La Θεογονία de Museo: fragmentos inéditos e intento de reconstrucción

Abstract

Musaeus, author who if he did exist never placed the seal of his signature on his works, has left a cosmo-theogonical work which, although fragmented, shows a great recognition towards the Natural Philosophy which arose in the 6th century B.C. In this essay, some of the poet´s unpublished cosmogonical fragments are presented. These are the ones which here appear as fragments 5, 6, 15 and 19. Also, an attempt to reconstruct his cosmogonical poem is proposed, which helps us to better comprehend mythical tradition and religiousness in ancient Greece. Thus, we may be able to help demonstrate that Museus' writings offer, for themselves, without need to be an annex to the orphic theogonies, new primordial cosmogonical elements, and that they push forward a philosophical conception which will go on to make up the central axis of posterior interpretations in the so-called pre-socratic philosophy. The collection of fragments which are presented here could be the most complete yet known. Moreover, the innovations in the poems attributed to him, with tales and anecdotes about Titanomachy and a whole divine genealogy, make him an introducer of an orphic-eleusinian version, originating from Thrace, in the flourishing Athens of 6th century.