Roman copy of a Greek 4th Century BC Bronze Original

THE DANCING SATYR Roman copy of a Greek 4th Century BC Bronze Original

The Dancing Satyr

Marble Torso 27 cm (10⅝ in.) high The naked youthful satyr twists his torso in the ecstatic fervour of a Dionysiac or Bacchic dance. The swirling abandoned movement of the wild dance has been skilfully captured as a moment in marble by the sculptor, with the satyr rotating on his left leg and with the exaggerated torsion of the torso with its backward curving spine. Both arms were swung out and the satyr’s left shoulder is clearly upraised with his left hand likely once holding a thyrsos, a staff topped by a pinecone which symbolised fertility. His right hand may have held a kantharos or wine cup. The satyr’s head would have been flung back in the frenzied movements of the drunken dance.

Fig. 1 Greek bronze Dancing Satyr, circa 4th century BC, Museo del Satiro, Mazara del Vallo, Fig. 2 Roman marble relief of a Bacchic procession, circa 100 AD, Sicily. The British Museum, London.

The Dancing Satyr was a sculpture type widely admired in the Roman world and Roman sculptors copied in marble a Greek bronze original dating to the 4th century BC. Remarkably, a Greek bronze of the Dancing Satyr type was caught in fishing nets in the seabed off the coast of southwest Sicily in 1998 and is now displayed Museo del Satiro Danzante in Mazara del Vallo in Sicily. Some scholars attribute the bronze to the famous Greek 4th century BC sculptor Praxiteles, while others date it to the Hellenistic or Roman periods. Whatever its true age, the bronze gives a good impression of what the completed Dancing Satyr would have looked like (Figs. 1 & 2).

The drunken orgiastic cult of Dionysos Dionysos, known to the Romans as Bacchus, was a popular deity throughout the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. As the god of wine and revelry, Bacchus was frequently accompanied by his followers, the wild and unruly male satyrs and the frenzied female maenads. Both the god and his retinue were often shown holding a two-handled wine cup known as a kantharos, while holding up an ivy-twined staff or thyrsos in the other hand. The present torso almost certainly brandished these attributes of the Dionysiac cult.

The original Greek cult of Dionysos was associated with wine, fertility and the frenzied release of emotions. There are many versions of the Dionysiac myth but in one Dionysos is said to have been the son of Zeus and the mortal Semele and was brought up by rain-nymphs on Mount Nysa, a mythological location often placed in Asia Minor or further east.

Tel: +5411 4816 2787 / 5411 4816 2790 – [email protected] 3 Fig. 3 Roman marble dancing satyr, 1st-2nd century AD, Fig. 4 A roman marble torso of a dancing satyr, 1st-2nd century AD, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. roman copy of a greek 4th century BC bronze original.

He was tutored by the satyr Silenus who taught him how to cultivate the vine and how to use a particular variety of ivy as an intoxicant when chewed. According to the Greeks, Dionysos led his retinue of bacchants, composed of satyrs and maenads, across Asia to Greece where his cult was adopted. Some legends have him coming from as far away as India. His triumphal procession on his journey westward often shows him riding in a chariot pulled by panthers, leopards, lions or tigers. Above can be seen a Roman marble relief with a lively Bacchic procession (Fig. 3 & 4).

On the Greek island of Naxos Dionysos is said to have discovered the sleeping Ariadne whom Theseus had abandoned there. Dionysos married her and both then took their place with the other Greek deities on Mount Olympus. In Athens, the important spring festival was called the Great Dionysia when theatrical plays were staged. The Dionysiac cult became one of the Greek mystery religions, with secret initiation ceremonies, and festivities involving dance, music, intoxication and communal orgiastic ecstasy. Although attempts were taken by the Romans to suppress the cult and stop it reaching Italy, Dionysos did enter the Roman pantheon as Bacchus and his iconography spread all over the Roman empire.

As the cult grew, the Dancing Satyr type was both copied and adapted by Roman sculptors. In the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, is a close parallel to the present torso, both having been copied in antiquity from an original model. Animated sculptures such as these may well have been commissioned by affluent Romans to decorate their gardens (Fig. 5).

Tel: +5411 4816 2787 / 5411 4816 2790 – [email protected] 4 Fig. 5 A roman marble torso of a dancing satyr, 1st-2nd century AD, roman copy of a greek 4th century BC bronze original.

Tel: +5411 4816 2787 / 5411 4816 2790 – [email protected] 5 Tel: +5411 4816 2787 / 5411 4816 2790 – [email protected] 6