¹ Places, É. Des, Numénius: Fragments (Paris, 1973), pp. 88 and 120–1Google Scholar, where the passage is numbered among those derived from Opera Incerta. The same rubric covers Frs 30–6, but Des Places does not indicate whether he takes any two of these to be excerpts from the same work.

I am indebted in this paper not only to the scholarship of Des Places and other students of the period, but also to the copious and perceptive observations of Dr H. S. Schibli on an earlier draft.

² See De Antro, p. 80.6ffGoogle Scholar. Nauck and Lamberton, R., Homer the Theologian (California, 1986), pp. 130–1.Google Scholar

³ See Lewy, H., The Chaldean Oracles and Theurgy (Cairo, 1956), p. 503Google Scholar; Places, Des (1973), p. 88a n. 3Google Scholar. This is no doubt the correct interpretation, since (a) the sea is a constant image of the generated universe in Numenius (Frs 2.8ff. and 18.2ff.; cf. 3.11–12); (b) Plato himself calls Poseidon the god of Atlantis at Critias 113c. As Dr Schibli remarks, Porphyry does not name Poseidon or any one divinity as the enemy of Athena and Odysseus; but the plot of the Odyssey is presupposed.

⁴ See Frs 31.2 and 33.1 Des Places, i.e. Porphyry, , De Antro Nympharum, pp. 70.26 and 79.19 Nauck.Google Scholar

⁵ Lewy, H. (1956), pp. 504–5Google Scholar, uses this fragment as evidence that Numenius did not recognise the two classes of daemons presupposed by Origen.

⁶ See Places, Des (1973), p. 120 n. 8.Google Scholar

⁷ See Fr. 35 Places, Des and Dillon, J., The Middle Platonists (London, 1977), p. 364.Google Scholar

⁸ I have to thank Dr Schibli for bringing this fragment to my attention, and for the further suggestion that the ‘efflux’ was ‘an underworld river that served as a conduit for souls’.

⁹ For the remains of Pherecydes of Syros I quote Diels-Kranz, , Fragmente die Vorsokratiker, Vol. I 7BGoogle Scholar, and have profited greatly from West, M. L., ‘Three Presocratic Cosmogonies’, CQ 13 (1963), 157–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient (Oxford, 1971), chs 1 and 2Google Scholar, as well as Kirk, G. S., Raven, J. E. and Schofield, M., The Presocratic Philosophers (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 50–72Google Scholar. Pherecydes is usually assigned to the sixth century b.c. The order of the episodes in his work is very uncertain, and I have not thought it necessary to offer opinions here.

¹⁰ Damascius, Though, De Principiis 124Google Scholar, hints that five cavities contained five elements, perhaps earth, air, water, fire and spirit: see West, (1963), 158–9Google Scholar. The title of Pherecydes' work, however, implies seven cavities: West, (1963), 157.Google Scholar

¹¹ For Pherecydes of Athens see Jacoby, F., Die Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker, Vol. i (Berlin, 1923), pp. 58–104Google Scholar. The reference here is to F16a, from the scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius 4.1936. There is room for doubt as to the attribution, since: (a) the scholiast never shows that he knows of two authors named Pherecydes or cites his source under any more precise appellation; and (b) the Suda attributes to Pherecydes of Syros a Theogony (T1 Jacoby), and this is the only title which the scholiast gives to the work of his own Pherecydes (F54 Jacoby).

Fr. B8 DK appears in Jacoby as Fr. F109; Fr. B13a DK as F177 Jacoby; Fr. B11 DK as Hecataeus F360 Jacoby. Here we have some instances of the difficulty which besets the assignation of these texts. The Suda (T2 Jacoby) indicates that Porphyry maintained the chronological priority of Pherecydes of Syros over all other Greek prose authors, but does not show that he recognised two authors of that name. Even if Jacoby's attribution is correct, confusion would be frequently occasioned by the resemblance between the two ancient sources. At F16a Jacoby the scholiast speaks of the marriage of Zeus and Hera, which (allowing for Celsus' harmonisation of names with contemporary nomenclature) is the event described at Fr. B2 DK. For the purposes of this study it may be relevant to observe that the scholiast refers (F16 and F17 Jacoby) to the victories of Heracles over giants who were the offspring of marine deities and denizens of the far west.

¹² Cited by Places, Des (1973), p. 120 n. 1Google Scholar. On the place of this cosmic battle in the whole work see Kirk, , Raven, and Schofield, (1983), pp. 71–2Google Scholar and West, (1963), 162–3Google Scholar, where he notes that Ophion, like Nereus, was sometimes deemed identical with the Ocean. For the name Ogēnus, some proof of the authenticity of the references to Pherecydes in Celsus, see West, (1971), p. 50 and n. 2.Google Scholar

The fact that Proclus echoes and cites Pherecydes only in his commentary on the Timaeus seems to corroborate the hypothesis that such use of him had already been made by one of the informants whom he names in his discussion of Atlantis.

¹³ The peplos is known to have represented Athena's feats against the giants on the Phlegrean plain: scholiasts on Euripides, , Hecuba 468Google Scholar and Aristophanes, , Birds 827Google Scholar. At 824 Aristophanes indicates the locality of the battle and at 830 the prominence of Athena.

¹⁴ West, (1963), 169Google Scholar and West, (1971), p. 26Google Scholar believes that Hades and Tartarus were distinguished more Homerico; Kirk, , Raven, and Schofield, (1983) believe that the upper region is the earth.Google Scholar

¹⁵ So Dr Schibli notes that, if the higher region is supposed to lie above a terrestrial ‘underworld’, it may imply a belief in a spherical universe which an author of so early a date can scarcely have entertained. Note, however, West, 's interpretation (1971, p. 24) of Fr. B13a DK.Google Scholar