Legendary figure of Greek literature and religion. He is first mentioned by a tragic poet (possibly Euripides, in Rhesus, 945–7), in about 440 bce, as a citizen of Athens who had been trained by the Muses and Apollo. The latter reference can only be to the art of singing to the lyre. Aristophanes (Frogs, 1038) named Musaeus among the most ancient poets and spoke of him as a healer and a source of oracles, while Plato (Republic, ii, 364e3–4) mentioned liturgical handbooks by ‘Musaeus and Orpheus, offspring of Selene and the Muses’, used in the rites of the mysteries. His role as musician had no importance for either author. In the 2nd century ce, however, Pausanias (i.15.7) noted the belief that Musaeus sang on the hill of the Muses at Athens, and stressed his close relations with the city. Diogenes Laertius (Lives, i.3) identified Eumolpus, a pre-Homeric poet-musician, as the father of Musaeus, while other sources reverse the genealogy. Diogenes, too, associated Musaeus with Athens.
These references touch upon the chief attributes of Musaeus: his place as a singer in the far-distant past, the strong local ties with Athens, his connection with the mysteries (those of Demeter at Eleusis) and Apollo, and the near-identification with Orpheus. Certain hymns in honour of the Eleusinian goddesses were attributed to him, and he has even been thought to be merely an eponymous representation of the mysteries. During the Hellenic period, Orphic writers and others actually claimed that Musaeus had invented the hexameter and that Homer later borrowed it, along with much poetry composed by Musaeus or Orpheus.
H. Diels, ed.: Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (Berlin, 1903, rev. 11/1964 by W. Kranz; Eng. trans., 1948)
O. Kern, ed.: Orphicorum fragmenta (Berlin, 1922/R)
For further bibliography see Greece, §I.
WARREN ANDERSON/THOMAS J. MATHIESEN