Athena Marsyas Group

[5] In Greek mythology, Athena was thought to be the inventor of the aulos, with which, according to the poet Pindar, she imitated the funeral dirge of the Gorgons after the beheading of her mortal sister Medusa and gave it as a gift to humans for this purpose.

[10] According to Hyginus, Marsyas was the name of the satyr, and not only was the reflection in the water but also the laughter of Juno and Aphrodite the cause of Athena letting the aulos drop.

[16] Aristotle followed him here and invoked directly the disdain of Athena, but thought the story of the distortion of her face as too superficial a reason for her reluctance and sought to intellectualized the interpretation: since one cannot blow and speak at the same time, the aulos is not conducive to spiritual development.

Karl Otfried Müller, who was the first to relate the passages to the myth of Pliny and Pausanias, recognized representations of the Athena–Marsyas group in Athenian coins of the Roman Empire and in the relief of the "Finlay Krater" located in Athens.

In 1824, the antiquarian Ignazio Vescovali carried out excavations in Via dei Quadro Cantoni on the Esquiline Hill, in which, among many other finds, he discovered the statue of a satyr.

[20] A year later, at the suggestion of Adolf Furtwängler, Johannes Sieveking presented the first reconstruction of the group in plaster and a replica in copper.

The same scene is also depicted on a Neo-Attic marble krater of around the middle of the 1st century BCE., which is located in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, known as the "Finlay Crater".

Athena, who is rushing into the right of the scene, which is clearly perceived by the movement of her robe, she holds a shield in her left hand, with the right she has just thrown down the aulos.

Nevertheless, there are mainly American researchers who in principle deny the pertinence of the reference of Pliny and Pausanias and do not want to recognize traces of the Athena–Marsyas group in either the coin representations or in the statuary traditions.

[28] It has also been proposed to divorce the statues discussed by Pliny and Pausanias into two groups: one by Myron, whose site was not known, and one on the Acropolis of Athens, which could not be assigned to a sculptor.

The upper body performs a slight turn to her left, which the head with its pushed back helmet – in the original probably the only attribute of the statue as Athena – energetically absorbs, so that it almost appears in the profile.

The muscles of the body are strong and toned, which are worked out in such detail and anatomically correct that even fine veins are displayed on the surface.

Thrown into deep wrinkles is the forehead of Marsyas, which clearly shows himself as a satyr by his pointed ears, his tail and his thick, round nose.

And although both types of statues do not give a direct indication that they had a counterpart, the structure and movement show that they are not self-contained and stand-alone compositions.

The comparison with the representations in vase painting, relief and coins, on the other hand, makes it clear that these two statues are connected by isocephaly and form a coherent scene once grouped together.

[49] Paul Jonas Meier believed that he had recognized the remains of a small protrusion, a "puntello", on the right side of the apoptygma of Athena and reconstructed the position of the right arm in front of the body, holding a lance diagonally upwards to the compositional centre of the group.

Raimund Wünsche argued that Athena with the lance in her right hand was directed against Marsyas, while the open left pointed to the aulos lying on the ground.

[59] There is no information about who commissioned the statue or the occasion of its dedication, but attempts have been repeatedly made to try to put the work in its historical context.

Marsyas represents the wild and aulos loving Boeotia in this reading, and Athena as city goddess of civilized Athens favouring the lyre.

[65] But the connection with Marsyas would find its justification in the fact that the satyr served as a mediator of this art to the people, because according to Johannes Tzetzes, a Byzantine scholar of the 12th century.

[67] So far, satisfactory interpretations of the group and the reason for its establishment, supported by a broader scholarly consensus,[68] which is even attributed to the "special conceptual quality" of the work: Since it can be read and understood in many ways, the circle of possible donors is also correspondingly large.