Silenus in Eclogue VI

Silenus is one of the most prominent figures in the band of Bacchus. Often he is considered a silens -- a bipedal half-horse, half human creature which  has been merged with satyrs by classical Greece (Jeanmaire, 1951). Other times, Silenus is fully human in appearance, often riding a donkey.  His human appearance is particularly consistent, as his mere name comes to mean a balding, pug-nosed, pot-bellied, probably drunk old man. Lucian’s Lecture on Dionysus paints this description pointedly.

Silenus is typically known as the tutor of Bacchus. However, in Lucian, as well as in some of the Dionysian myths discussed by Diodorus, Silenus is, in fact, a general of the Dionysian troupe. The role of tutor, while seeming to be the more canonical version of the myth, also relates to the myth which Aristotle (through Plutarch)* tells, the myth of Silenus and Midas. Midas captures Silenus and asks him for some words of wisdom. Here we see further evidence for the wise persona of Silenus, who, though drunk, seems fully capable of teaching the young Bacchus.

This notion of capture and subsequent wisdom is similar to the role of Silenus in Vergil’s Eclogue VI. Vergil describes how the old man is captured in sleep by a group of nymphs, and Silenus returns this act not wit wisdom, but with a song, though an especially enlightened and intellectual song of creation and myth. It is certainly to be seen as a wise song, particularly do to the comparison with the wisdom the captured Silenus offered King Midas.

* Aristotle, Eudemus (354 BCE), surviving fragment quoted in Plutarch, Moralia, Consolatio ad Apollonium, sec. xxvii (1st century CE) – according to Wikipedia’s quotation of the passage. I had trouble finding a better citation for this text at the moment.