SATYRS and SILÈNI (Σάντρι, Σίλαι), — Mythological figures of secondary importance, yet among the most widespread in the art, literature, and popular beliefs of Greece. Even among the ancients in late antiquity, no clear distinction was made between Satyrs and Silèni; and some modern scholars, besides often using one term for the other, derive both from a single original type. But it seems impossible not to consider the contrary (as Pausanias already did, I, 23, 5), since apart from the difference in their names (which are moreover of uncertain etymology), they correspond to two quite distinct animalistic types.
The Silèni, in fact, commonly regarded as of Thracian origin, are the first to appear in art (François Vase, mid-6th century B.C.) and perhaps in literature (*Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite*, 265); they are theriomorphic genii of a boar-like nature: broad face completely covered with a beard, long tangled hair from which horse’s ears sprout, snub nose, long and thick horse’s tail, cloven hoof. All this justifies their epithet (*hinnuli* = horses, given them by the ancients (*Orphic Hymn*, 48, 4) and their assimilation to the Centaurs (also of Thracian origin). Of lascivious and ithyphallic nature, they live pursuing nymphs “with whom they unite amorously in the depths of wondrous grottoes” (*Homeric Hymn*, loc. cit.), and, like these, were considered genii of water. Already on the cited François Vase the Silèni appear in the retinue of Dionysus, and later, together with Satyrs, Maenads, Bacchantes, etc., they will always take part in the orgiastic processions of this god. As to their relations with Dionysus, mythology knew, one might say, an archetype: the Silenus, an old kindly man, father of the Satyrs, who had reared Dionysus in Attica; unlike the other Silèni, he was friendly to men, learned, and possessed prophetic virtue which he exercised, however, only in a state of drunkenness. Later the Silèni were depicted bald and increasingly humanized, while their bestial characteristics were barely hinted at.
The Satyrs appear in art around the mid-5th century B.C., but were already known in literature (Hesiod, cited by Strabo, X, 471, makes them descend from the Argive Phoroneus together with the Nymphs and the Curetes). They too are theriomorphic genii, but of a goat-like nature, originating in the Peloponnese, perhaps in Arcadia, the homeland of the very ancient goat-shaped god Pan, from whom they most probably took their characteristics: horns, cloven hooves, small tail, dwellers in the woods, of markedly lascivious nature and hostile to men and their herds; the ancients called them *πάγον* = goats and their Doric name *τίτυρος*; it has the same meaning. The Satyrs were also very early associated with the cult of Dionysus.
The fusion of Satyrs and Silèni occurred in Attic tragedy (5th century), when the Satyrs were also attributed the equine characteristics of the Silèni; a fusion which then passed into art and became common, making the two terms synonymous (cf. Hesychius: Σάντρι, Σίλαι), so that, for example, the famous Marsyas is now called a Silenus, now a Satyr, and even the satyric drama was sometimes designated as *dramma silenico* (*Plato, Symposium*, 215 b).
Cesare D'Onofrio.