Never enter a musical contest with a god
Minerva, goddess of the mind, war and music, invents the aulos, a type of double-pipe reed, but when the other gods make fun of her for the way it makes her cheeks bulge, she throws it away. The satyr Marsyas finds it and becomes a skillful player. He challenges Apollo to a contest, to be judged by the Muses, but naturally he is defeated by Apollo, who then flays Marysas alive for his hubris.
The myth suggests the superiority of the orderly, refined music of the stringed lyre over the sounds of the countryside played by a nature spirit (the superiority of culture over country). For the Pythagoreans (6th century BC), the lyre did indeed embody harmony that could be broken by the shrill tones of the aulos. Pliny, in the first century AD, describes how a painting of Marsyas being flayed was displayed in a temple as a warning of what happens to those who disturb the social order. [Read more →]
