[1] Like Piero di Cosimo's other mythological paintings, they were made for an audience well versed in the works of Ovid and Virgil, inviting the viewers to demonstrate their erudition.

From left and right, more companions of Bacchus join the event, including Silenus, who rides in from the right on an ass, visibly drunk and supported by satyrs and bacchantes.

[1] The art historian Erwin Panofsky interpreted the painting as a reflection of the "Epicurean evolutionism" present in the Latin writings of Lucretius and Vitruvius, which had been reintroduced to Renaissance audiences through Genealogia Deorum Gentilium by Boccaccio.

[4] The art historian Dennis Geronimus has written that Panofsky's evolutionist interpretation should be taken with reservations, as its moral roots lie in religion, and the juxtaposition it is based on is "largely divorced from the painting itself".

[4] The Discovery of Honey by Bacchus is significantly better preserved than The Misfortunes of Silenus, with clearer colours and fewer over-painted sections.