Marsyas and from their bladders spouted a highly seasoned sauce upon fish
which were swimming about as if in a tide-race.”
German scholars have adopted the doctrine that Marsyas belonged to that
mythological group which they designate as “Schlauch-silen” or, as we
would say in English, “Wineskin-bearing Silenuses.” Their hypothesis
seems to be based upon the discovery of two beautiful bas-reliefs of the
age of Vespasian, which were excavated near the Rostra Vetera in the
Forum. Sir Theodore Martin has a note on these bas-reliefs which I quote
in extenso:
“In the Forum stood a statue of Marsyas, Apollo’s ill-starred rival. It
probably bore an expression of pain, which Horace humorously ascribes to
dislike of the looks of the Younger Novius, who is conjectured to have
been of the profession and nature of Shylock. A naked figure carrying a
wineskin, which appears upon each of two fine bas-reliefs of the time of
Vespasian found near the Rostra Vetera in the Forum during the
excavations conducted within the last few years by Signor Pietro Rosa,
and which now stand in the Forum, is said, by archaeologists, to
represent Marsyas. Why they arrive at this conclusion, except as
arguing, from the spot where these bas-reliefs were found, that they were
meant to perpetuate the remembrance of the old statue of Marsyas, is
certainly not very apparent from anything in the figure itself.”
Martin’s Horace, vol. 2, pp 145-6.
Hence German philologists render “utriculis” by the German equivalent for
“Wineskins.”
“The Romans,” says Weitzius, “had two sources of water-supply, through
underground channels, and through channels supported by arches. As
adjuncts to these channels there were cisterns (or castella, as they were
called). From these reservoirs the water was distributed to the public
through routes more or less circuitous and left the cisterns through
pipes, the diameter of which was reckoned in either twelfths or
sixteenths of a Roman foot. At the exits of the pipes were placed stones
or stone figures, the water taking exit from these figures either by the
mouth, private parts or elsewhere, and falling either to the ground or
into some stone receptacle such as a basket. Various names were given
these statuettes: Marsyae, Satyri, Atlantes, Hermae, Chirones, Silani,
Tulii.”
No one who has been through the Secret Museum at Naples will find much
difficulty in recalling a few of these heavily endowed examples to mind,
and our author, in choosing Marsyae, adds a touch of sarcastic realism,
for statues of Marysas were often set up in free cities, symbolical, as
it were, of freedom. In such a setting as the present, they would be the
very acme of propriety.
“The figures,” says Gonzala de Salas, “formerly placed at fountains, and
from which water took exit either from the mouth or from some other part,
took their forms from the several species of Satyrs. The learned
Wouweren has commented long and learnedly upon this passage, and his
emendation ‘veretriculis’ caused me to laugh heartily. And as a matter
of fact, I affirm that such a meaning is easily possible.” Professor E.
P. Crowell, the first American scholar to edit Petronius, gravely states
in his preface that “the object of this edition is to provide for
class-room use an expurgated text,” and I note that he has tactfully
omitted the “wineskins” from his edition.
In this connection the last sentence in the remarks of Wouweren, alluded
to above, is strangely to the point. After stating his emendation of
“veretriculis or veretellis” for “utriculis,” he says: “Unless someone
proves that images of Marsyas were fashioned in the likeness of
bag-pipers,” a fine instance of clarity of vision for so dark an age.