Antiquities Exhibits

An aulos or tibia (Latin) was an ancient Greek wind instrument, depicted often in art and also attested by archaeology. Though aulos is often translated as "flute" or "double flute", it was usually a double-reeded instrument like the modern oboe, but with a larger mouthpiece, and its sound—described as "penetrating, insisting and exciting"was more akin to that of the bagpipes. Although used for martial music, the aulos is more frequently depicted in other social settings. It was the standard accompaniment of the passionate elegiac poetry. It also accompanied physical activities such as wrestling matches, the broad jump, the discus throw and to mark the rowing cadence on triremes, as well as sacrifices and dramas. Plato also associates it with the ecstatic cults of Dionysus and the Korybantes. Although aristocrats with sufficient leisure sometimes practiced aulos-playing as they did the lyre, after the later fifth century BCE the aulos became chiefly associ...

One of the most moving sculptures I have ever photographed is a depiction of the satyr Marsyas who has been flayed alive by Apollo for his hubris of challenging Apollo, the god of music (among other things), to a music contest.  The large statue of Marsyas bound and hanging by his hands with his skin already partially removed at the Capitoline Museum in Rome is a Roman Imperial Period copy of a 2nd century BCE Greek original.  In antiquity, literary sources often emphasize the hubris of Marsyas and the justice of his punishment. Hubris has been described as a personality quality of extreme or foolish pride or dangerous overconfidence, often in combination with (or synonymous with) arrogance. Hubris, arrogance and pretension are related to the need for victory (even if it doesn't always mean winning). Hubris is usually perceived as a characteristic of an individual rather than a group, although the group the offender belongs to may suffer collateral consequences from wrongful a...

 Although many of us are familiar with the story of Marsyas, a musically gifted satyr who found an aulos (a type of flute) discarded by Athena and challenged Apollo to a musical contest and lost, being flayed for his hubris, the Romans viewed Marsyas quite differently.  Among the Romans, Marsyas was cast as the inventor of augury and a proponent of free speech and "speaking truth to power". The earliest known representation of Marsyas at Rome stood for at least 300 years in the Roman Forum near or in the comitium, the space for political activity. Depicted as a silen carrying a wineskin on his left shoulder and raising his right arm, The statue was regarded as an indicium libertatis, a symbol of liberty, and was associated with demonstrations of the plebs, or common people. It often served as a sort of kiosk upon which invective verse was posted.  Marsyas was sometimes considered a king and contemporary of Faunus, portrayed by Vergil as a native Italian ruler at the time ...

The Arrotino, bronze cast of a 2nd - 1st century BCE Roman original at the Palace of Versailles, about 12 miles southwest of Paris, France. The original Arrotino is a marble Roman copy of a Hellenistic original of a slave or barbarian whetting his knife in anticipation of skinning Marsyas alive. The original sculpture was found in Rome between 1534 and 1538. It was transported to the Villa Medici and now resides in the Uffizi  Gallery in Florence, Italy. A number of casts were made of the work including a cast made in 1884 and displayed at the Fitzwilliam Museum. According to the Cambridge Museum of Classical Archaeology "Group sculpture was popular in Hellenistic times, and the Arrotino was part of a group encapsulating all the drama beloved of Hellenistic sculptors - the flaying of Marsyas." Marsyas, a Silenos, was an expert player of the double-piped double reed instrument known as the aulos. He challenged Apollo, the god of music, to a musical contest. The contest was...