MARSYAS. A figure in Phrygian mythology. Marsyas was either a Phrygian satyr or Silenus (q.v.), or a shepherd or herdsman. In any case, he is represented as a skilful player on the flute, an instrument which was closely associated with the worship of Cybele (q.v.). Marsyas is said to have challenged Apollo (q.v.) to a musical contest. He played the flute, while Apollo per formed on the lyre. Apollo, on being declared victor, tied Marsyas to a pine-tree and flayed him. The skin, it is said, was hung up in a cave at Celaenae, and used to thrill at the sound of melodies played on the flute. J. Al. Robertson (C.M., 1910, p..121) thinks that originally Marsyas was apparently a Phrygian variant of Pan, figuring as Silenus, and that the story of his flaying may have grown out of the fact that his symbol was a wine skin. J. G. Frazer writes as follows. " In this Phrygian satyr, shepherd. or herdsman who enjoyed the friendship of Cybele. practised the music so characteristic
of her rites, and died a violent death on her sacred tree, the pine, may we not detect a close resemblance to Attis, the favourite shepherd or herdsman of the goddess, who is himself described as a piper, is said to have perished under a pine-tree, and was annually represented by an effigy hung, like Marsyas. upon a pine? We may con jecture that in old days the priest who bore the name and played the part of Attis at the spring festival of Cybele was regularly hanged or otherwise slain upon the sacred tree, and that this barbarous custom was after wards mitigated into the form in which it is known to us in later times, when the priest merely drew blood from his body under the tree and attached an effigy instead of himself to its trunk." See O. Seyffert, Diet.; J. M. Robertson. GM.; P.C.; J. G. Fraser, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, 2nd ed. 1907.