![]() ![]() Marsyas and Apollo prepared for the contest. The winner, they decided, could do whatever he liked with the loser. Marsyas challenged Apollo to a music contest-his panpipes against Apollo’s lyre. ![]() Eventually, Marsyas became so skilled that he wished to pit himself against Apollo, the most musical of the Olympian gods. In one myth, he played the pipes to scare off an army of Gauls when they came to attack Phrygia. Marsyas soon chanced upon the panpipes and quickly took to this strange instrument. According to some, she even put a curse on the instrument and whoever played it. But when Athena caught a glimpse of her reflection while playing the panpipes-face strained, cheeks puffed out-she threw them away in disgust. In the most familiar tradition, this instrument-made up of several hollow reeds of varying lengths-was invented by Athena, the goddess of wisdom. The myth of Marsyas begins with the fateful invention of the panpipes. According to Ptolemaeus Chennus, Marsyas was born on the day of a festival of Apollo, during which the flayed skins of sacrificed animals were displayed in honor of the god-a chilling portent of the satyr’s own impending fate. ![]() This is suggested not only by Apollo’s central role in the myth, but also by one strange account of Marsyas’ birth. īut the myth may have also had a connection with the cult of Apollo. His skin, flayed by Apollo, was supposedly displayed nearby. The ancient Greeks believed that the myth of Marsyas came from Celaenae in southern Phrygia, a town located by the Meander River. Marsyas and his myth also appeared on monuments, wall paintings, and coinage. There was even a statue of Marsyas with a wineskin on his shoulder in the Roman Forum (80 BCE or earlier). Later, the myth of Marsyas was inherited by Roman artists. Maryas (right) is shown discovering the panpipes that had just been discarded by Athena (left). Roman copy (first century CE) of a statue group by Myron (mid-fifth century BCE) representing the myth of Marsyas. They often included the judges, the musical instruments, and the tree and knife used for the flaying (reminders of the contest’s dire outcome). Over time, sculptors, vase painters, and other artists increasingly represented Marsyas’ contest with Apollo in their works. ![]() It was around this time that the sculptor Myron created a group of statues based on the myth for display on the Athenian Acropolis. Marsyas’ myth first became popular in art around the fifth century BCE, perhaps following the composition of Melanippides of Melos’ dithyramb Marsyas. There was no consistent iconographic representation of Marsyas in ancient Greece he was alternately shown as young and old, sometimes sporting shaggy hair or even the goat-like horns usually seen on Pan. He paid a terrible price for this hybris, becoming a cautionary tale for any who thought too highly of themselves. To the Greeks, hybris was a terrible thing: it referred to insolence towards the gods (which Marsyas displayed by challenging Apollo). But he was also known for his arrogance, lack of forethought, and above all for what the Greeks called hybris (the origin of the English word “hubris”). Like other satyrs, Marsyas was a playful, wild, and uninhibited creature. In addition to being an accomplished musician, Marsyas was associated with religious cults in Phrygia, especially that of Cybele (also known as the Magna Mater, or “Great Mother”). Another relic, the skin that Apollo flayed from Marsyas’ body, was said to be on display in Celaenae. Marsyas’ panpipes were said to have floated across the sea after his death, where they were dedicated in the temple of Apollo at Sicyon (though the relic was already lost by the first century CE). Other traditions made him the inventor of the double pipe, while some vase paintings showed him playing the cithara or lyre. In the common tradition, he either invented or adopted the panpipes. Marsyas was one of the great musicians of Greek mythology. Like the rest of his kind, Marsyas had the ears, tail, and possibly legs and coat of a horse (though in later times, satyrs and silens were represented with goat features instead). He lived in Phrygia, near Celaenae and the source of the Meander River. Marsyas was described as either a satyr or a silen, terms that were generally interchangeable in ancient Greece. It bears a resemblance to the Greek word μάρσιππος ( mársippos), meaning “bag, pouch, purse.” Though this word is also of uncertain origin, it may have come-like the mythical Marsyas-from ancient Asia Minor. The etymology of the name “Marsyas” (Greek Μαρσύας, translit. ![]()
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