Orpheus. Orpheus is a legendary musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek religion. Some ancient Greek sources note Orpheus' Thracian origins. The major stories about him are centered on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music, his attempt to retrieve his wife Eurydice from the underworld, and his death at the hands of those who could not hear his music. As an archetype of the inspired singer, Orpheus is one of the most significant figures in the reception of classical mythology in Western culture, portrayed or alluded to in countless forms of art and popular culture including poetry, film, opera, music, and painting. For the Greeks, Orpheus was a founder and prophet of the so-called Orphic mysteries. He was credited with the composition of the Orphic Hymns and the Orphic Argonautica. Shrines containing purported relics of Orpheus were regarded as oracles. Several etymologies for the name Orpheus have been proposed. Fulgentius, a mythographer of the late 5th to early 6th century AD, gave the unlikely etymology meaning best voice, Oraia-phonos. The earliest literary reference to Orpheus is a two-word fragment of the sixth-century BC lyric poet Ibycus: onomaklyton Orphen. He is not mentioned in Homer or Hesiod. Most ancient sources accept his historical existence; Aristotle is an exception. Pindar calls Orpheus the father of songs and identifies him as a son of the Thracian king Oeagrus and the Muse Calliope. Greeks of the Classical age venerated Orpheus as the greatest of all poets and musicians; it was said that while Hermes had invented the lyre, Orpheus had perfected it. Poets such as Simonides of Ceos said that Orpheus' music and singing could charm the birds, fish and wild beasts, coax the trees and rocks into dance, and divert the course of rivers. Orpheus was one of the handful of Greek heroes to visit the Underworld and return; his music and song even had power over Hades. Some sources credit Orpheus with further gifts to mankind: medicine, which is more usually under the auspices of Asclepius or Apollo; writing, which is usually credited to Cadmus; and agriculture, where Orpheus assumes the Eleusinian role of Triptolemus as giver of Demeter's knowledge to mankind. Orpheus was an augur and seer; he practiced magical arts and astrology, founded cults to Apollo and Dionysus and prescribed the mystery rites preserved in Orphic texts. Pindar and Apollonius of Rhodes place Orpheus as the harpist and companion of Jason and the Argonauts. Orpheus had a brother named Linus, who went to Thebes and became a Theban. He is claimed by Aristophanes and Horace to have taught cannibals to subsist on fruit, and to have made lions and tigers obedient to him. Horace believed, however, that Orpheus had only introduced order and civilization to savages. Strabo presents Orpheus as a mortal, who lived and died in a village close to Olympus. Some, of course, received him willingly, but others, since they suspected a plot and violence, combined against him and killed him. He made money as a musician and wizard-Strabo uses agurteuonta, also used by Sophocles in Oedipus Tyrannus to characterize Teiresias as a trickster with an excessive desire for possessions. Agurtes most often meant charlatan and always had a negative connotation. Pausanias writes of an unnamed Egyptian who considered Orpheus a mageuse, i. e., magician. According to Apollodorus and a fragment of Pindar, Orpheus' father was Oeagrus, a Thracian king, or, according to another version of the story, the god Apollo. His mother was the muse Calliope, her sister Polymnia, a daughter of Pierus, son of Makednos or lastly of Menippe, daughter of Thamyris. According to Tzetzes, he was from Bisaltia. His birthplace and place of residence was Pimpleia close to the Olympus. Strabo mentions that he lived in Pimpleia. According to the epic poem Argonautica, Pimpleia was the location of Oeagrus' and Calliope's wedding. While living with his mother and her eight beautiful sisters in Parnassus, he met Apollo, who was courting the laughing muse Thalia. Apollo, as the god of music, gave Orpheus a golden lyre and taught him to play it. Orpheus' mother taught him to make verses for singing. He is also said to have studied in Egypt.