DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4264#0084
84
OF THE THEATRE OF BACCHUS.
f skill The Muses were appointed judges of the contest; Marsyas was vanquished, and for his
[resumption bound to a pine-tree, and consigned to a Scythian, by whom he was flayed alive \ &c.
a The above relief was evidently much mutilated when seen
by Stuart. It is not now remaining at Athens, nor do we know
if it be still in existence. The plumes on the helmet of Minerva
must have been a restoration by our author. The iegis somewhat
resembles that on the fragment of the statue of the goddess
from the western pediment of the Parthenon. We do not re-
collect any other representation of this subject among the exist-
ing works of ancient art. Pausanias speaks of a monument of
sculpture on the Acropolis., exhibiting Minerva punishing Marsyas
for taking up the flutes which she had thrown away, which
mythologic tale is probably only a different version of the fable
describing the cruel fate of that too presumptuous musician.
This fiction, however, is supposed to have originated at Athens
during the period of a contention for ascendancy in popular ad-
miration between the professors of the lyre and those of the flute;
a rivalry, it would seem, which terminated in the depreciation of
the latter instrument. Paus. L. I. C. XXIV. [ED-J
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OF THE THEATRE OF BACCHUS.
f skill The Muses were appointed judges of the contest; Marsyas was vanquished, and for his
[resumption bound to a pine-tree, and consigned to a Scythian, by whom he was flayed alive \ &c.
a The above relief was evidently much mutilated when seen
by Stuart. It is not now remaining at Athens, nor do we know
if it be still in existence. The plumes on the helmet of Minerva
must have been a restoration by our author. The iegis somewhat
resembles that on the fragment of the statue of the goddess
from the western pediment of the Parthenon. We do not re-
collect any other representation of this subject among the exist-
ing works of ancient art. Pausanias speaks of a monument of
sculpture on the Acropolis., exhibiting Minerva punishing Marsyas
for taking up the flutes which she had thrown away, which
mythologic tale is probably only a different version of the fable
describing the cruel fate of that too presumptuous musician.
This fiction, however, is supposed to have originated at Athens
during the period of a contention for ascendancy in popular ad-
miration between the professors of the lyre and those of the flute;
a rivalry, it would seem, which terminated in the depreciation of
the latter instrument. Paus. L. I. C. XXIV. [ED-J
I
I
001 o
^"11
!5S