person
Orpheus
The legendary Thracian singer and reputed author of the Orphic poems. Cicero reports Aristotle's view that the poet Orpheus never existed.
Reading notes
- On the Nature of the Gods §1.107 Aristotle teaches that the poet Orpheus never existed
On Aristotle's authority, the legendary singer Orpheus never lived, and the 'Orphic' poem was really by a Pythagorean named Cercon. Cotta cites this to ask whose image, then, is supposed to enter the mind.