orpheoletstai and
agyrtai) who deceives the would-be worshippers with false promises of material
paradise on earth and eternal bliss in heaven (μέθη αἰώνιος, in Plato’s words)
in order to gain profit. The agon between Dionysos and Sabazios recalls the
agon of Dikaios and Adikos logos in the Clouds. It was probably staged as a trial
with Athena presiding as a judge, who, after hearing the litigation, chooses the
worship of the traditional Dionysos in her city and condemns the alien god, “the
Phrygian, the flutist, Sabazios” to exile.235 Sabazios probably was wearing a Phry-
gian cap and pictured as a wandering agyrtes and flute-player (αὐλητήρ) with
vulgar manners; Dionysos must have been portrayed as a kompsos Athenian gen-
tleman with good manners. Such contrast is suggested by the dialogue between
the two. This reconstruction of the general plot can be supported by a roughly
contemporary parallel provided by Cratinus’ comedy with the same title Ὧραι.236
In this play, Dionysos figured in person; his mistress, although abandoned by him
(like Ariadne?), still loves him; the choir hails him as μακάριος τῶν παιδικῶν (fr.
278), a rare instance of τὰ παιδικά applied to a woman. Three fragments contain
legal terms. In fr. 279, someone (probably a demagogue or rhetor) is compared
with a “vociferous Persian cock who crows all the time”: ὥσπερ ὁ Περσικὸς ὥραν
πᾶσαν καναχῶν ὁλόφωνος ἀλέκτωρ.237 Already in the 5th cent. BC, the antiq-
uity of Orpheus’ theogony was doubted by some skeptics, Herodotus and Ion of
Chios among them. Herodotus ironically remarks that the “so-called Orphic and
Bacchic” rites are in fact Egyptian and Pythagorean implying that Pythagoras
imported them much later from Egypt.238 Heraclitus, in turn, accused Pythago-
ras of stealing his wisdom from the writings of Thoth.239 Aristophanes may have

worked in the agora of Olbia in the last quarter of the 5th cent. BC near the temple of Zeus where
he lost his cards. On Pharnabazos see Lebedev (1996).
235 Two out of the scanty 13 fragments are related with a trial. In fr. 579 PCG, διέφθορας τὸν
ὅρκον ἡμῶν (“you have violated our oath”), the reference must be to the Attic διωμοσία, the
“mutual oath” of both parties before ἀνάκρισις (ἡμῶν!). The oath must have been violated by the
bad guy Sabazios: hence Dionysos is speaking. In fr. 588 δικαστικὸν ~ τριώβολον is mentioned.
236 PCG IV, frs. 269–298.
237 We follow the traditional understanding of ὁλόφωνος “vox et praeterea nihil” (LSJ) rather
than from ὀλοός + φωνή, “killing with his voice” (Meineke) . Cf. Μεγιστόφωνος in Aristophanes’
Seasons.
238 Hdt. 2.81.5–7: ὁμολογέουσι δὲ ταῦτα τοῖσι Ὀρφικοῖσι καλεομένοισι καὶ Βακχικοῖσι, ἐοῦσι δὲ
αἰγυπτίοισι, καὶ <τοῖσι> Πυθαγορείοισι.
239 Heraclit. 22 B 129 DK, reading (= fr. 22 Lebedev) (…) καὶ ἐπιλεξάμενος Τααύτου τὰς συγγραφὰς
ἐποιήσατο κτλ. for ταύτας τὰς συγγραφάς, “and having read the writings of Taautos (= Thoth),
he claimed as his own wisdom what was (in fact) much learning and a con game.”
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   573

shared the skeptical view, according to which the myth of the chthonian Dionysos
and the Titans was invented by Onomacritus, who made an interpretatio Graeca
of the Egyptian myth of Isis and Osiris and expounded it in Homeric hexameters
as a Hieros logos of Orpheus.240 A second allusion to Sabazios’ connection with
Egypt is Dionysos’ remark about the danger of a “blinding dust-wind” in Athens
(κονιορτὸν ἐκτυφλοῦντα, fr. 581.2), a picture more reminiscent of a sandstorm in
the Egyptian desert rather than of the actual weather in winter Athens.
What was the relationship between the theme of alien gods and the mockery
of the Sophists in Callias’ house in the Seasons? The Clouds suggest an obvious
answer: the common denominator was the introduction of new gods that were
subversive to the religion and morality of the polis. Chaerephon, who seems to be
the acting director of Socrates’ phrontisterion in the Clouds, is called a “child of
the night” (παῖδα τῆς νυκτός) in the Seasons, and a ‘bat’ (νυκτερίς) in the Birds.241
These passages should be linked with the mysterious cock who awakes the inhab-
itants of Callias’ house at night­time and with irrational Sabazios’ disrespect for
the rational Greek method of telling time in fr. 581. Do the inhabitants of Callias’
house wake up at night in order to participate in the nocturnae pervigilationes
of the worship of Sabazios? Did Aristophanes depict the nocturnal mysteries of
Sabazios as sexual orgies of Sophists and pornidia at Callias’ house? The scanty
remains of Aristophanes’ Seasons do not allow for a definite answer. We confine
ourselves to drawing attention to some details that might point in this direction.
Callias in the Seasons was depicted as πλούσιος καὶ πασχητιῶν καὶ ὑπὸ πορνιδίων
διαφορούμενος και κόλακας τρέφων (fr. 583). Hipponicus and Callias, the para-
digmatic father and son pair in the Seasons, mirror Strepsiades and Pheidippi-
des in the Clouds: an old-fashioned, but honest and hard-working father on the
one hand, and a morally corrupt and effeminate son, an akolastos dandy who
wastes the hard-earned fortune of his father, on the other. The only difference is
that Pheidippides wastes his father’s money on horses, and Callias on pornidia
and kolakes. The new ecstatic cult and the bohemian life-style of Callias’ salon
share one feature in common: excess in sexual activity and drinking.242 Callias

240 The Egyptian origin of the Orphica and Dionysos’ Orphikos (Sabazios, Zagreus etc.) was
recognised by both Orphic believers and non-believers: see OF 40–63. They only disagreed about
the date of this event: the believers attributed it to Orpheus himself (i.e. 14th cent. BC), and the
non-believers (Aristotle among them) to Onomacritus in the late 6th cent. BC. We side with Aris-
totle. Edmonds’ thesis of a much later ‘construction’ of Zagreus’ myth is hypercritical: the Orphic
myth of the diamelismos and Dionysos/Aides were known already to Heraclitus.
241 Ar. fr. 584 PCG; Av. 1296 and 1564.
242 Intoxication is a characteristic of the worship of Sabazios: in Ar. Vesp. 9–10 two drinking
slaves “worship the same god.” On the ecstatic mania of bacchic initiantions see Ustinova (2018)
115 ff., 124 (on Sabazios).
574   Andrei Lebedev

is described in the ancient comedy both as a womanizer and as a εὐρύπρωκτος

at the same time. Whatever the obscene imagery in Aristophanes’ invective
against Callias in the Frogs means exactly, it exposes his sexual extravaganza
and portrays him as an erotic Heracles.243 The word πασχητιῶν, most likely a
verbatim quotation from the comedy, was from Archilochus on associated with
the passive role in a homosexual relationship:244 for example, a fragment from
Aristophanes’ lost Γεωργοί mentions Callias’ relationship with Meletos.245 Unlike
most other obscene words in Greek comedy, πασχητιᾶν is a psychological term:
it describes a passion of a submissive attitude. It is this connotation that brings
it into the sphere of religious psychology: the feeling of “being possessed” by a
god is especially characteristic for βακχεία and ecstatic cults like that of Sabazi-
os.246 According to Aristophanes, this ‘pathic’ sensuality is pernicious for a man’s
moral health: it results in the loss of virility and in effeminacy.247 For Aristotle,
the Phrygian mode in music and the aulos, as opposed to other instruments, are
the most passionate and ‘orgiastic.’248 Therefore, the expulsion of the “Phrygian
flute player” Sabazios from Athens is greeted with enthusiasm in fr. 578 not just
because he is an alien, but primarily because his cult and his music are morally
subversive. Fr. 578 may also contain a personal invective against Callias who
could play flute, a rather unusual achievement for an Athenian gentleman.249 It
is conceivable that Dionysos and Sabazios were also contrasted in the comedy
as an ἀνδρεῖος and a μαλακός types respectively, the first promoting a ‘healthy’
form of heterosexual eros, associated with fertility, child-bearing, etc., and the
second promoting either sexual abstinence, or a sterile and a non-masculine
form of eros, both of which pose a threat to the polis (will Athens be turned into
an Egyptian desert because of sexual abstinence and depopulation?). Orpheus
was pictured in some versions of his myth both as a homosexual and a misogy-

243 Ar. Ran. 430. Cf. Henderson (1991) 163.

244 Archil. fr. 328.16 West: πασχητιώντων εὐρυπρώκτων σὺν γένει.
245 Ar. fr. 117 PCG (= Schol Areth. [B] Pl. Ap. 18b, p. 420 Greene: Μέλητος δὲ τραγωιδίας φαῦλος
ποιητής, (...) ἐν δὲ Γεωργοῖς ὡς Καλλίαν περαίνοντος αὐτοῦ μέμνηται (...). Kassel and Austin
(PCG III.2, 85 ad loc.) hold that the Meletus mentioned in Peasants as erastes of Callias was the
father of Meletus, the prosecutor of Socrates. Cf. Dover (1968).
246 Clem. Al. Protr. 2.34.4 (the etiological myth on the origin of phallophoria).
247 Effeminacy of homosexuals: Henderson (1991) 219 ff.
248 Arist Pol. 8.7.1342b1 ff. disagrees with Plato’s Socrates in Politeia who condemns aulos, but
still recognizes the Phrygian mode second best after the Dorian. Aristotle objects that the rela-
tionship of the Phrygian mode with other modes is the same as the relationship of the aulos with
other instruments: “both are orgiastic and passionate (…) all baccheia [poiesis] is linked to auloi”
(ἄμφω γὰρ ὀργιαστικὰ καὶ παθητικά· [...] πᾶσα γὰρ βακχεῖα [...] ἐστὶν ἐν τοῖς αὐλοῖς, κτλ.).
249 Ath. 4.84.184d. Cf. Macdowell (1962) 11.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   575

nist.250 The misogynism of Euripides’ Hippolytus (vv. 952 ff.) results from reading
too many Orphic books and chastising his body with a vegetarian diet. Inciden-
tally, Euripides was a friend and a pupil of Prodicus, and both of them were dis-
ciples of Anaxagoras and were therefore godless ‘Anaxagoreans’ in the eyes of
Diopeithes & Co. Euripides’ Hippolytus was produced in 428, in the first years
after the psephisma of Diopeithes and the trial of Anaxagoras, about the same
time as the PDerv (Prodicus’ Horai), and the very same year as Anaxagoras’ death
in Lampsacus. The chances are that the Aristophanes-style invective, unusual for
a tragedy, against an ‘Orphic’ Hippolytus with his anti-social sectarianism – along
with Theseus’, the father of the Athenian demos, egoistic obsession with personal
salvation and disrespect for Aphrodite, as well as the dismissal of Orpheus’ books
as nonsense (καπνός) – was Euripides’ message of solidarity to his Anaxagorean
friends, first of all to Prodicus and Protagoras. Alternatively, or at the same time,
it may have been a masked invective against Diopeithes & Co.: you swear by the
name of Orpheus who ἀσεβεῖ against τὰ πάτρια, as the religion of our forefathers
is based on animal sacrifice (θυσία), and not on a vegetarian diet (ἄψυχος βορά).

The date of Aristophanes’ Seasons

According to Thomas Gelzer,251 the terminus post quem of Aristophanes’ Ὧραι is

423/422 BC (Euripides’ Erechtheus), and the terminus ante quem is 399 (the death
of Chaerephon) or probably 411 (the death of Androcles). Gelzer opts for Dionysia
422 (the same year as Wasps) or Lenaia 421. Our reconstruction of the plot based
on the new fragment would be compatible with both: with the exception of
two appearances of Chaerephon’s name in Birds (vv. 1296 and 1564), most are
found in Clouds (7 instances) and Wasps (vv. 1408 and 1412), i.e. date from 423–422
BC. However, the avian theme, the parody of Prodicus’ cock, the occurence of
Chaerephon’s name, and the introduction of new divinities are also paralleled
in Birds (v. 414). Athens was known for her relative tolerance towards foreign
cults, therefore the panic and hysterical atmosphere after the mutilation of the
Herms and the profanation of the mysteries (i.e. after 415) would provide a plau-
sible context for the unusual harshness with which alien gods, like pharmakoi,
are expelled from the city in the Seasons. From the basis of this assumption, we
venture to hypothesize that the main target of the comedy was Callias (along
with his Sophistic kolakes like Prodicus and Chaerephon) and that the noc-

250 OF 1003–1004.
251 Th. Gelzer ap. RE, Suppl. XII, s.v. Aristophanes, 1408–1409. Similarly Ambrose (1983) 137.
576   Andrei Lebedev

turnal scenes following the crow of the cock alluded to the profanation of the
mysteries in a private house by means of a mocking reenactment of the Eleusin­
ian ritual. One might conjecture, for instance, that Prodicus played the role (in
allusive form) of a hierophant (like Socrates in the Clouds), Callias the role of
a dadouchos, and Chaerephon the role of a keryx. The ‘booming’ bass of Prodi-
cus (Pl. Prot. 315d) may have been comically contrasted with the squeaky voice
of Chaerephon the Bat. Callias was a hereditary torch-bearer (dadouchos) in the
Eleusinian mysteries. Andocides (1.124) accuses him of illicit cohabitation in the
same house with the daughter of Ischomachos and her mother. He sarcastically
presents this as a blasphemous reenactment of his priestly duties to serve both
“Mother and Daughter” in the cult of Eleusinian Demeter: καὶ συνῴκει ὁ πάντων
σχετλιώτατος ἀνθρώπων τῇ μητρὶ καὶ τῇ θυγατρί, ἱερεὺς ὢν τῆς Μητρὸς καὶ τῆς
Θυγατρός, καὶ εἶχεν ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ ἀμφοτέρας. Iphicrates called Callias metragyrtes
rather than dadouchos (μητραγύρτην ἀλλ᾽ οὐ δᾳδοῦχον, Arist. Rhet. 3.2.1405a20);
this joke may be a reference to Aristophanes’ Seasons, in which Sabazios wor-
shipped in Callias’ house was portrayed as metragyrtes associated with the Great
Mother.252 After the Sicilian disaster (413), ‘bad omens’ preceding the expedition
of 415 were recalled (Plut. Nic. 18), especially the lamentations of the adoniazou­
sai women and the cries Σαβάζιος (Ar. Lys. 388): thus in popular imagination,
Sabazios and other alien gods may have been blamed as scapegoats responsible
for the catastrophy. Therefore the most plausible date of the Seasons is one of
the nearest occasions after the fall of 413 BC (Lenaia 413?). The dialogue between
Sabazios and Dionysos in fr. 582 presupposes winter-time. The winter of 413/412
BC must have been one of the hardest in the history of Athens with the public
mood utterly depressed. According to Hansen’s estimate, in the Sicilian disaster
the Athenian army lost 3000 citizens, and the Athenian fleet 160 triremes each
with a crew of 200 or so, i.e. more than 30,000.253 Athens was literally depopu-
lated: the polis was turned into a desert. That is the meaning of Dionysos’ caustic
retort to Sabazios, “You have turned Athens into Egypt!” Sabazios was thought to
be the the same as Adonis (see supra), and in popular imagination, the laments
of adoniazousai women at the moment when the fleet was departing from Piraeus
may have been perceived not only as forecasting, but also as magically causing
the disaster.

252 According to Strab. 10.3.15 Sabazios is a child of the Great Mother (Meter), and Sabazia are
the same as Metroa (Strab. 10.3.18). The teletai of Aischines’ mother in Dem. 18.259–260 combine
peculiar features of Sabazios cult (cries εὐοὶ σαβοί, snakes) with what seems prima facie Bacchic
(νεβρίς, κρατηρίζω), Orphic (βίβλους), and metragyrtic (Kybele/Attis) elements. However, all
these belong to the same mystery initiation of Dionysos/Sabazios, the child of Meter, OF 577–578.
253 Hansen (1988) 15.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   577

The passage on the importance of distinguishing masculine and feminine

words in the Clouds, vv. 658–694, has been previously seen as a parody of the
Sophists, and primarily of Protagoras, who is credited with the distinction
between three different genera.254 Recently several scholars have, with good
reason, pointed out that the passage 661–669 is rather a parody of Prodicus.255
Socrates explains to Strepsiades that it is incorrect to use a common gender word
ἀλεκτρυών for both the hen and the cock; instead, one should distinguish genera
by using two different words: ἀλέκτωρ for the male bird, and ἀλεκτρύαινα for
the female (v. 666). Ἀλεκτρύαινα, properly “she-cock,”256 is a hapax and is either
a neologism of Prodicus257 or (rather) a mocking word coined by Aristophanes
ad hoc.258 Even if this word is a neologism of Aristophanes, it must be a parody
of a similar distinction made by Prodicus himself, otherwise there would be no
comic effect. Prodicus indeed may have regarded the use of common gender
words ‘incorrect’on the grounds of his principle, “no one word should have more
than one meaning.”259 But he may have proposed something less ridiculous, e.g.
ὁ ἀλέκτωρ / ἡ ἀλεκτορίς (which actually were in use). The cock was a popular
phallic and agonistic symbol both in comedy and in the cult of Dionysos260 – the
agon in the first Clouds was staged as a cockfight – and yet the highest occurence
of cock-images in the comedies that mention Prodicus by name can hardly be
accidental.261
On the grounds of these observations, it seems likely that the ornithological
excursus on the ancient history focused on the farmyard cock (Persikos ornis),262
in Aristophanes’ Birds, vv. 481–492, is a parody of Prodicus’ Seasons.263 Peisthe-
tairos argues that since the birds are more ancient than both gods and humans,
they must have also been the first rulers and kings on earth. This recalls the

254 So 80 A 27–28 DK.

255 So correctly Sansone (2004) 133; Mayhew (2011) 169; Adams (2017) 18.
256 Halliwell (2016) translates ‘cockess’.
257 So Adams (2017) 18. Kilarsky (2013) 66, following Wackernagel, ascribes the neologism to
Protagoras. Dover (1968) ad loc. and LSJ take it as a comic neologism of Aristophanes.
258 So Dover (1968) ad loc. and LSJ s.v.
259 The second of the three principles of Prodicus’ orthoepeia according to Matthew (2011) xv.
260 Csapo (2016) 142.
261 The highest number of instances of ἀλεκτρυών and variants ἀλέκτωρ, ἀλεκτρύαινα is attest-
ed in Aristophanes’ Clouds and Birds, viz. the only two comedies in which Prodicus is mentioned
by name: cf. Nub. 4, 661, 663, 664, 666–667, 848–849, 851–852, 1427, 1430; Av. 71, 483, 1366; also
Vesp. 100, 794; Ran. 939, 1343; Lys. 897; Eccl. 391.
262 Gallus gallus domesticus. On this see Dunbar (1995) ad loc.
263 Ar. Av. 481 ff.: ὡς δ’ οὐχὶ θεοὶ τοίνυν ἦρχον τῶν ἀνθρώπων τὸ παλαιόν, / ἀλλ᾽ ὄρνιθες,
κἀβασίλευον, πόλλ᾽ ἐστὶ τεκμήρια τούτων / κτλ.
578   Andrei Lebedev

euhemeristic second stage in Prodicus’ theory of the origin of religion. The theory
is “proved” (ἐπιδείξω) by empirical facts (τεκμήρια). Τεκμήρια were of primary
importance not only in the courts and in rhetoric, but also in Hippocratic medi-
cine and (pace Popper) in early Ionian Peri physeos historia.264 Like the Derveni
author and Prodicus, Peisthetairos resorts to ‘linguistic archaeology.’ The Derveni
author looks for the tekmeria that are ‘remnants’ of the beliefs of the ἀρχαῖοι not
only in ‘ancient poetry’ and in ritual, but also in proverbial expressions (φάτις)
like μοῖραν ἐπικλῶσαι or ἀφροδισιάζειν. Peisthetairos finds such a tekmerion in
the Greek name of the farmyard cock Περσικὸς ὄρνις. He indeed was an ancient
king of the Persians, “more ancient that Darius and Megabyzus,” as one may infer
(τεκμαίρεσθαι) from his upright comb (the upright cap was a privilege of the Great
King) and his royal power to wake up people of all professions. This may be com-
pared with the μεγιστόφωνος ὄρνις and ὡρολογεῖν in the comedy fragment cited
above. The list of craftsmen adduced as proof of the royal power of the cock looks
like a parody of Prodicus’ reference to τέχναι. Note that ἀλφιταμοιβοί are likely to
be the same as γεωργοί, for as Dunbar’s (1995) notes ad loc., in 5th-cent. Athens,
producers and sellers were as a rule the same.

10 (X) The three ‘Heraclitizing’ passages in

PDerv., cols. V, XX, and XXII
Apart from the direct quotation from Heraclitus in col. IV, there are three other
passages that display a striking similarity of the Derveni Papyrus with Heraclitus’
language and style. As in the case of the Hippocratic De diaeta 1, we face the
problem of differentiating between possible verbatim quotations (single words,
phrases, or continuous text), paraphrases, references, or simply imitation of
Heraclitus’ style. The elevated and exquisite language of PDerv., cols. V, XX, and
ΧΧΙΙ differs significantly the plain and calm ‘commentary’ style of the rest of the
text. It has a rhetorical ‘Gorgianic’ flavor (antithesis, homoioteleuton) and is full of
moralistic sarcasm and exposition of the idiocy of hoi polloi, combined with the
aplomb of a ‘Master of truth’ typical for Heraclitus.265

264 On τεκμαίρεσθαι as empirical method in Alcmaeon and early Greek science, see Lebedev
(2017c).
265 ‘Gorgianic’ need not be restricted to Gorgias himself: on the influence of Heraclitus’ anti-
thetic style on Gorgias, Hippias, and Democritus, see Norden (19582) I, 18–23.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   579

According to our reconstruction of the third chapter of Heraclitus Peri physeos

(Λόγος θεολογικός according to Diodotus),266 it began by recognizing the difficulty
of the subject matter, asserting that all those who have written περὶ θεῶν have failed
(Hesiod, Xenophanes, Pythagoras, and Hecataeus). The chapter consisted of two
parts, with both a deconstructive and a constructive section: a) a devastating crit-
icism of Greek anthropomorphic polytheism, of Bacchica, of mystery initiations,
cathartic rituals, etc.; b) the exposition of a new philosophical theology of the Wise
Being (τὸ Σοφόν) and cosmic Mind (Γνώμη). This new religion was strictly mono-
theistic and was based on the Heraclitean Logos theory and Fire cosmology exposed
in chapter 1 (Περὶ τοῦ παντός). The Persian Magoi may have been mentioned in this
section, too. Therefore, it seems a priori likely that if cols. V and XX contain hidden
quotations or paraphrases of Heraclitus, the source must be the proem and the first
deconstructive part of Heraclitus’ theological chapter. Heraclitus demolished the
anthropomorphic polytheism of the poets by means of the etymological allegoresis
of divine names and by attributing the ‘linguistic mistake’ of mortals (who believed
in many gods because they failed to understand the absolute unity and the palin­
tropos harmonie of the cosmos) to the poets, first of all to Homer and Hesiod. Hesiod
was a total idiot because he did not know that Day and Night are not separate enti-
ties, but two phases of the process, of “kindling and going out” of the same single
substrate, the ever-living fire. Just as in Parmenides, the plurality of phenomena
derives from the wrong distinction between opposites in language (linguistic ideal-
ism or linguistic relativism). Let us have a closer look at each of the three passages.

PDerv., col. V.6–13 (my readings, partially different from KPT)

ἆρ’ Ἅιδου δεινὰ τί ἀπιστοῦσι; οὐ γινώσ[κοντες ἐ]νύπνια

οὐδὲ τῶν ἄλλωμ πραγμάτων ἔκαστ[ον,] διὰ ποίων ἂν
παραδειγμάτωμ π[ι]στεύοιεν; ὑπὸ [τῆς] ἁμαρτ<ί>ης
καὶ [τ]ῆς ἄλλης ἡδον[ῆ]ς νενικημέν[οι, οὐ] μανθ[άνο]υσιν
10  οὐδὲ] πιστεύουσι. ἀ[πι]στίη δὲ κἀμα[θίη ταὐτόν· ἢν γὰρ
μὴ μα]νθάνωσι μη [δ]ὲ γινώ[σ]κωσ[ι, οὐκ ἔστν ὅπως
πιστεύσου]σι ν καὶ ὁρ[ῶντες ἐνύπνια
τ]ὴν ἀπιστί[ην

266 Cfr. frs. 136–160 Lebedev; also theological Probabilia, frs. 10–15 Lebedev. The source of Dio-
genes Laërtius’ division of Heraclitus’ books into three logoi (9.5) is most probably Diodotus, as in
the description of its scope (9.15). We refute the mistaken view that this division is Stoic: in Stoic
thought, theology is a part of physics, and politics is a part of ethics. The differences do not stop
here: the first chapter Περὶ τοῦ παντός combines Logos theory and Fire cosmology, i.e. logic and
physics, and ethics is a part of politics in ch. 2. Cf. Lebedev (2014) 22–27.
580   Andrei Lebedev

Cf. Heraclit. 22 B 17 DK (= fr. 5 Lebedev): οὐ γὰρ φρονέουσι τοιαῦτα πολλοί, ὁκόσι

ἐγκυρεῦσιν, οὐδὲ μαθόντες γινώσκουσιν, ἑωυτοῖσι δὲ δοκέουσι; B 5 (= fr. 144
Lebedev): (...), οὔ τι γινώσκων θεοὺς οὐδ’ ἥρωας οἵτινές εἰσι; and especially B
86 (= fr. 136 Lebedev): ἀλλὰ τῶν μὲν θείων τὰ πολλά, καθ’ Ἡράκλειτον, ἀπιστίῃ
διαφυγγάνει μὴ γιγνώσκεσθαι. The context of Plutarch’s quotation (Coriol. 38)
seems to be authentic267 and echoes Heraclitus’ σοφόν ἐστι πάντων κεχωρισμένον
(B 108). The axynetoi (B 1 ~ B 34) fail to recognize and to believe in the only true
god because he is totally different from all others (he is ‘incredible’ for them),
and it is much easier to believe in the familiar human-like gods of the poets. The
apistia motif is also attested in Clement’s quotation of B 19 (= fr. 10 Lebedev):
ἀπίστους εἶναί τινας ἐπιστύφων Ἡράκλειτός φησιν· ἀκοῦσαι οὐκ ἐπιστάμενοι οὐδ᾽
εἰπεῖν.268 Essentially this fragment states the same idea as in PDerv., col. V.10:
ἀ[πι]στίη δὲ κἀμα[θίη ταὐτόν. The disbelief (ἀπιστία) in one true god results from
the ignorance and inability to understand (ἀμαθία), i.e. from the inability of poets
to understand the unity of being. In Heraclitus’ epistemology, μανθάνω means
“empirical acquaintance” with an object, which may or may not be accompanied
by understanding (γιγνώσκω), a superior cognitive state. The ἄπιστοι are the
same as ἀξύνετοι in Heraclitus’ B 1 (= fr. 2 Lebedev): the word may have a con-
notation of “disloyal,” “unfaithful” because they fail to recognize and to follow
(ἕπεσθαι) the divine xynos logos of B 114 (= fr. 131 Lebedev) who is the Father and
Master of all, gods and men. The peculiar use of ἄλλης in PDerv., col. V.9 also
speaks in favour of the possibility of a verbatim quotation from Heraclitus: ἄλλης
cannot mean “another pleasure,” since “error” is not a “pleasure”; the word has
here a rare meaning “other than right,” “bad” (LSJ s.v. ἄλλος III, 4, cf. s.v. ἄλλως
ΙΙ, 3). This usage is unparalleled elsewhere in PDerv., but it can be compared
with Heraclitus’ B 5 (= fr. 144 Lebedev): καθαίρονται δ᾽ ἄλλωι αἵματι μιαινόμενοι
κτλ., “in vain purify themselves those polluted by blood (...).” ‘Vain pleasures’
or ‘bad pleasures’ in Heraclitus’ puritanic ethics are the pleasures of Aphrodite
and Bacchus, which cause the sensual ‘wetness’ of the soul and impede clarity
and precision of thought: τίς γὰρ αὐτῶν νόος ἢ φρήν; (B 104 = fr. 130 Lebedev). In
our commentary on Heraclitus (Lebedev [2014] 449), we argue that the image of
bacchants who “sing a song” to phallos in B 15 (= fr. 148 Lebedev) is an allegorical
parable about humanity connected with his pessimistic condemnation of child-
bearing in B 20 (= fr. 78 Lebedev): the bacchants think that the phallus is a symbol

267 We do not mean that it is a verbatim quotation. By “authentic context” of a philosophical

fragment we mean that the writer who quotes it correctly understands it in a thematically relevant
context. The authentic context shoud be distinguished from an accidental and irrelevant one.
268 Clem. Al. Strom. 2.24.5. The authenticity of this fragment is wrongly denied by Marcovich
(20012) ad loc., who prints it (fr. 1 [g]) as an allusion to B 1. Correctly DK, Kahn, and Conche.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   581

of life and procreation, but in fact they worship the god of death, whose name
in hidden in αἰδοῖον, and “generate new deaths.” In other words, they commit a
ἁμαρτία. The chances are that the Derveni author’s interest in wineless libations
(ἄοινα) in the first columns of PDerv. is a reflection of Heraclitus’ anti-alcoholic
and anti-Bacchic exhortations.
From the convergence of Chalcidius’ evidence with the Hippocratic De diaeta
1, we can infer that Heraclitus admitted the possibility of divination and believed
in prophetic dreams.269 After Tsantsanoglou (1997), the author of PDerv., col.
V.4 (πάριμεν [εἰς τὸ μα]ντεῖον ἐπερ[ω]τήσ[οντες, “we enter an oracle in order to
ask a question”) has often been understood as a mantis or a religious specialist
himself,270 but this understanding is contradicted by the verb ἐπερ[ω]τήσ[οντες:
diviners do not ask questions, they answer them. We could not find a single
instance of ἕνεκα in the sense of “for the sake of others” using various whole
corpus proximity TLG searches for ἕνεκα with various verbs meaning “to ask an
oracle” and nouns meaning “oracular response.” In all instances we found, ἕνεκα
(or its synonym χάριν) in similar contexts refers to the purpose of consulting an
oracle (syn. περὶ ὧν), but never means “for the sake of somebody”271 The words
τῶν μαντευομένων ἕνεκα therefore mean “for the sake of prophecies,” and not
“for the sake of inquierers.”272 The “we” in the pluralis πάριμεν refers not to a
certain group or a corporation, but to general human habits. Greek philosophers,
especially moralists, use we when they speak about common habits, practices,
or experiences of people in general. Consider, for example, Heraclit. 22 B 21 DK
(= fr. 77 Lebedev): θάνατός ἐστιν ὁκόσα ἐγερθέντες ὁρέομεν, κτλ., “death is what
we see while being awake, (…),” and Arist. Εth. Νic. 2.3.1104b9: διὰ μὲν γὰρ τὴν
ἡδονὴν τὰ φαῦλα πράττομεν, διὰ δὲ τὴν λύπην τῶν καλῶν ἀπεχόμεθα. Examples
can be multiplied. In the latter quotation, the speaker probably does not even
include himself into his “we.” It would be preposterous to infer from this use of

269 Chalcid. In Tim. 260.20–261.2 Waszink (= 22 A 20 DK = fr. 123[a] Lebedev). Cf. Hippoc. De

diaet. 12.2 ff.: μαντικὴ τοιόνδε· τοῖσι φανεροῖσι μὲν τὰ ἀφανέα γινώσκειν, (...) καὶ τοῖσι ἀποθανοῦσι
τὰ ζῶντα, κτλ.
270 Contra Johnston (2014) 89 ff. The parallels quoted by Kouremenos, ad loc. do not support
this inference, either, since both in Herodotus and Euripides the phrase is applied not to the
Pythia, but to ordinary consultants.
271 Schol. in Pind. Pyth. 4.10 Drachmann (= FHG IV 1a1–4): περὶ τῆς τοῦ Βάττου εἰς τὸ μαντεῖον
ἀφίξεως (...). οἱ μὲν γὰρ ἕνεκεν τῆς φωνῆς φασιν αὐτὸν ἐλθεῖν, κτλ.; Nic. Damasc. FGrHist 90 F 8:
(Laios and Epicaste had no children) τούτων ἕνεκα εἰς Δελφοὺς χρησόμενος τῷ μαντείῳ ἀφίκετο
κτλ.; Eur. Ion 301: πότερα θεατὴς ἢ χάριν μαντευμάτων; Parthen. Myth. Narrat. amat. 3.1.3:
(Ὀδύσσευς) εἰς Ἤπειρον ἐλθὼν χρηστηρίων τινῶν ἕνεκα κτλ.; Schol. in Soph. OT 114.1–2 Longo:
<θεωρούς> φασι τοὺς εἰς τὰ μαντεῖα ἀπιόντας τοῦ μαθεῖν ἕνεκα περὶ ὧν αὐτοῖς ἐστι ζήτησις.
272 Correctly Janko and Kotwick (2017) 132, contra KPT.
582   Andrei Lebedev

“we” that Aristotle indulged in pleasures and abstained from noble behavior. The
sentence under discussion in PDerv., col. V.3–6 may well have been an interro-
gation (with an expected negative answer) in a series of rhetorical questions.273
From the moralistic condemnation of their ἁμαρτία and ἡδονή, one may
rather infer that he disapproved of their habit of consulting oracles. The Hippo-
cratic author of De diaeta admits that dreams may have prognostic value but dis-
courages his reader from going to interpreters of dreams because they often make
mistakes (ἁμαρτία). Instead, he advises the reader himself to interpret the signs of
health and disease in their dreams following his naturalistic guidelines.274 There
are reasons to suppose that Heraclitus also believed that he possessed an inter-
nal, personal Delphic oracle in his psyche: ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν (B 101 = fr. 97
Lebedev). There are indications in the Heraclitean tradition that he interpreted
the most horrible of τὰ δεινά in Hades as an allegory of the actual moral condi-
tion of humanity, and the authors who quote this allegory repeatedly connect
the “filth” with ἡδονή and ὕες who βορβόρωι ἥδονται μᾶλλον ἢ καθαρῶι ὕδατι.275
In the Republic, Plato says that the dialectical method elevates the “eye of the
soul” buried in “barbaric filth” and raises it up: ἡ διαλεκτικὴ μέθοδος (...) τῷ ὄντι
ἐν βορβόρῳ βαρβαρικῷ τινι τὸ τῆς ψυχῆς ὄμμα κατορωρυγμένον ἠρέμα ἕλκει καὶ
ἀνάγει ἄνω, (...) (Resp. 7.533c7 ff.). Hermann Fränkel plausibly suggested that τῷ
ὄντι indicates a verbatim quotation (“indeed,” i.e. “as they say”) and identified
the source as Heraclitus.276 A striking parallel is provided by Plot. Enn. 1.6 (1).6.1
ff.: ἔστι γὰρ δή, ὡς ὁ παλαιὸς λόγος, καὶ ἡ σωφροσύνη καὶ ἡ ἀνδρία καὶ πᾶσα
ἀρετὴ κάθαρσις καὶ ἡ φρόνησις αὐτή. διὸ καὶ αἱ τελεταὶ ὀρθῶς αἰνίττονται τὸν μὴ
κεκαθαρμένον καὶ εἰς Ἅιδου κείσεσθαι ἐν βορβόρῳ, (...)· οἷα δὴ καὶ ὕες, οὐ καθαραὶ
τὸ σῶμα, χαίρουσι τῷ τοιούτῳ. κτλ. The “ancient logos” quoted by Plotinus is
almost certainly the word of Heraclitus. Since Heraclitus in B 14 (= frs. 146–147
Lebedev) condemns the mysteries accepted among men as unholy and threat-
ens the Bacchic initiates with punishment, it seems that he paradoxically rein-
terpreted the image of sinners “buried in filth” that refers to future punishment
as a moralistic allegory of the present condition of humanity. The ethical topos
characterizing a vicious person as a δοῦλος τῶν παθῶν is alluded to in PDerv., col.

273 E.g. ἆρα] (Lebedev) πόθωι  (Janko) π[ερ]ὶ (Lebedev) | αὑτοῖς πάριμεν [εἰς το μα]ντεῖον
ἐπερ[ω]τήσ[οντες,] |5 τῶν μαντευομένων [ἕν]εκεν, εἰ θέμι[ς προσ]δοκᾶν (Piano) | ἐν Ἅιδου δεινά;
τί ἀπιστοῦσι; “Do we by regret [or “disquietude”] about ourselves ever consult an oracle for the
sake of prophecies, in order to ask whether it is righteous to expect the horrors in Hades? Why
do they do not believe?”
274 Hippoc. De diaet. 1.87–88.
275 Heraclit. 22 B 13 [II] DK (= fr. probab. 10 Lebedev).
276 Fränkel (1938) 311 ff.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   583

V.9 ([τ]ῆς ἄλλης ἡδον[ῆ]ς νενικημέν[οι). It fits perfectly with Heraclitus’ strongly
anti-hedonistic ethics of σωφρονεῖν, which is proclaimed the ἀρετὴ μεγίστη in B
112 (= fr. 100 Lebedev).
We encounter the same epistemological scale of cognitive faculties ἀκούειν
(ἰδεῖν)/μανθάνειν/γινώσκειν (i.e. sensation/experience/knowledge) in PDerv.,
col. XX. Rusten explained the paragraphos at XX.10 as a mark of the end of a
quotation (preceding ll. 1–10) from a prose writer.277 This remains a plausible sug-
gestion, or at least a serious possibility.278 Along with the ‘Gorgianic’ flavour of
the exquisite style of this column, this suggestion can be supported by the use of
the word γνώμη on col. XX.10 (καὶ τῆς γνώμης στερόμενοι πρὸς ἀπέρχονται). In
early Ionian prose (Hippocrates, Herodotus), γνώμη was often used in the sense
of “intelligence, mind” as distinguished from or opposed to the “body” or the
senses. This use of the word was well known to Galen, who comments on one
such instance in Hippocrates: τῶν αἰσθήσεων ἁπάσαις τὴν γνώμην ἐφεξῆς ἔταξεν,
ὅπερ ἐστὶ τὴν διάνοιαν, ἥν τε καὶ νοῦν καὶ φρένα καὶ λόγον κοινῶς οἱ ἄνθρωποι
καλοῦσιν.279 What was known to Galen has often been neglected by many inter-
preters of Heraclitus, who mistranslated this word280 in what is probably the most
important theological fragment of Heraclitus: “To recognize only one wise being
(= god): that Mind (Γνώμην) which alone steers the whole Universe.”281 In Attic

277 Rusten (1985) 138–139.

278 Despite the reservations of Obbink (1997) 44–46; KPT, 242.
279 Gal. In Hippoc. Off. Med. 18b.649.16–18 Kühn. Galen (ibid., 18b.656 Kühn) quotes parallels
from Antiph. 87 B 1 DK (ὄψει ὁρᾷ vel γνώμῃ γιγνώσκει) and B 2 DK (γνώμη τοῦ σώματος ἡγεῖται).
280 Often mistranslated as “thought” (KRS), “true judgement” (Kirk), “Gedanken” (DK). Kahn’s
“plan” does not hit the mark, either, but at least captures the ‘providential’ connotation inherent
in the “mind.” Gnome is the “planning mind” of the cosmos. Marcovich came closer to truth,
but still hesitated between “thought” and “intelligence.” It is interesting and instructive that
19th-cent. scholars who were not blinded by the myth of Stoic distortions of Heraclitus perfectly
understood the true meaning of the word: Bernays translated as “Intelligenz” and Diels in his
Herakleitos as “Vernunft.” On the origin of the tradition of the wrong translation in the early 20th
cent. (Heidel and Reinhardt followed by Gigon and Kirk), see Marcovich (20012) ad loc. Anaxago-
ras took his concept of the cosmic mind from Heraclitus. A question might be raised whether the
Derveni author (Prodicus) derived his notion of the cosmic nous from Anaxagoras, Heraclitus, or
from both. The Anaxagorean tradition (as modified by Archelaus) must be his main source, but
col. IV in our reconstruction makes Heraclitus a possible secondary source.
281 22 B 41 DK (= fr. 140 Lebedev) ap. Diog. Laërt. 9.1: ἓν τὸ σοφὸν ἐπίστασθαι· Γνώμην ἥτε οἴη
ἐκυβέρνησε πάντα διὰ πάντων (ἥτε οἴη scripsi). Note that Γνώμη is a common word for “mind, in-
telligence” in Corpus Hippocraticum (101 instances). It has been often mistranslated as “thought”
or “plan” due to the wild text printed in DK. The form ὁτέη is not only unattested, but it also
cannot be even imagined. In the first edition of Herakleitos, Diels correctly translated γνώμη as
“Intelligenz,” as did Bernays. Cf. Vassallo (2017a).
584   Andrei Lebedev

4th-cent. BC philosophical prose, the standard word became νοῦς. Although

Anaxagoras wrote in the Ionian dialect, he most likely adapted his usage to the
Attic norm to avoid confusion. The Derveni author follows Anaxagoras and the
Axagorean tradition in his use of γνώμη; in two other instances of the word in
PDerv., it means “thought” or “meaning.”282 The initiates leave the telesterion
after having been deprived of their mind, like μαινόμενοι: the ‘madness’ of the
axynetoi is a moralistic topos in Heraclitus, who describes popular religion,
politics, and poetry as insane. In Theophrastus, the deisidaimon after a visit to
an Orpheotelestes “remains out of his mind the whole day” (ἀφρονεῖν ὅλην τὴν
ἡμέραν).283 Can a line containing this semantical hapax in PDerv. accidentally be
marked by a paragraphos?284
Let us turn now to PDerv., col. XXII.1–6. We have analysed the meaning of
ὁμοίω[ς ὠ]νόμασεν in XXI.1 in § (II) above. Note the rhetorical combination of an
antithesis (πάν[τ’ ... ταὐτά ~ οὐδαμὰ ταὐτά) with a homoioteleuton (ὑπὸ πλεονεξίας,
τὰ δὲ καὶ ὑπ’ ἀμαθίας) which may be compared with Heraclitus’ 22 B 129 DK (= fr.
22 Lebedev): σοφίην, πολυμαθίην, κακοτεχνίην. In B 95 (= B 109 = fr. 127 Lebedev),
Heraclitus sarcastically advises his opponents “to conceal their ignorance rather
than to expose it” (κρύπτειν ἀμαθίην κρέσσον ἢ ἐς τὸ μέσον φέρειν).285 The fact
that the word πλεονεξία does not occur in the extant fragments of Heraclitus must
be attributed to chance: πλεονεξία is the opposite of δικαιοσύνη and belοngs to
the same semantical field as κόρος and κεκόρηνται. One of the main points of
Heraclitus’ political cosmology was to show that in the polis of Zeus there is no
pleonexia, as is shown by the regular tropai of the sun, etc. In addition to these
similarities with Heraclitus, ll. 1–6 of PDerv., col. XXII contain a summary expo-
sition of Heraclitus’ philosophy of language, including functionalist semantics

282 PDerv. cols. XI.2; XXIII.7.

283 Theophr. Char. 16.10–11a Steinmetz.
284 The word γνώμη in PDerv., col. XX.10 is incorrectly interpreted as “hope” in KPT, 241 on the
assumption that it must have the same meaning as ἐλπίς in l. 12: γνώμη never means “hope”;
such a meaning is unattested. The author ironically claims to feel pity for those who are initi-
ated by private ‘professionals’ because, in addition to losing their money, they also lose their
mind and their hope (belief) in a blessed afterlife. Heraclitus uses ἔλπομαι for beliefs about the
afterlife: 22 B 27 DK (= fr. 145 Lebedev: ἀνθρώπους μένει ἀποθανόντας ἅσσα οὐκ ἔλπονται οὐδὲ
δοκέουσι). In our reconstruction of the theological chapter of Heraclitus’ book, this fragment
precedes B 14 (= frs. 146–147 Lebedev) with the criticism of mysteries. In B 18 (= fr. 157 Lebedev:
ἐὰν μὴ ἔλπεται ἀνέλπιστον κτλ.), the verb ἔλπομαι also refers to the afterlife, and τὸ ἀνέλπιστον
is the immortality and apotheosis of the philosopher. Cf. Vassallo (2006) and, from a doxograph-
ical perspective, Mansfeld (2015).
285 Ιn Lebedev (2014) 433–434 we defend the authenticity of Stobaeus’ version including the
words ἢ ἐς τὸ μέσον φέρειν, contra Diels. The expression ἐς τὸ μέσον φέρειν (or λέγειν) may
allude both to the speeches of orators and to public recitals of poets in agones.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   585

in the theory of names and his doctrine of the “common Logos,” which, due to
the poets’ misreading of it, resulted in the invention of polytheism.286 The verb
κρατιστεύειν, like its Homeric synonym ἀριστεύειν (αἰὲν ἀριστεύειν, Il. 6.208;
11.784), is often used in an agonistic context, therefore κρατιστεύοντες (...)
λέγουσι most likely refers to prize-winning poets like Homer and Archilochus who,
according to Heraclitus’ wish in 22 B 42 DK (= fr. 17 Lebedev), should be “thrown
out from competitions and flogged” (ἐκ τῶν ἀγώνων ἐκβάλλεσθαι καὶ ῥαπίζεσθαι).
In PDerv., col. XXII.1–6, the poets’ incorrect naming of the gods is contrasted with
Orpheus’ correct  onomatothesia. The false naming results in “many names” of
different gods (i.e. polytheism), while the correct method recognizes one and the
same entity behind “many names” (i.e. monotheism): cf. Aesch. PV 210 (πολλῶν
ὀνομάτων μορφὴ μία) and Antisth. test. 179a Prince (= fr. 39a Decleva Caizzi ap.
Phld. De piet., PHerc. 1428, fr. 21.31–34 Schober: (...) λέγεται τὸ | κατὰ νόμον εἶναι |
πολλοὺς θεοὺς κα|τὰ δὲ φύσιν ἕν[α]). The “ignorance” (ἀμαθία) of poets concern-
ing “things divine” (τὰ θεῖα is the object of ἀπιστία in Heraclit. 22 B 86 DK = fr.
136 Lebedev) is a result of a fatal error (ἁμαρτ<ί>ης , col. V.8), which corresponds
exactly to what we have called the ‘linguistic mistake’ of mortals aka the ‘disease
of language.’ Orpheus’ onomatothesia is based on knowledge and understanding
(γινώσκων, col. XXII.2), whereas poetic discourse is based on emotion (θυμόν, col.
ΧΧΙΙ.5) and drinking too much: according to Heraclitus’ moral psychology, sex and
wine make the soul ‘wet’ and impair human intelligence (φρόνησις) and sound
judgement (γνώμας). Plutarch quotes Heraclitus’ dictum about ἀμαθία 4 times;
in two out of four quotations, ‘ignorance’ is linked with drinking wine (Quaest.
conv. 644a1, παρ’ οἶνον; fr. 129 Sandbach, ἐν οἴνῳ). It is by no means surprising
that an ‘atheistic’ declaration of such iconoclastic force, which proclaims that all
traditional gods of Greek religion are merely “empty names” and definitely liable
to γραφὴ ἀσεβείας, is veiled by cryptic language and disguised as innocent talk
about poetry. It seems that Heraclitus criticised not only Greek religion in ch. 3
and Greek politics in ch. 2, but also ordinary Greek language in ch. 1 of his poem.
He claims to speak κατὰ φύσιν, to reform ordinary language, e.g. by avoiding the
verb εἶναι when describing the phenomenal, and by omitting the conjunction καί
between opposites, etc. Chances are that when he refers to people whose logoi (cf.
λέγουσι in col. XXII.4) are various and wishful, the author means the poets who
created anthropomorphic polytheism; these poets are contrasted with Orpheus,
who named everything according to the same principle, κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν λόγον.
However, this passage looks like a summary exposition of Heraclitus’ philosophy
of religion and language (with some authentic terms) rather than a verbatim

286 Lebedev (2014) 61–71, 103–114, and (2017a).

586   Andrei Lebedev

quotation. What about the ‘Heraclitizing’ passages in cols. V and XX? It is difficult
to decide between a verbatim quotation and a paraphrase. Both the paragraphos
in PDerv., col. XXII.11 and the vicinity of Heraclitus’ direct quotation in col. V make
the possibility of a verbatim quotation more likely than in the case of col. XXII. We
would not take the risk of including these three passages in the main corpus of
Heraclitus’ fragments. But they may and should be included in a separate section
of Fragmenta probabilia or at least under the heading ‘Imitations.’

11 (XI) Some conjectures on the origin of the

Derveni Papyrus: Euripides’ library in Pella
as an intermediate link between Athens
and Lete (Derveni)?
The question of whether the papyrus found near Derveni’s grave A was a kind of
funeral offering, a magical epistomion connected with ‘Orphic’ (i.e. Bacchic) ini-
tiations or just a torch used to light the funeral pyre may never be finally resolved
since we do not know for certain who placed it there and why he did so. Our
attribution and interpretation of the text prima facie seems to support the more
skeptical view, but let us not jump to conclusions before considering two possi-
ble scenarios: (1) the papyrus roll was a personal belonging of the dead and was
used in the funeral ceremony according to his will; (2) the decision to use it at
funerals and deposit it in the grave was made by someone else after his death.
This is further complicated by the following dilemma two interpretative options:
(a) the owner of the papyrus (= the dead) understood the purpose and philosoph-
ical contents of the text; (b) the owner was a ‘naïve’ reader who took the alleged
“wisdom of Orpheus” at face value.
Scenario (1+a) is unlikely, since in such case the owner would not attach any
religious significance to the papyrus. Scenario (1+b) is equally unlikely, since no
Orphic or Bacchic initiate would burn quotations from a Hieros logos of Orpheus.
We are left with scenario (2). “Someone else” in this situation is most probably
the relatives of the dead. There is an obvious contradiction between the high
intellectual and educational level indicated by the possession and knowledge of
such books as Prodicus’ history of religion, on the one hand, and the apparent
‘magical’ and superstitious (δεισιδαίμων from the point of view of any educated
Greek) act of burning a rare book that points to a low-culture and poorly educated
milieu, on the other. One may guess, modifying Tzifopoulos’ suggestion, that the
relatives of the dead, very simple people who believed in the magical power of
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   587

epistomia, driven by grief and expressing thus their love towards the deceased,
decided to use a book from his library as a funeral torch and to place the remains
in the grave as a funerary offering. They most likely did not understand the philo-
sophical contents of the papyrus text, but the mere presence of Orpheus’ name in
it and quotations from Hieros logos were sufficient for their choice. (Incidentally,
if they did, they would have burnt it secretly and completely in the yard, so we
should be grateful to them for their mistake, since otherwise the papyrus would
not have been preserved.) The papyrus with Timotheus’ Persae dating from the
time of Alexander the Great, which has also been found in a grave at the Greek
necropolis in Abusir-Busiris, may have been a personal belonging of the dead, on
the assumption that he was a veteran of Alexander who received for his service a
kleros in the Busiris area; the patriotic poem may well have been a favorite book
of a man who fought against the Persians.287 According to Tsantsanoglou, the
spearheads, other weapons, and horse-gear found in the remains of the pyres
of the so-called ‘Derveni tombs’ “might identify the dead as warlords or royal
hetairoi of the Macedonian army.”288 A melopoios Eutychides, who ordered in his
will that he be cremated along with 12 cithars and 25 boxes of his compositions,
was considered eccentric and should not be compared with the Derveni case.289
A more ‘normal’ case, of the type that Jessica Hughes (2017) has labelled “sou-
venirs of the Self,” is the discovery of writing tablets with writing implements, a
papyrus, and musical instruments in the “Tomb of the Poet” in Dafni, personal
belongings of a young poet.290
If our attribution is correct (as we believe it is), the text known as the Derveni
Papyrus was most probably written in Ioulis on the island of Ceos, the birthplace
of Prodicus and two other 5th-cent. BC literary celebrities, Simonides and his

287 On palaeographical similarities between PDerv. and Timotheus’ Papyrus and the possibility
that they may have a “common Macedonian origin,” see Hordern (2002) 68. Hordern himself ad-
mits that the papyrus was “simply lost by accident” (p. 65). According to Wilamowitz, the scribe
of the Timotheus Papyrus must have been an Ionian. In this case, the owner of the papyrus may
have been of Macedonian origin himself.
288 K. Tsantsanoglou ap. KPT, 3. The most famous native of Lete who took part in Alexander’s
campaign was Nearchos (cf. Steph. Byz. Ethn. 11.49 [413.21–22] Meineke: οὕτως γὰρ ἱστορεῖται
Nέαρχος Ληταῖος, τῶν Ἀλεξάνδρῳ τῷ μεγάλῳ συστρατευσαμένων ὁ διασημότατος).
289 Satirized by the epigrammatist Lucillius (Anth. Pal. 11.133) and quoted by West (2013) as a
parallel to the Dafni trove. The epigram is a ‘warning’ to “those below” that Eutychides with 25
boxes of his poetry is coming: “Where can one go 
in future, now that Eutychides is all over Hades
too?” (transl. by M. L. West).
290 On this see West (2013) who comments: “The instruments, at any rate, will surely have been
instruments that he or she played. The manuscripts will have contained texts that he or she
owned: perhaps read, perhaps copied, possibly composed.” (p. 85).
588   Andrei Lebedev

nephew Bacchylides.291 At the same time, it is in many ways inseparably con-

nected with the intellectual conflict between Anaxagoreioi and Pythagoreioi,
or the Sophistic ‘Enlightenment’ and religious conservatives, at the time of the
Peloponnesian War. As we have suggested above, the Derveni treatise may have
been a reply to the psephisma of Diopeithes and the trial of Anaxagoras published
between 430 and 423 BC. Quotations from or allusions to Derv.T in Aristophanes
(423 and 414), Euripides (406), Plato, and Philochorus indicate that in the 5th and
4th cent. BC, Athens was the place where most of the existing copies of Derv.T
circulated. It is therefore reasonable to suppose that the Derveni Papyrus was also
brought from Athens or was a local copy of an earlier Athenian papyrus.
Although the Derv.T (Prodicus’ Horai) was well known among Athenian intel-
lectuals in classical times, and was still read and quoted by scholars and philoso-
phers in Hellenistic (Philochorus) and Imperial times (Plutarch, Themistius), it
was not a literary classic like the Iliad that was studied in school and circulated
in thousands of copies throughout Greece. It was rather a sophisticated ‘intel-
lectual’ prose (as well as a political pamphlet) addressed to litterati and people
interested in the philosophy of mythology, Kulturgeschichte, and the origin of lan-
guage and religion. The discovery of such a book in a Macedonian grave near a
small provincial polis seems somewhat unexpected.
We have good reasons to suppose that a copy of Prodicus’ Horai may have
existed in 406 BC in Euripides’ library or a collection of books in Pella. It can be
taken for certain that Euripides died in Pella, since there was a cenotaph erected
in his honour on the road from Piraeus to Athens. Some scholars believe that
Euripides’ trip to Pella was just a tour following the invitation of Archelaus and
that he had no intention to reside in Pella.292 But the interpretation of the two
Tantalos passages in Euripides’ Orestes, proposed above in § (VIII) and based on
the improved text of Philodemus cited above, leads us to a different reconstruc-
tion of Euripides’ motives and plans before the trip.
By 406 BC, two out of three teachers of Euripides mentioned in the biograph-
ical tradition (Anaxagoras, Protagoras, Prodicus), namely Anaxagoras (in 432)
and Protagoras (in 411) has already fallen victim to the witch-hunt initiated by
Diopeithes. The “rock of Tantalos,” i.e. the γραφὴ ἀσεβείας, was still “hanging
over the head” of Anaxagoras’ friends and disciples. The most prominent and
influential friends and disciples of Anaxagoras in Athens after the expulsion
of Protagoras were Prodicus and Euripides. The mysticopathy of the Tantalos

291 Simonides’ poetry held significant place in the lectures of Protagoras (Prodicus’ teacher and
close associate) on how to read poets; the emphasis on hyperbaton in his technique provides a
direct link with the Derveni Papyrus.
292 Scodel (2017) 37 ff. But we agree with the author that the war may have been another reason.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   589

passages is an indication of Euripides’ fear of the charge of impiety. Just as Euri-

pides commemorated the trial and tortures of Anaxagoras in Orestes (408 BC), in
the same cryptic manner he commemorated the prosecution of Protagoras in his
Ixion, another paradigmatic godless sinner punished by Zeus.293 The anecdote
about Euripides’ reply to those who censored him for bringing Ixion to the stage,
a character μιαρὸς καὶ ἀσεβής, “abominable and impious,” is a bèn trovato: “But
I did not let him leave the stage before I nailed him to the wheel of torture” (οὐ
μέντοι πρότερον αὐτὸν ἐκ τῆς σκηνῆς ἐξήγαγον ἢ τῷ τροχῷ προσηλῶσαι).294 The
anecdote parodies Euripides’ ingenious use of ambiguous language as a protec-
tion against the possible charges of asebeia. The emphasis on the punishment
of Tantalos in the Orestes has the same protective purpose. The oligarchic coup
of 411 was followed by a new wave of witch-hunting for ἀσεβεῖς, who were to be
blamed for the misfortunes of the war; there is no sufficient reason to doubt the
report that Protagoras was charged by one of the Four Hundred in 411 BC.295 It
seems, therefore, that Euripides’ apodemia to Pella was a self-exile rather than
a tour: he was saving his life. According to the biographical tradition, Euripides
“turned to tragedy” after he saw what kind of dangers Anaxagoras had to face for
his novel theories.296 This report cannot be trusted as it stands not only because
of its anachronism. In the mid-5th cent. BC, when Euripides started his dramatic
career, nobody was afraid to read the books of Anaxagoras and Protagoras, the two
founding fathers of Athenian ‘Enlightenment’ and new ‘Humanism’; everything
changed only after the psephisma of Diopeithes (432 BC). On the contrary, reading
their books might have been perceived as a sign of loyalty to the regime, since
both of them were close friends of Pericles. Can this report in Suda be a distortion
of the original explanation of the motives behind Euripides’ flight to Macedonia?
As a renowned bibliophile,297 Euripides must have brought his library with him to
Pella or, at least, a collection of his favorite books and/or books that might have
been useful for his work on Bacchae. We have seen above that PDerv. (Prodicus) is
cited in the Bacchae. We may conclude that in 406/405 BC a copy of the book that
we call the ‘Derveni Papyrus’ probably existed in Pella at the distance of some 45
km from Lete (Derveni) and only several decades before the date of the papyrus

293 Diog. Laërt. 9.55 (= Protag. 80 A 1 DK = Philochor. FGrHist 328 F 217 = Eur. Ixion test. [33] i
TrGF [Kannicht]).
294 Plut. De aud. poet. 19e (= Eur. Ixion test. [33] iii TrGF [Kannicht]).
295 Diog. Laërt. 9.54 (= Protag. 80 A 1 DK).
296 Cf. Suda ε 3695.8–10: (Euripides) ἐπὶ τραγῳδίαν δὲ ἐτράπη τὸν Ἀναξαγόραν ἰδὼν ὑποστάντα
κινδύνους δι᾽ ἅπερ εἰσῆξε δόγματα.
297 On Euripides’ library see test. G 49–50 TrGF (Kannicht).
590   Andrei Lebedev

roll.298 A copy of it may have been made for the royal library of Archelaus, a close
friend and admirer of Euripides. It is also conceivable that after Euripides’ death,
his library was incorporated (purchased or donated by relatives) into the royal
library in Pella. All further speculations on the fata libelli would be worthless.
We cannot absolutely rule out a coincidence, and we do not intend this section as
an argument in support of our attribution, which is rather based on quotations.
The question mark in the title of this section should be taken at face value, i.e.
as a question addressed by a historian of Greek philosophy to archaeologists and
papyrologists.

Appendix (1)
The Derveni Papyrus , Heraclitus, and the Stoics: A reply to Luc Brisson

Luc Brisson has challenged the communis opinio that dates the commentary of
PDerv. to the late 5th cent. BC and proposed to redate it c. 300 BC on the grounds
that it contains a Stoic physical allegoresis of myth.299 Both a Stoic influence and
a Hellenistic date for the Derv.T should be ruled out for the following reasons. 1)
The Ionian dialect started to fall out of use already in the 5th cent. BC under the
influence of the Attic dialect (we see this process in PDerv.). By 350 BC, it was
already dead in the main central and eastern Ionian regions; only the western
branch (Euboia) survived into the 3rd cent. BC. It not only disappeared by the
mid-4th cent. BC from inscriptions, i.e. ceased to be a spoken language, but it
also ceased to be the language of philosophy and science as it was in the 6th
and 5th cent. BC. We would like to see a single Greek philosophical text written
in a post-classical period in Ionian dialect. The Ionian dialect of any philosoph-
ical prose points to a pre-4th cent. BC date. 2) The pantheism of the Stoics and
of Heraclitus (like the pantheism of the Orphic Hymn to Zeus) belongs to the
ethico-religious type, while the ‘Anaxagorean’ pantheism of the Derveni author
(Prodicus) belongs to a different type, a naturalistic pantheism which is irreli-
gious and ethically irrelevant. The Stoics prayed to Zeus, but we doubt that the
Derveni author would pray to the cosmogonic Vortex: Aristophanes made fun of
this idea in the Clouds because he perfectly understood the irreligious character
of Prodicus’ pantheism. Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics unanimously dismissed

298 K. Tsantsanoglou ap. KPT, 9 dates 340–320 BC. Irigoin (1972) 543 admitted the first half of
the 4th cent. BC.
299 Brisson (2009). Cf. Betegh (2007).
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   591

the Nous of Anaxagoras because he works in accordance with Ionian naturalistic

cosmogony and is incompatible with divine providence (Pronoia) and traditional
religion, whereas the Nous-Demiurge of Plato’s Timaeus works in accordance
with creationism and Pythagorean mathematical metaphysics. 3) The allegorical
method of Derv.T is also significantly different from that of the Stoics. As Brisson
correctly recognizes, the Stoic allegoresis is based on etymology. But in PDerv.,
the dominant method is that of functionalist semantics combined with the theory
of the ‘disease of language’: see the analysis of the ‘glossary’ in § (II) above. 4)
Even if the dead was placed in the grave c. 300 BC, this does not affect the date
of the papyrus (let alone of the Derveni treatise) which should be dated by papy-
rologists, not by archaeologists. 5) Πνεῦμα in col. XVIII does not mean “breath”
and has nothing to do with the Stoic theological concept.300 It means “wind” (not
a mixture of fire and air, as in Stoic philosophy) and refers to the cosmogonical
vortex, which was repeatedly cursed (in its atomistic version) by the Stoics as
an ‘atheistic’ doctrine that leaves no place for the divine pronoia.301 6) Already
Aristotle in Physics Α302 clearly and correctly distinguished between two groups
of physikoi propounding two different types of theories of matter and material
change; Felix M. Cleve aptly labelled them “tranfomationists and agenetists.”
The ‘transfomationists’ admit a transformation of a single substrate into the
plurality of qualitatively different bodies (ἑτεροιοῦσθαι), while the ‘agenetists’
posit an initial mixture (μῖγμα) of spermata and describe the material change in
mechanistic terms of excretion, conjunction, and disjunction; it was introduced
by Anaximander, accepted by Anaxagoras, and later developed by Democritus,
who made Anaxagoras’ ‘seeds’ indivisible and lacking sensible qualities. The
physics of the Stoics (τὴν ὕλην τρέπεσθαι), like that of Heraclitus (ἀλλοιοῦται), is
a classical example of the ‘transfοmationist’ type and is therefore incompatible
with the Anaxagorean ‘agenetist’ type upheld by the Derveni author: θόρνυσθαι
is a synonym of both Anaximander’s and Anaxagoras’ ἀποκρίνεσθαι, and of
Democritus’ ἐκθλίβεσθαι. 7) One of the indications of the alleged late origin of
PDerv., according to Luc Brisson, is the ‘Stoic Heraclitus.’ We believe, along with
Charles Kahn and Anthony Long who saw the truth,303 that the ‘Stoic Heraclitus’

300 See above § (III), test. 4.

301 Marc. Aur. Med. 6.10.1.1–2: ἤτοι κυκεὼν καὶ ἀντεμπλοκὴ καὶ σκεδασμὸς ἢ ἑνωσις καὶ τάξις
καὶ πρόνοια. κτλ. Two models of the world are contrasted in a dilemma: either the Epicurean
cosmos produced by a ‘cocktail’ of atoms or the Stoic cosmos produced by the divine Pronoia.
Kykeon is a denigrating metaphor for the blind cosmogonical vortex. If the first is true, then life
is meaningless. Cf. ibid. 4.27; 9.39
302 Arist. Phys. 1.4.187a12 ff. (= Anaximand. 12 A 16 [II] DK = Ar 1 Wöhrle).
303 Kahn (1981) 147 ff.; Long (1996) 35–57.
592   Andrei Lebedev

is the genuine Heraclitus, unlike the heavily distorted physicalist Heraclitus of

Aristotle and the relativist/subjectivist Heraclitus of Plato. The Stoics did non
‘project’ their doctrines onto Heraclitus, but derived them from him: they only
rephrased (correctly, as a rule) Heraclitus’ archaic and metaphorical Ionian prose
in contemporary language. The fundamental telos-formula of Stoic ethics is
virtually a quotation from Heraclitus. The Stoic ἐκπύρωσις καὶ διακόσμησις are
simply a translation into the plain hellenistic koine of the archaic words κόρος
καὶ χρησμοσύνη in Ionian dialect. Projectonism has its roots in the hypercritical
obsession of some 19th-cent. scholars with ‘exposing’ alleged ‘fraud,’ what has
been aptly called “la psicosi moderna del falso antico.”304 The myth about the
Stoic biased and distorting “assimilation” (συνοικειοῦν) of Heraclitus’ views to
their own doctrines derives from two passages in Burnet’s Early Greek Philoso­
phy. We would like to emphasize that this claim of Burnet is based on imaginary
evidence, i.e. on a misinterpretation of one passage in Philodemus’ On Piety.305
Physical allegoresis of poetic mythology and divine names did not originate with
the Stoics. The evidence for Theagenes (6th cent. BC) is scanty and uncertain, but

304 Farinelli (2000).
305 Phld. De piet., PHerc. 1428, col. 6.16–26 Henrichs (on Chrysippus): ἐν δὲ τῶ[ι] δευ|τέρ[ωι] (sc.
Περὶ θεῶν) τά τε εἰς Ὀρφέ|α [καὶ] Μουσαῖον ἀνα|φερ[όμ]ενα καὶ τὰ | παρ᾽ [Ὁ]μήρωι καὶ Ἡ|σιόδω[ι]
καὶ Εὐριπί|δῃ καὶ ποιητα[ῖ]ς ἄλ|λοις [ὡ]ς καὶ  Κλεάν|θης [πει]ρᾶται σ [υ]νοι|κειοῦ[ν] ταῖς δόξ[αι]ς |
αὐτῶ[ν]. Cf. Cic. Nat. D. 1.15.41. In the introduction to the sources, quoting this text in support,
Burnet (19714) 32 writes: “they [sc. the Stoics] seem really to have believed that the early poets and
thinkers taught doctrines hardly distinguishable from their own. The word συνοικειοῦν which
Cicero renders by accomodare, was used by Philodemus to denote this method of intetrpretation,
which has had serious results upon our tradition, especially in the case of Herakleitos.” [Italics
mine]. But: 1) the text of Philodemus is not a piece of objective historical evidence: it is polem-
ical, the term συνοικειοῦν is Philodemus’ own, not Chrysippus’, and it is here used ironically
(this is made explicit in Cicero). 2) Burnet cites this text to support his claim that the Stoics
misinterpreted “early poets and thinkers” [Italics mine], but there are no “thinkers” in Philode-
mus’ passage: it speaks about ancient poets only. It is obvious that συνοικειοῦν in Philodemus
refers to Stoic allegorical interpretations of the mythical theogonies of Orpheus, Hesiod, etc. How
can this passage of Philodemus be used as proof that the Stoics systematically misinterpreted
Heraclitus and that these distortions allegedly have heavily influenced the whole doxographical
tradition on Heraclitus? Heraclitus’ river fragment is cited and or/alluded to in dozens of sources
in a thousand years. The unique quotation that preserves the ipsissima verba of Heraclitus in its
intact form in Ionian dialect comes from the Stoic tradition of Zeno/Cleanthes/Arius Didymus: 22
B 12 DK (= fr. 67 Lebedev = fr. 40 Marcovich with testimonia). The context of this Stoic quotation
is also the only one that preserves the original psychological context of the simile. It contains an
example of the Stoic συνοικειοῦν, only in reverse order: Cleanthes assimilates Zeno’s theory of
ψυχή as sensory exhalation (ἀναθυμίασις) to Heraclitus’ view of the soul, i.e. Zeno’s doctrine is
derived from Heraclitus. There is no distortion in this assimilation: the Stoic archaic doctrine of
the soul as an exhalation from the blood indeed derives from Heraclitus.
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   593

the existence of the physical allegory of the Homeric gods in 5th cent. BC is estab-
lished beyond any doubt by Metrodorus of Lampsacus and Euripides’ Bacchae.
Epigenes’ allegoresis of Orphic poetry is certainly pre-Stoic. Prodicus’ first stage
in the origin of religion (the veneration of the sun, the moon, and the seasons) is
based on a kind of physical allegoresis of the mythical gods. Some of the Pythago-
rean akousmata seem allegorical. Equating the gods with numbers and numbers
with the gods can also be viewed as a kind of mathematical allegoresis. Allegory
is used in Parmenides’ proem, and his Doxa contained, it seems, a complete alle-
gorical theogony of the gods of popular religion, which began with the creation
of Eros. Parmenides’ Aphrodite the demiourgos is akin to the Pythagorean Har­
monia in Empedocles and Philolaus. The correlation of the four elements with
the four divine names in Empedocles cannot be separated from allegory: fire is
named ‘Zeus’ because the god Zeus of popular religion is κατὰ φύσιν celestial fire.
Chances are that the true father of Greek ‘physical’ philosophical allegoresis was
Heraclitus. In the third chapter of his work (λόγος θεολογικός), Heraclitus identi-
fied Zeus (Keraunos) with his “ever-living fire,”306 Apollo with the sun,307 Hades
with the sublunar air,308 etc. 8) Brisson’s thesis contradicts itself: if we admit that
the author of PDerv. is a Stoic, then we have Stoic evidence for pre-Stoic physical
allegoresis (Heraclitus).

Appendix (2)
Explanatory notice on the use of terms peritrope and ‘monism’/‘pluralism’

(A) Peritrope as a polemical device in Greek philosophy

and the Derveni Papyrus

At the beginning of this paper, we described the polemical substitution of the

ethico-religious pantheism of Orphic theogony with the naturalistic (irreligious)
pantheism of the Derveni author as a peritrope. We use this term in a peculiar
way that requires clarification. In ancient logic and dialectic, περιτροπή was a
term for self-refuting arguments.309 A self-refuting argument differs from ordinary

306 22 B 64 DK (= fr. 40 Lebedev). Cf. Vassallo (2018b).

307 Heraclit. fr. probab. 13 Lebedev. Cf. comm. in Lebedev (2014) 471–472.
308 22 B 98 DK (= fr. 155 Lebedev). Cf. comm. in Lebedev (2014) 453.
309 On this subject see Castagnoli (2010).
594   Andrei Lebedev

refutation in that it takes the opponent’s thesis as a premise. Sextus Empiricus

applies the term περιτροπή to Plato’s and Democritus’ refutation of Protagoras’
homo mensura thesis in its Platonic interpretation that “every opinion (δόξα) is
true”: if every opinion is true, then the opinion that not every opinion is true is
true as well. Hence, it follows that not every opinion is true, i.e. that Protagoras’
thesis “turns around” (περιτρέπεται) and refutes Protagoras. We use peritrope as
a modern hermeneutical term (suggested of course by Greek dialecticians), in a
wider sense to denote a polemical device in the Greek philosophical culture of
debates: one of the theoretical opponents borrows his own characteristic term,
image, idea, theory, form of thought, or even a literary genre from the other,
and ‘turns it around’ against him by ‘recharging’ it with contradictory polemi-
cal content. In the debate between the Anaxagoreioi and Pythagoreioi in Athens
at the time of the Peloponnesian War, the ‘Anaxagorean’ Derveni author (Prod-
icus) borrowed the figure of Orpheus, his teletai, and his Hieros logos from his
opponents and ‘turned around’ all this against them. A philosophical peritrope
sometimes may contain elements of parody, but unlike, for example, the parodies
of Timon, it is a serious polemical tool, nay it is the driving force of the dialecti-
cal development of thought. The history of Greek philosophy is an inexhaustible
source of peritropai. Here are just a few. Heraclitus’ new teleological and theo-
logical concept of physis identified as a providential god was a polemical peri­
trope of the mechanistic concept of physis in Anaximander. Pythagoras’ doctrine
of the immortality of the soul was a polemical peritrope of the Milesian law of
the indestructibility of matter. Parmenides borrowed epic language and metre
from Homer and Hesiod not because he wished to continue the epic tradition, but
because his aim was to replace epic polytheism and anthropomorphism of the
‘immoral’ Homeric gods with the new Pythagorean god, a ‘Sphere’ of the divine
Mind and Justice described in the Aletheia.310 Gorgias’ Περὶ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος was, in
turn, a peritrope (and a parody) of Parmenides’ deductive metaphysics. Plato’s
geometrical atomism in the Timaeus was a peritrope of Democritus’ physical
atomism, an immaterialist theory of matter, etc.
Two types of peritrope should be distinguished: a) a deconstructive peritrope,
whose aim is primarily to destroy the thesis of an opponent, and b) a constructive
or synthesizing peritrope, which incorporates the opponent’s thesis into a new
theory, subordinates it to a new synthetic structure, and forces it to serve a dif-
ferent purpose, i.e. ‘enslaves it.’ Gorgias’ peritrope of Parmenides’ ontology and
the Derveni author’s (i.e. Prodicus’) peritrope of Orphic theogony are crystal-clear
examples of the first type of peritrope. Heraclitus’ theologico-teleological peritrope

310 Lebedev (2010) and (2017b).

 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   595

of the Milesian concept of physis, Aristotle’s peritrope of the transcendental noetic

Platonic forms as immanent forms of the physical world, and Plato’s subordina-
tion of Democritus’ pre-cosmic motion of matter to the dictates of the Pythagorean
divine Mind-Demiourgos provide examples of the second type of peritrope.

(B) Explanatory notice on the use of the terms ‘monism,’

‘dualism,’ and ‘pluralism’

When we write in § (3) above about “the battle of ideas between Ionian natural-
ists (adept at naturalistic monism) and religiously minded dualists” in 5th-cent.
BC Athens, we use the term ‘monism’ in its traditional philosophical sense to
mean the metaphysical school of thought that recognizes only one kind of reality
and is opposed to metaphysical dualism that recognizes two kinds (corporeal
and incorporeal, god and matter, etc.). Metaphysical monism can be naturalis-
tic (only physis exists) and idealist, or mentalist (only Mind exists), also known
as immaterialist. Most Ionian physikoi and Ionian Sophists were naturalistic
monists; the Pythagoreans were dualists; Parmenides was an idealist monist or
immaterialist.311 Some scholars apply the term ‘monism’ to single-element theo-
ries of matter and counterpose the proponents of such theories (dubbed ‘monists,’
e.g. Anaximenes) to multiple-elements theories of matter held by ‘pluralists’
(such as Empedocles and Anaxagoras). This unphilosophical use of the terms
‘monism’/‘pluralism’ (which probably derives from some ancient doxographical
passages on the problem of ‘One’ and ‘Many’312) is potentially misleading and
can result in the confusion of  the taxonomy of metaphysical theories of kinds
of reality and the taxonomy of physical theories of matter or physical elements.
Corpuscular theories of matter (such as those of Anaxagoras and Democritus)
should not be called ‘pluralist’ and should not be contrasted with ‘monistic’ the-
ories of a single material continuum. They should instead be called corpuscular
theories and contrasted with single-substrate or single-element theories of matter.
Corpuscular theories of matter may also be contrasted with single-substrate
theories of matter, and discrete theories of matter may be distinguished from
continualist theories. What matters in metaphysics and in the history of ancient
metaphysics is the perennial conflict between naturalistic monism and meta-
physical dualism of body and mind, god and matter, etc. Who the metaphysical

311 The doctrine of the identity of being and mind is directly stated by Parmenides in 28 B 3
DK. For a detailed refutation of the grammatically impossible interpretation of Burnet and his
followers see Lebedev (2017b).
312 Cf. Stokes (1971); Vassallo (2015a).
596   Andrei Lebedev

‘pluralists’ are, we do not know and would be grateful to anyone who would solve
this aporia for us. Aristotle’s four causes should not be cited as an example, since
these are not four substances, but aspects of ousia or explanatory approaches to
ousia. Perhaps the middle Platonic doxography of ‘three principles’ in Plato (god,
matter, ideas) could serve as an example? But the historical Plato was a ‘dualist.’
Democritus recognized an infinite number of atoms, but he regarded them all
as one (“as if each was a separate particle of gold”);313 he was a strict naturalis-
tic ‘monist’ who ridiculed Anaxagoras’ theory of the cosmic Mind as a conces-
sion to ‘creationism.’ The Derveni author (Prodicus) seems to follow Archelaus’
‘immanent’ version of the theory of the cosmic Mind and therefore seems like
a naturalistic ‘monist.’ Both Empedocles and Anaxagoras should be classed as
‘dualists’ (not as ‘pluralists’), though the precise nature of Anaxagoras’ Nous
remains uncertain and the subject of endless debates. We believe that the funda-
mental thesis of Greek philosophical theology, the identification of god with Mind
(Νοῦς), goes back to the 6th cent. BC and may be of Pythagorean origin. In the late
6th/early 5th cent. BC, this is attested in Epicharmus (in a parody of Pythagorean
theology), Xenophanes, and Parmenides (on Epicharmus see Lebedev [2017d],
with regard to Xenophanes’ 21 B 24–25 DK (= Xen 86 & 229 Strobel/Wöhrle), and
Lebedev [1985a]). If our reconstruction of the text of Heraclitus’ fr. 140 Lebedev
is correct (as we believe it is),314 the theory of the divine cosmic Mind existed
before Anaxagoras not only in the West, but also in the Ionian tradition itself. It
is therefore conceivable that Anaxagoras derived his concept of the cosmic Mind
from Heraclitus rather than from the Italian philosophers (however, the influence
of both traditions cannot be ruled out). Heraclitus’ teleological ‘cosmotheism’
was directed against Anaximander’s mechanistic theory of matter and ‘vortex’
cosmogony (cf. Lebedev [1988] and [2016] 597–598). Anaxagoras tried to recon-
cile and to synthesize these two conflicting theories and world views: he took the
mechanistic corpuscular theory of matter as ‘mixture’ from Anaximander and the
cosmic Mind from Heraclitus, and made the Mind trigger the ‘vortex’ mechanism
of ‘separation’ and world formation. The Western and the Heraclitean theories
of the divine cosmic Mind are based on different types of metaphysics: in the
dualist metaphysics of Magna Graecia, the God/Mind was ‘separated’ from matter
(corporeal substance) and opposed to it as a creative (demiurgic) element for a
formless and passive principle, while in Heraclitus’ strictly ‘monistic’ pantheism,
God and physis were identified, and the providential cosmic Intellect (Γνώμη)
or “the Wise Being” (τὸ Σοφόν) was conceived as immanent and inherent in the

313 Cf. Arist. Cael. 1.7.275b32–276a1 (= 67 A 19 [I] DK): τὴν δὲ φύσιν εἶναί φασιν αὐτῶν μίαν,
ὥσπερ ἂν εἰ χρυσὸς ἕκαστον εἴη κεχωρισμένον. The image seems to be authentic.
314 Heraclit. 22 B 41 DK (= fr. 140 Lebedev).
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   597

pyr aeizoon. It is conceivable, therefore, that in his theory of the cosmic Mind,
the Derveni author was influenced not only by Anaxagoras and Archelaus, but
also by Heraclitus. However, it should be stressed that Heraclitus’ cosmic God
is personal, providential, and relevant both ethically and religiously; the Stoics
were genuine Heracliteans in their pantheistic theology, as in their philosophy
of nature and ethics. To our knowledge, there is no indication in the sources that
Anaxagoras’ cosmic Nous was conceived as a providential personal God, who
cares for humans and with whom they can communicate through prayer and
worship. And Plato and Aristotle both dismissed this conception of Nous because
they sensed the artificial character of this synthesis and the ‘deistic’ character of
Anaxagoras’ Nous (never called θεός in the extant fragments). It remains unclear
whether the Derveni author understood the difference between Anaxagoras’ and
Heraclitus’ versions of the theory of cosmic Mind, e.g. when he quotes in col. IV
the sun fragment which proves the existence of the cosmic Mind by the regularity
of solstices.

Appendix (3)
A neglected reflection of Prodicus’ benefaction theory and PDerv., cols. IV and XXIV
in Xenophon’s Memorabilia

Ch. 3 of Book 4 of Xenophon’s Memorabilia recounts Socrates’ conversation with

Euthydemus on divine providence and various benefactions to humanity, upon
which Xenophon happened (παρεγενόμην). The purpose of Xenophon’s appear-
ance in this chapter is to prove that, far from being an asebes and disrespectful of
τὰ νομιζόμενα τῆς πόλεως, Socrates made all those with whom he conversed more
“sound-minded” (σωφρονέστεροι) in their attitude to religious worship and more
“pious” (εὐσεβέστεροι); Socrates used to remind them that when someone asked
Apollo in Delphi how one can please the gods, the oracle replied: “by observing
the custom of the polis” (4.3.16: νόμῳ πόλεως). All necessary and “useful things”
(πάντα τὰ χρήσιμα) for human life have been provided by the πρόνοια, ἐπιμέλεια,
and φιλανθρωπία of the gods. The first example of τὰ χρήσιμα are daylight for
work and darkness at night for rest. The sun is both the source of light and a
natural clock that makes the hours of the day clear for us (4.3.4: τὰς τε ὥρας τῆς
ἡμέρας ἡμῖν καὶ τἆλλα πάντα σαφηνίζει). For lighting at night-time, the gods also
created the stars of the night that “show us the hours of the night” (4.3.4: ἃ ἡμῖν
τῆς νυκτὸς τὰς ὥρας ἐμφανίζει). The moon makes not only the ‘parts,’ i.e. hours of
night, but also the parts of the month (4.3.5: φανερὰ ἡμῖν ποιεῖ) clear (σαφηνίζει)
598   Andrei Lebedev

to us. This can be compared with PDerv., col. XXIV.7–11: (...) φαίνειν ~ τὴν ὥραν
~ σελήνη (...). Just as in this column of the Derveni Papyrus the telling of time
revealed by the moon serves the needs of agriculture and the production of food
“from earth”: the gods provided “appropriate hours” (4.3.5: ὥρας ἁρμοττούσας),
i.e. the seasons, for the agricultural ἔργα of men, and by adjusting the ὧραι to the
agricultural year cycle, they provided a water supply (rains) necessary for the cul-
tivation of plants (4.3.6). The greatest gift of the gods is fire, which helps humans
protect themselves against cold and darkness, and “helps in work towards any
skill and everything that humans contrive for the sake of utility” (4.3.7: συνεργὸν
δὲ πρὸς πᾶσαν τέχνην καὶ πάντα ὅσα ὠφελείας ἕνεκα ἄνθρωποι κατασκευάζονται);
“without fire men cannot contrive anything worth of mention out of things that
are useful for the human life,” οὐδὲν ἀξιόλογον ἄνευ πυρὸς ἄνθρωποι τῶν πρὸς
τὸν βίον χρησίμων κατασκευάζουσι (4.3.7). This looks like a verbatim quotation
from Prodicus. The following section (4.3.8) provides a remarkable parallel to
PDerv., col. IV: it refers to the winter and summer solstices (τροπαί) that save
us both from being frozen and being burnt to death: “Think again how the sun,
when past the winter solstice (ἐπειδὰν ἐν χεμῶνι τράπηται), approaches, ripening
some things and withering others, whose time is over; and having accomplished
this, approaches nο nearer, but turns away, careful not to harm us by excess of
heat (φυλαττόμενον μή τι ἡμᾶς μᾶλλον τοῦ δέοντος θερμαίνων βλάψῃ); and when
once again in his retreat he reaches the point where it is clear to ourselves, that if
he goes further away, we shall be frozen with the cold, back he turns once more
(πάλιν αὖ τρέπεσθαι) and draws near and revolves in that region on the heavens
where he can best serve us.”315
Xenophon was an admirer of both Socrates and Prodicus. He quotes his
version of Prodicus’ Heracles story in Book 2.316 The connection of Mem. 4.3 with
Prodicus’ Horai and the benefaction theory is palpable. But there is one signifi-
cant discrepancy, even a contradiction. The χρήσιμα and ὠφελοῦντα τὸν βίον are
the same as in Prodicus, but they have been reinterpreted as gifts of the gods, as a
result of which Prodicus’ ‘atheistic’ theory of religion has been transformed into
its ‘creationist’ opposite, the traditional popular belief in divine πρῶτοι εὑρεταί.
To resolve this contradiction, we must choose one of the following scenarios.
A) The conversation of Socrates and Euthydemus in Mem. 4.3 has been invented
by Xenophon. He took Prodicus’ benefaction theory, made a ‘pious’ version of
it, and put it into Socrates mouth as proof of his religiosity in order to defend
him against charges of asebeia. A similar ‘pious’ interpretation of Prodicus’

315 Transl. by E. C. Marchant.
316 Xen. Mem. 2.21–34 (= Prodic. test. 83 Mayhew).
 17 The Authorship of the Derveni Papyrus   599

benefaction theory was advanced later by Themistius (see § [3], test. 3 above).
B) The conversation is real, at least in substance. In this case the ‘pious’ version
of the benefaction theory was held by the historical Socrates. And if so, it might
derive from Socrates’ dispute with Prodicus and might be his (and not Xeno-
phon’s) dialectical peritrope of Prodicus’ Horai. The natural theology of Socrates’
speech in Mem. 4.3 has much in common with Heraclitus: Heraclitus’ fragment
on the τροπαί of the sun quoted in PDerv., col. IV was in its original context in
Heraclitus’ work a τεκμήριον of divine providence (Γνώμη). Socrates the reader
of Heraclitus may be something more than an anecdote: our reconstruction of the
‘technological’ section of Heraclitus’ second chapter (λόγος πολιτικός) indicates
that the use of τέχναι analogies in the Socratic dialogues may have been inspired
by Heraclitus. In other words, the historical Socrates may have relied on Heracli-
tus in his real debate with Prodicus. C) A ‘mixed’ scenario. Socrates indeed held
teleological and theological views similar to those ascribed to him by Xenophon,
but Xenophon freely used Prodicus’ benefaction theory in order to present them
in a more systematic and well-argued form.
We leave the matter undecided. The vexed question of Xenophon’s credibil-
ity as a source on Socrates’ philosophy should not concern us at present. In any
case, Xenophon’s passage brings an additional confirmation to our ascription of
the Derveni Papyrus to Prodicus and should be added to the testimonia collected
in § (III) above.

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