Silenus

Silenus was the old, wine-loving companion and foster-father of the god Dionysus in Greek mythology, a member of the god’s drunken retinue who was said to know secrets that a man could learn only by catching him. The word was also used in the plural for a class of woodland beings, the Sileni, who were closely connected with the satyrs.

Silenus and the Sileni

Silenus is the individual old man; the Sileni (plural) are a group of creatures like him. The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite speaks of the mountain nymphs who “mate with the Sileni and the sharp-eyed Slayer of Argus in the depths of pleasant caves” (Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 5.262–263), and Lucian, describing Dionysus and his army, makes Silenus one of his two lieutenants beside Pan (Lucian, Dionysus 2–4). Plato speaks of the drunken dances in which men imitate “Pans, Sileni and Satyrs” (Plato, Laws 7.815c).

Ancient writers describe him as old, short, thick-set and pot-bellied, with a flat nose and large upright ears. He is unsteady and walks with a staff, but is usually found riding on a donkey (Lucian, Dionysus 2). Ovid shows him as the drunken old man on his bent-backed ass in the god’s procession (Ovid, Ars Amatoria 1.543; Fasti 1.399). Ovid also says that he is “always younger than his years” (Metamorphoses 14.639).

Companion and Foster-Father of Dionysus

Ovid calls Dionysus the “foster-child” of Silenus (Ovid, Metamorphoses 11.99), and in Euripides’ satyr play the Cyclops, Silenus himself recalls how he stayed with the god, standing by him when the god was driven mad by Hera and left the mountain nymphs who had nursed him, and how he fought the Giants and killed Enceladus with his spear (Euripides, Cyclops 1–10). The play shows Silenus as the father or leader of a chorus of satyrs, a boaster and a lover of wine.

Silenus in Euripides’ Cyclops

In the Cyclops, Silenus and his satyrs are slaves of the Cyclops Polyphemus in Sicily, forced to tend his flocks. When Odysseus lands and asks for food, Silenus, who longs for wine, tries to sell the Cyclops’ lambs and cheese for a skin of Odysseus’ wine, and when Polyphemus returns, Silenus, his bald head swollen with blows, falsely accuses the strangers of beating him and stealing the flocks. While the Cyclops drinks, Silenus takes stealthy pulls at the wine and is dragged into the cave by the drunken giant; after Odysseus blinds Polyphemus, the satyrs leave with Odysseus to serve Bacchus again (Euripides, Cyclops).

Silenus and Midas

The best-known story about Silenus links him with King Midas of Phrygia. According to Ovid, Dionysus went to Tmolus and the Pactolus with his usual throng of satyrs and Bacchantes, but Silenus was missing: Phrygian farmers found him staggering from age and wine, bound him with garlands and took him to Midas, who had been taught the god’s rites by Orpheus and Eumolpus. Midas recognised his old companion and feasted him for ten days and nights, and on the eleventh took him to Lydia and returned him to the young god, his foster-child. In gratitude Dionysus offered Midas any wish, and Midas asked that everything he touched should turn to gold (Ovid, Metamorphoses 11.85–145).

In another version, Midas caught Silenus by mixing wine into a spring; Pausanias saw this spring, called the Spring of Midas, at Ancyra in Phrygia (Pausanias 1.4.5).

The Wisdom of Silenus

Plutarch, quoting a lost work of Aristotle, says that when Midas had captured Silenus he asked him what was the best and most desirable thing for men. Silenus first kept a stubborn silence, but when forced to speak answered that the best thing for all men and women is never to be born, and the next best is to die as quickly as possible (Plutarch, Consolation to Apollonius 27).

Cult and Tomb

At Elis, Pausanias describes a temple of Silenus that was sacred to him alone and not shared with Dionysus; there a figure of Drunkenness offers him wine in a cup. He adds that the Sileni were thought to be a mortal race, because tombs of a Silenus were shown in the land of the Hebrews and at Pergamum (Pausanias 6.24.8).

Silenus Sources

Silenus is described in Euripides, Cyclops; Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 5.262–263; Ovid, Metamorphoses 11.85–145 and 14.639, Ars Amatoria 1.543 and Fasti 1.399; Pausanias 1.4.5 and 6.24.8; Plutarch, Consolation to Apollonius 27; Lucian, Dionysus 2–4; Plato, Laws 7.815c.

See Also: Dionysus, Midas, Satyrs, Pan, Polyphemus, Odysseus