I've only just started looking at OrientDB myself and this is what I used to get a simple connection working (I don't know if there are other things that won't work, but it got me started):
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.orientechnologies</groupId>
<artifactId>orient-commons</artifactId>
<version>1.7-rc1</version>
<type>bundle</type>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.orientechnologies</groupId>
<artifactId>orientdb-core</artifactId>
<version>1.7-rc1</version>
<!--
Using bundle causes orientdb-core v1.5.0 to be loaded, so I commented it out
<type>bundle</type>
-->
</dependency>