We have records of great activity in the production of cosmogonies during the whole of the sixth century B.C., and we know something of the systems of Epimenides, Pherekydes, and Akousilaos. As there were speculations of this kind even before Hesiod, we need have no hesitation in believing that the earliest Orphic cosmogony goes back to that century too.

The feature which is common to all these systems is the attempt to get behind the gap, and to put Kronos or Zeus in the first place. This is what Aristotle has in view when he distinguishes the “theologians” from those who were half theologians and half philosophers, and who put what was best in the beginning.

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