The competition between Apollo and Marsyas:
Mythical agonism as a symbol of professionalism

Marsyas (Μαρσύας) is the son of Eagro or, according to another version of the myth, of Olympus, all three Phrygian figures connected with the aulos. In Greece, the invention of this instrument was attributed to the goddess Athena who, however, according to the myth, got rid of it as soon as she realised that playing it altered her face; it was then that the satyr Marsyas took it (tab 1).
An equally famous myth describes the challenge that Marsyas issued to Apollo, convinced that his own playing of the wind instrument was superior to any other kind of music. During the last quarter of the 5th and the first half of the 4th century BC, the contest between Apollo and Marsyas appears on numerous Attic red-figure vases: Marsyas is sometimes listening to Apollo playing the kithara (tab 2), sometimes playing the aulos or more often the lyra; he is rarely depicted playing the kithara (tab 3).
The latter may be a variant of the myth inspired by a literary work; or it could be the result of a change in the cultural significance of string and wind instruments, as the kithara had become a professional instrument in its own right, capable of virtuosity equal to that of the aulos. Marsyas, defeated by the god of music who may have used stratagems (tab 4), suffered the punishment of being flayed alive (tab 5).
Representations of Marsyas are frequent in Magna Graecia and Rome, where a statue of the satyr was placed in the Forum (Horace, Satires and Trajan’s Plutei). Representations in Italic lands focus mainly on punishment, but some Roman sarcophagi, dated to the 2nd century AD, combine several mythical episodes: Athena refusing the aulos (taken from Marsyas), the musical contest with Apollo and its epilogue.

Myth (e.g. Hyginus) relates that Athena threw away the aulos immediately after creating it because, looking in the mirror, she saw her face deformed due to her swollen cheeks (aulos players used the technique of circular breathing, using the mouth as an inner tube); again according to myth (e.g. Ovid, Plutarch), it was at that point that Marsyas, attracted by the sound of the instrument, took it.
The information provided by literary and iconographic sources – in particular an Attic chous from the 5th century BC and some Roman coins – made it possible, as early as the 19th century, to propose the reconstruction of a group depicting the discovery of the aulos by the Satyr, combining the statues of Marsyas and Athena from the Vatican Museums.
Recently, however, the existence of two sculptural groups has been suggested: the one mentioned by Pliny among the works attributed to the sculptor Myron, to be recognised in the Vatican Group, and the one seen by Pausanias on the Acropolis in Athens. The Marsyas belonging to the latter has in fact been recognised in a bronze statue found in Patras and in the Satyr, depicted trying to escape the grasp of the irate goddess, on a crater in the Louvre. It would therefore be a later event than the one recounted by the Vatican Group.
The episode of Athena looking in the mirror with her face deformed is found, on the other hand, on two vases of Apulian production datable to the beginning of the 4th century BC.

The iconographic narrative of the musical dispute is very complex, not so much because of the number of images (which are not numerous) as because of the variety of episodes, which are depicted differently depending on the periods and places, as well as the media on which they are represented. For this reason, it has been advanced the hypothesis that at the basis of the depictions was a literary text, rather than a work (e.g. of great painting) that could have suggested the myth and its declination in art and craft in a more uniform manner.
On the other hand, literary sources also recount the dispute in different ways: now the judges are the inhabitants of Nisa (cf. for instance Diodorus Siculus), now the Muses themselves, perhaps accompanied by Athena (e.g. in Apuleius).
In Greece there are not many images of the challenge where Apollo plays the kithara or lyra, while they are more frequent on Lucanian, Apulian and Pestan ceramics from the 4th century BC, and in Etruscan, Faliscan and Roman artistic productions.

In Greek art, the iconography of the challenge between Apollo and Marsyas is focused on the performance of the satyr. The theme, rather frequent in the late 5th and first half of the 4th century BC, proposes Marsyas playing the aulos (in addition to the texts presented in the previous sections, a few passages from Diodorus Siculus and the De musica attributed to Plutarch may also offer some insight into the ways in which Marsyas played the aulos and possible links – familial or discipleship – between mythical aulos players), although he may sometimes have the lyra or even the kithara instead.
Attempts have been made to explain the curious attribution of the lyra to Marsyas in various ways, but without reaching a definitive conclusion. In fact, it has been hypothesised that it is either the story of a moment after the dispute, in which Marsyas would play the stringed instrument to demonstrate his musical prowess, or that the iconography refers rather to a different version of the myth in which the satyr, defeated by Apollo, would convert to stringed instruments.
On an Attic crater exported to Ruvo di Puglia, Marsyas is presented in the two versions of aulos player (on the neck of the vase) and citharoedus (on the belly of the vase).

The contest often does not consist of only two moments of performance, one for each contender: Apollo, who at first appears to be in difficulty, proposes a further moment of challenge, in which he either adds singing to the music (as in Diodorus Siculus‘ long account), or reverses his instrument (e.g., in addition to Diodorus, Pseudo Apollodorus and Hyginus); with these modes of performance, which are not possible with the aulos, the god wins the contest.
The images that refer to the expedients Apollo would have used to win over Marsyas, described by literary sources and various mythographers (the aforementioned Diodorus Siculus, Hyginus, Pseudo Apollodorus), are only two and date back to the Roman period: a funerary relief from Bierbach (Germany) and a Roman sarcophagus preserved at the Centrale Montemartini, on which Apollo is depicted holding an inverted zither.
Apollo’s victory is represented visually through the presence of a Nike/Victory crowning the victorious god or holding a palm branch, or through the submission of the satyr, as is clearly evident on the Berlin plectrum.

Marsyas, defeated by Apollo, suffered the punishment of being flayed alive: in literary (Herodotus, Xenophon, Diodorus Siculus, Ovid, Pausanias, Apuleius) and mythographical (Hyginus) sources, different versions of the conclusion of the challenge and the fate of Marsyas’ remains have been handed down. In Greek productions, no scenes of the actual punishment are known; however, the Scythian is sometimes depicted with the knife intended for flaying, as seen on the Mantinea Base.
Depictions of Marsyas are frequent in Magna Graecia and Rome, where the iconography seems to focus on the moment of punishment.