»…Aristides has advanced what appears to be an original account of how the fall through matter changes the soul from its original, perfectly spherical shape. As it encounters the different forms of matter in the vicinity of the different planets, it clothes itself in more and more coverings of extraneous matter. Passing, towards the end of its descent, through the wet atmosphere beneath the moon, the bag that it has become is filled with wet, dense air, the effect of which is to stretch it out into the form of a man. The hung, strung Marsyas is an image of the body drawn downwards by humid breath. His skin, filled out by the wind and shaken by the sonorous rushing of the water beneath it, is an image of the soul in its most degenerated condition, as a mere bag of steam. But the fact that, thanks to Apollo, it is hung above the water is a reminder of its aspiration, or rather, if this breathy word seems inopportune, its straining towards what is higher and drier. The figure of Marsyas only has the man-like form it does because it is stretched between the earth and the sky - a windy lyre…. »
« …Another Seilenos there was, fingering a proud pipe, who lifted a haughty neck and challenged a match with Phoibos; but Phoibos tied him to a tree and stript off his hairy skin, and made it a windbag. There it hung, high on a tree, and the breeze often entered, swelling it out into a shape like him, as if the shepherd could not keep silence but made his tune again… »
Artist
Anonymous
Title
The Flaying of Marsyas.
Description
Ελληνικά: ρωμαϊκό αντίγραφο από ελληνικό χάλκινο πρωτότυπο του Φειδία (περ. 460 Π.Κ.Χ.).
Date 1st century or 2nd century
Medium marble
Dimensions 256 cm (100.7 in)
Collection
Louvre Museum Blue pencil.svg wikidata:Q19675 (Inventory)
Current location
Sully, ground floor, room 17
Accession number
MR 267
Object history Unknown date: discovered (Rome)
Borghèse, Rome
1807: purchased by the Louvre Museum, Paris
References Base Atlas
Source/Photographer Pvasiliadis
Contributo di
Juan Pablo Macías