Editing Marsyas (section)

== Mythology ==

===The finding of the aulos===
[[File:Altar Atrosokes MNAT M7010 n04.jpg|thumb|[[Hellenistic art|Hellenistic]] Marsyas playing the [[aulos]], with dedication in Greek to the god [[Oxus (god)|Oxus]], by "Atrosokes", a [[Greco-Bactria|Bactrian]] name. Temple of the [[Oxus]], [[Takht-i Sangin]], 200-150 BC. [[National Museum of Antiquities of Tajikistan]].<ref name="BAL">{{cite journal |last1=LITVINSKII |first1=B. A. |last2=PICHIKIAN |first2=I. R. |title=The Hellenistic Architecture and Art of the Temple of the Oxus |journal=Bulletin of the Asia Institute |date=1994 |volume=8 |pages=47–66 |jstor=24048765 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/24048765.pdf |issn=0890-4464}}</ref><ref name="RW2011">{{cite journal |last1=Wood |first1=Rachel |title=Cultural convergence in Bactria: the votives from the Temple of the Oxus at Takht-i Sangin, in "From Pella to Gandhara" |journal=In A. Kouremenos, S. Chandrasekaran & R. Rossi ed. 'From Pella to Gandhara: Hybridization and Identity in the Art and Architecture of the Hellenistic East' |date=2011 |publisher=Archaeopress |location=Oxford |pages=141–151 |url=https://www.academia.edu/3850105}}</ref>]]
Marsyas was an expert player on the double-piped [[double reed instrument]] known as the [[aulos]].<ref name="West"/> The dithyrambic poet [[Melanippides|Melanippides of Melos]] ({{circa}} 480 – 430 BC) embellished the story in his [[dithyramb]] ''Marsyas'',<ref>quoted in [[Athenaeus]]' [[Deipnosophistae]], 14.616e</ref><ref name="Poehlmann2017">{{citation|last=Poehlmann|first=Egert|date=2017|chapter=Aristotle on Music and Theatre (''Politics'' VIII 6. 1340 b 20 - 1342 b 34; ''Poetics'')|title=Theatre World: Critical Perspectives on Greek Tragedy and Comedy. Studies in Honour of Georgia Xanthakis-Karamenos|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6e05DwAAQBAJ&q=Athena+and+Marsyas&pg=PA330|editor1-last=Fountoulakis|editor1-first=Andreas|editor2-last=Markantonatos|editor2-first=Andreas|editor3-last=Vasilaros|editor3-first=Georgios|location=Berlin, Germany|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|isbn=978-3-11-051896-2|page=330}}</ref> claiming that the goddess [[Athena]], 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.<ref name="Poehlmann2017"/> Marsyas picked up the aulos and was later killed by Apollo for his [[hubris]].<ref name="Poehlmann2017"/> The fifth-century BC poet Telestes doubted that virginal Athena could have been motivated by such vanity.<ref>Telestes, Fr. 805, quoted in [[Athenaeus]]' ''[[Deipnosophistae]]'' 616f</ref>

Later, however, Melanippides's story became accepted as canonical <ref name="Poehlmann2017"/> and the Athenian sculptor [[Myron]] created a group of bronze sculptures based on it, which was installed before the western front of the Parthenon around 440 BC.<ref name="Poehlmann2017"/> In the second century AD, the travel writer [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] 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".<ref>Pausanias, i.24.1.</ref>

=== Marsyas and Apollo ===
[[File:José_de_Ribera_003.jpg|thumb|left|Apollo flaying Marsyas in ''[[Apollo and Marsyas (Ribera)|Apollo and Marsyas]]'' by [[José de Ribera]]]]
[[File:Peter Paul Rubens - Marsyas tied.jpg|thumb|left|''Marsyas tied'', by [[Peter Paul Rubens]], [[Louvre Museum]]]]
In the contest between Apollo and Marsyas, which was judged by the [[Muse]]s or the Nysean nymphs,<ref name="auto">Diodorus Siculus, ''Library of History'' 5. 75. 3</ref><ref>Tmolus was judge in another musical contest, that of Apollo and [[Pan (mythology)|Pan]].</ref> 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.  
[[File:Attributed to Veronese, Apollo and Marsyas, NGA 54011.jpg|alt=pen and ink sketch on blue paper of Apollo tying Marsyas up |thumb|Apollo and Marsyas, attributed to [[Paolo Veronese]], [[National Gallery of Art]]]]
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.<ref name="auto"/><ref>The most elaborated accounts are given by Diodorus Siculus ''Library of History'', [[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus]] (''Fabulae'', 165) and Pseudo-Apollodorus' ''[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Bibliotheke]]'' (i.4.2); see also [[Pliny's Natural History]] 16.89.</ref>

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.<ref>Philostratus the Younger, Imagines 2 (trans. Fairbanks)</ref>

He was [[flaying|flayed]] alive in a cave near Celaenae for his [[hubris]] to challenge a deity. Apollo then nailed Marsyas' skin to a pine tree,<ref>-Apollodorus, ''[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Bibliotheke]]''i.4.2</ref> near [[Lake Aulocrene]] (''Karakuyu Gölü'' in modern Turkey), which [[Strabo]] noted was full of the [[Reed (plant)|reeds]] from which the pipes were fashioned.<ref>Strabo, ''Geography'' xii.8.15; {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20070303182104/http://www.ancientlibrary.com/gazetteer/0063.html Hazlitt, ''The Classical Gazetteer'' ''s.v.'' "Aulocrene lac."]}}</ref> [[Diodorus Siculus]] felt that Apollo must have repented this "excessive" deed, and said that he had laid aside his lyre for a while,<ref>Diodorus, ''Library of History'' v.75.3.</ref> but [[Karl 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".<ref>[[Karl Kerenyi]], ''The Gods of the Greeks'' 1951:179.</ref> Classical Greeks were unaware of such [[shaman]]istic 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 to [[Ovid]]'s ''[[Metamorphoses]]'', were the source of the river [[Marsyas (river of Phrygia)|Marsyas]] in [[Phrygia]] (called Çine Creek today), which joins the [[Büyük Menderes River|Meander]] near Celaenae, where Herodotus reported that the flayed skin of Marsyas was still to be seen,<ref>Herodotus, ''Histories'' vii.26.3.</ref> and [[Ptolemy Hephaestion]] recorded a "festival of Apollo, where the skins of all those victims one has flayed are offered to the god".<ref>Ptolemy Hephaestion, ''New History'' iii, summarised by [[Photios I of Constantinople|Photius]], ''Myriobiblon'' 190.</ref>

[[Plato]] was of the opinion that the skin of Marsyas had been made into a [[wineskin]].<ref>Plato, ''''[[Euthydemus (dialogue)|Euthydemus]]'', 285c.</ref>
[[File:Apollo flaying Marsyas by Antonio Corradini (1658-1752), V&A.JPG|thumb|''Apollo flaying Marsyas'' by Antonio Corradini (1658–1752), [[Victoria and Albert Museum]], [[London]]]]

[[Ovid]] touches upon the theme of Marsyas twice, very briefly telling the tale in ''[[Metamorphoses]]'' vi.383–400, where he concentrates on the tears shed into the river Marsyas, and making an [[allusion]] in ''[[Fasti (poem)|Fasti]]'', vi.649–710, where Ovid's primary focus is on the ''aulos'' and the roles of flute-players rather than Marsyas, whose name is not mentioned.