In addition to gods and goddesses , Greek mythology also featured a large number of creatures. While some of these creatures played fairly minor roles, others were a bit more prominent. Satyrs held an important place in the stories and were often associated with Dionysus, the god of wine.
What is a Satyr?
Satyrs are the original party animals. These Greek creatures were born “a tribe of the helpless and useless,” but they soon found their place in the world: entertaining Dionysus, the god of wine, with their music, dancing, and wild joy.
Appearance
They are known for their animalistic behavior, and their appearance goes hand in hand with their personality. In early Greek art, satyrs are part man and part goat or donkey. They have heads full of thick curls, beards that fall to their chests, and stubby horns that peek out from their curls. Their noses are short and round, while their ears are long and pointed. A horse or donkey tail sprouts from their lower backs and sinks into the ground.
Some satyrs varied slightly in appearance. The Panes, for example, had goat legs instead of horse features. The Silenes were thinner and older, with bald heads. And the adorable Satyriskoi were just young boys, without the beards and bulging muscles of their older companions.
In late Greek art, satyrs began to appear even more animal-like. In addition to having horse tails, they began to have horse or goat legs. Today’s images are similar: the more horse-like, the better!
Personality
Satyrs are attendants of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and revelry, and their boisterous nature makes them perfect for the role. They revel in wine, music, dancing, and, above all, women. Their parties usually turn wild, as they cannot control their spirits. Impulse control simply does not exist among satyrs.
From a distance, a satyr party may seem like the ideal place to be, but get too close and you’ll regret paying attention to their pipes. Satyrs are wild and reckless, a combination that can quickly turn into destruction. They have been known to tear apart villages that got in the way of their parades, trampling crops, looting food, and generally making a nightmare mess.
But without a doubt, satyrs are the greatest threat to women. They are famous for their insatiable lust and will not take no for an answer. These muscular, drunken creatures have been responsible for raping countless nymphs, as well as beautiful mortals.
Special abilities
Even so, there is a method to the satyrs’ madness. They are extremely talented with musical instruments, and can produce such hypnotic melodies on their pipes and flutes that other people, and even animals, are compelled to join their revelry. Tambourines and metal drums can also be heard in their musical melee. They are also prolific dancers, with some of their dances serving ritual purposes that help crops grow or appease the gods.
Myths of satyrs
Satyrs first appear in Greek literature around the 8th century BC. Hesiod, Ovid, Strabo, Aesop, Virgil, Cicero, and Nono all wrote about the wild parties, fights, and affairs of satyrs. Satyrs are also very popular in Athenian red-figure pottery. During the 5th and 6th centuries BC, countless red-figure designs included satyrs playing their flutes or handling huge wineskins.
Around the 5th century BC, satyrs also became very popular in the theater. During plays, a chorus of actors dressed as satyrs commented on the drama, often with a comical effect. A complete satyr play, Cyclops by Euripides, still exists today. Fragments of satyr plays written by Sophocles and Aesop have also been found.
By the time satyrs were passed on from the Greeks to the Romans, they had begun to be confused with other party animals. The Romans replaced satyrs with fauns, forest creatures with goat-like legs. Fauns continued to perform the revelry of the satyr, but they were not as robust as their ancestors. They had a more childlike appearance and more connections to nature and wildlife than to agriculture and wine.
Modern appearances
The spirit of the ancient satyr lives on in today’s fantasy literature, although they are more commonly known by their Roman name, faun. These musical troublemakers can be found in everything from C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia to Walt Disney’s Fantasia to the role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons.
