InGreek mythology, thesatyr Marsyas (/ˈmɑːrsiəs/;Ancient Greek:Μαρσύας) is a central figure in two stories involving music: in one, he picked up the double oboe (aulos) that had been abandoned byAthena and played it;[1][2] in the other, he challengedApollo to a contest of music and lost his hide and life. Literary sources fromantiquity often emphasize thehubris of Marsyas and the justice of his punishment.
One strand of modern comparativemythography regards the domination of Marsyas by Apollo as an example of myth that recapitulates a supposed supplanting by theOlympian pantheon of an earlier"Pelasgian" religion ofchthonicheroic ancestors andnature spirits.[3]Marsyas was a devoté of the ancientMother GoddessRhea/Cybele, and the mythographers situate his episodes inCelaenae (or Kelainai), inPhrygia, at the main source of theMeander (the riverMenderes inTurkey).[4]
When a genealogy was applied to him, Marsyas was the son of the "divine"Hyagnis.[5][6] His father was calledOeagrus[7] orOlympus.[8] Alternatively, the latter was said to be Marsyas' son and/or pupil anderomenos.[9][10][11]
Marsyas was an expert player on the double-pipeddouble reed instrument known as theaulos.[2] The dithyrambic poetMelanippides of Melos (c. 480 – 430 BC) embellished the story in hisdithyrambMarsyas,[14][15] claiming that the goddessAthena, who was already said to have invented the aulos, once looked in the mirror while she was playing it and saw how blowing into it puffed up her cheeks and made her look silly, so she threw the aulos away and cursed it so that whoever picked it up would meet an awful death.[15] Marsyas picked up the aulos and was later killed by Apollo for hishubris.[15] The fifth-century BC poet Telestes doubted that virginal Athena could have been motivated by such vanity.[16]
Later, however, Melanippides's story became accepted as canonical[15] and the Athenian sculptorMyron created a group of bronze sculptures based on it, which was installed before the western front of the Parthenon around 440 BC.[15] In the second century AD, the travel writerPausanias saw this set of sculptures and described it as "a statue of Athena striking Marsyas the Silenos for taking up the flutes [aulos] that the goddess wished to be cast away for good".[17]
In the contest between Apollo and Marsyas, which was judged by theMuses or the Nysean nymphs,[18][19] the terms stated that the winner could treat the defeated party any way he wanted. Marsyas played his flute, putting everyone there into a frenzy, and they started dancing wildly. When it was Apollo's turn, he played his lyre so beautifully that everyone was still and had tears in their eyes.
There are several versions of the contest; according to Hyginus, Marsyas was departing as victor after the first round, when Apollo, turning his lyre upside down, played the same tune. This was something that Marsyas could not do with his flute. According to Diodorus Siculus, Marsyas was defeated when Apollo added his voice to the sound of the lyre. Marsyas protested, arguing that the skill with the instrument was to be compared, not the voice. However, Apollo replied that when Marsyas blew into the pipes, he was doing almost the same thing. The Nysean nymphs supported Apollo's claim, leading to his victory.[18][20]
Yet another version states that Marsyas played the flute out of tune, and hence accepted his defeat. Out of shame, he chose the penalty of being skinned to be used as a winesack.[21]
He wasflayed alive in a cave near Celaenae for hishubris to challenge a deity. Apollo then nailed Marsyas' skin to a pine tree,[22] nearLake Aulocrene (Karakuyu Gölü in modern Turkey), whichStrabo noted was full of thereeds from which the pipes were fashioned.[23]Diodorus Siculus felt that Apollo must have repented this "excessive" deed, and said that he had laid aside his lyre for a while,[24] butKarl Kerenyi observes of the flaying of Marsyas' "shaggy hide: a penalty which will not seem especially cruel if one assumes that Marsyas' animal guise was merely a masquerade".[25] Classical Greeks were unaware of suchshamanistic overtones, and the flaying of Marsyas became a theme for painting and sculpture. His brothers, nymphs, gods, and goddesses mourned his death, and their tears, according toOvid'sMetamorphoses, were the source of the riverMarsyas inPhrygia (called Çine Creek today), which joins theMeander near Celaenae, where Herodotus reported that the flayed skin of Marsyas was still to be seen,[26] andPtolemy Hephaestion recorded a "festival of Apollo, where the skins of all those victims one has flayed are offered to the god".[27]
Plato was of the opinion that the skin of Marsyas had been made into awineskin.[28]
%2c_V%2526A.JPG)
Ovid touches upon the theme of Marsyas twice, very briefly telling the tale inMetamorphoses vi.383–400, where he concentrates on the tears shed into the river Marsyas, and making anallusion inFasti, vi.649–710, where Ovid's primary focus is on theaulos and the roles of flute-players rather than Marsyas, whose name is not mentioned.
The hubristic Marsyas in surviving literary sources eclipses the figure of the wise Marsyas that is suggested in a few words by theHellenistic historianDiodorus Siculus,[29] who refers to Marsyas as admired for his intelligence (sunesis) and self-control (sophrosune), not qualities found by Greeks in ordinary satyrs. InPlato'sSymposium,[30] whenAlcibiades likens Socrates to Marsyas, it is this aspect of the wise satyr that is intended.[citation needed] Jocelyn Small identifies in Marsyas an artist great enough to challenge a deity, who can only be defeated through a ruse.[31] A prominent statue of Marsyas as a wise oldsilenus stood near theRoman Forum.[32]
This is the Marsyas of the journal,Marsyas: Studies in the History of Art, published since 1941 by students of the Institute of Art,New York University.
Among the Romans, Marsyas was cast as the inventor ofaugury[33] and a proponent of free speech (the philosophical concept παρρησία, "parrhesia") and "speaking truth to power". The earliest known representation of Marsyas at Rome stood for at least 300 years in theRoman Forum near or in thecomitium, the space for political activity.[34] He also was depicted as asilen,[35] carrying awineskin on his left shoulder and raising his right arm. The statue was regarded as anindicium libertatis, a symbol of liberty, and was associated with demonstrations of theplebs, or common people. It often served as a sort ofkiosk upon which invective verse was posted.[36]
Marsyas served as a minister for Dionysus or Bacchus, who wasidentified by the Romans with theirFather Liber, one of three deities in theAventine Triad, along withCeres and Libera (identified withPersephone). These deities were regarded as concerning themselves specially with the welfare of theplebs. The freedom that theecstasies ofDionysian worship represented took on a political meaning in Rome as thelibertas that distinguished the free from the enslaved. TheLiberalia, celebrated March 17 in honor of Liber, was a time of speaking freely, as the poet and playwrightGnaeus Naevius declared: "At the Liberalia games we enjoy free speech."[37] Nonetheless, Naevius was arrested for hisinvectives against the powerful.[38]
Marsyas was sometimes considered a king and contemporary ofFaunus, portrayed byVergil as a native Italian ruler at the time ofAeneas.Servius, in hiscommentary on theAeneid, says that Marsyas sent Faunus envoys who showed techniques of augury to the Italians.[39] The plebeiangens of theMarcii claimed that they were descended from Marsyas.Gaius Marcius Rutilus, who rose to power from theplebs, is credited with having dedicated the statue that stood in the Roman forum, most likely in 294 BC, when he became the first plebeiancensor and added thecognomenCensorinus to the family name.[40] Marcius Rutilus was also among the first plebeian augurs,co-opted into theircollege in 300 BC, and so the mythical teacher of augury was an apt figure to represent him.[41]
In 213 BC, two years after suffering one of the worst military defeats in its history at theBattle of Cannae, Rome was in the grip of a reactionary fear that led to excessivereligiosity. Thesenate, alarmed that its authority was being undermined by "prophets and sacrificers" in the forum, began a program of suppression. Among the literature confiscated was an "authentic" prophecy calling for the institution ofgames in the Greek manner for Apollo, which theRoman senate andelected officials would control. The prophecy was attributed to Gnaeus Marcius, reputed to be a descendant of Marsyas. The games were duly carried out, but the Romans failed to bring the continuingwars with the Carthaginians to a victorious conclusion until they heeded a second prophecy and imported the worship of the Phrygian Great Mother,Cybele, whose song Marsyas was said to have composed; the song had further relevance in that it was also credited by the Phrygians with protecting them from invaders.[42] The power relations between Marsyas and Apollo reflected the continuingStruggle of the Orders between the elite and the common people, expressed in political terms byoptimates andpopulares. The arrest of Naevius for exercising free speech also took place during this period.[43]
Another descendant of Marcius Rutilus,L. Marcius Censorinus, issued coins depicting the statue of Marsyas, at a time when theaugural college was the subject of political controversy during theSullan civil wars of the 80s BC.[44] On the coin, Marsyas wears aPhrygian cap orpilleus, an emblem of liberty.[45] This Marcius Censorinus was killed bySulla and his head displayed outsidePraeneste. Sulla's legislative program attempted to curtail power invested in the people, particularly restricting the powers of theplebeian tribunes, and to restore the dominance of the senate and the privileges ofpatricians.[46]
_(30673129491).jpg)
Marsyas was claimed as theeponym of theMarsi as well, one of the ancient peoples of Italy.[47] TheSocial War of 91–88 BC, in which theItalian peoples fought to advance their status as citizens under Roman rule, is sometimes called the Marsic War because of the leadership of the Marsi. The RomancoloniaePaestum andAlba Fucens, along with other Italian cities, set up their own statues of Marsyas as assertions of their political status.[48]
During thePrincipate, Marsyas became a subversive symbol in opposition toAugustus, whose propaganda systematically associated Augustus with Apollo as the torturer of sileni. Augustus's daughterJulia held nocturnal assemblies at the statue, and crowned it to defy her father.[49] The poetOvid, who was ultimately exiled by Augustus, twice tells the story of Marsyas's flaying by Apollo, in his epicMetamorphoses and in theFasti, the calendrical poem left unfinished at his death.[50] Although the immediate cause of Ovid's exile remains one of literary history's great mysteries, Ovid says that a "poem and transgression" were contributing factors; his poetry tests the boundaries of permissible free speech during Rome's transition fromrepublic toimperial monarchy.[51]
Pliny indicates that in the first century AD, the paintingMarsyas religatus ("Marsyas Bound"), byZeuxis of Heraclea, could be viewed at theTemple of Concordia in Rome.[52] The goddessConcordia, like the GreekHarmonia, was apersonification of bothmusical harmony as it was understood in antiquity, and ofsocial order, as expressed byCicero's phraseconcordia ordinum. The apparent incongruity of exhibiting the tortured silenus in a temple devoted to harmony has been interpreted in modern scholarship as a warning against criticizing authority.[53]
A sarcophagus depicting the competition between Marsyas and Apollo, dating to around 300 CE, was discovered in 1853 on the bank of the river Chiarone inTuscany, on the former Emilia-Aurelia road. Its gathering of deities reads visually from left to right, starting from Athena with her staff andErichthonius, forming hercaduceus, which is partially broken along with a portion of her arm. In Greek myth, Athena was once associated with the pipes that later became those of Marsyas, so that other narratives were developed explaining the transfer as Athena having discarded the instrument in a pique (as in Ovid'sMetamorphoses). The flaying of Marsyas is set on the end opposite to Athena, on the extreme right.[citation needed]
In the art of later periods,allegory is applied to gloss over the somewhat ambivalent morality of the flaying of Marsyas. Marsyas is often seen with aflute,pan pipes, or evenbagpipes. Apollo is shown with hislyre, or sometimes aharp,viol, or other stringed instrument. Thecontest of Apollo and Marsyas is seen as symbolizing the eternal struggle between theApollonian and Dionysian aspects of human nature and cultures.[citation needed]
Paintings taking Marsyas as a subject include "Apollo and Marsyas" byMichelangelo Anselmi (c. 1492 – c.1554), "The Flaying of Marsyas" byJusepe de Ribera (1591–1652), theFlaying of Marsyas byTitian (c. 1570–1576), "Apollo and Marsyas" byBartolomeo Manfredi (St. Louis Art Museum), and "Apollo and Marsyas" byLuca Giordano (c.1665).[citation needed]
James Merrill based a poem, "Marsyas", on this myth; it appears inThe Country of a Thousand Years of Peace (1959).Zbigniew Herbert andNadine Sabra Meyer each entitled poems "Apollo and Marsyas". Following Ovid's retelling of the Apollo and Marsyas tale, the poem "The Flaying Of Marsyas" features in Robin Robertson's 1997 collection "a painted field".[citation needed]
Hugo Claus based his poem,Marsua (included in the 1955 poem collectionOostakkerse Gedichten), on the myth of Marsyas, describing the process of flaying from the perspective of Marsyas.[citation needed]
In 2002, British artistAnish Kapoor created and installed an enormous sculpture in London'sTate Modern entitled, "Marsyas". Consisting of three huge steel rings and a single redPVC membrane, The work was impossible to view as a whole because of its size, but had obvious anatomical connotations.[54]
A bridge that was built toward the end of theRoman period on the river Marsyas is still called by the satyr's name,Marsiyas.[55]
The late composer Kyle Rieger wrote a duet forsaxophone andpiano based on the contest between Marsyas and Apollo titled "Aulos & Lyre".[56]
The single reed or clarinet mouthpiece was known to other ancient peoples, and I should not venture to assert that it was not known to the Greeks. But the evidence of both art and literature indicates that it was the double reed that was standard in the Classical period. Under the Hornbostel-Sachs system, therefore, theaulos should be classified as an oboe. It must be admitted that 'oboe-girl' is less evocative than the 'flute-girl' to which classicists have been accustomed, and that when it is a question of translating Greek poetry 'oboe' is likely to sound odd. For the latter case I favor 'pipe' or 'shawm.'
Media related toMarsyas at Wikimedia Commons.jpg)
.jpg)
