SATYRS AND FAUNS.
    In Greek mythology, satyrs were attendants of the god Dionysus and spirits of the wild life in woods and hills. Although primarily human in form, they often had some bestial aspect, usually the legs of a goat and sometimes the tail of a horse. They were known for their love of music and revelry as well as for their unbridled lust. Classical authors frequently confused them with sileni, followers of Silenus, but after the fourth century bce they were usually depicted as young and the sileni as bearded older men with horselike ears.
    The Roman god Faunus—identified with the Greek Pan—and his followers, the fauns, were woodland creatures known especially for their dancing and revelry. Although similar in appearance and character to the Greek satyrs, fauns were gentler and less threatening to mortals.
    Satyrs appear frequently in classical vase painting and sculpture. In the Greek satyr-plays (of which only Euripides’ Cyclops is wholly extant) the chorus was dressed as satyrs. In postclassical treatments the distinctions between satyrs and fauns have largely disappeared. Painters and sculptors have regularly depicted the lusty side of satyrs and fauns, but they have also pictured families, with female fauns and baby satyrs, perhaps as a way of domesticating the wild.
    A favored subject, especially in the seventeenth century, was Aesop’s fable “The Satyr and the Traveler” (or peasant), popularized by La Fontaine. Having taken in an old man from the storm, a satyr is disgusted when his guest blows first on his numb fingers and then on his steaming porridge. He throws the man out for “blowing hot and cold with the same breath.”
      
       See also: Aphrodite, and Satyrs; Arcadia; Artemis; Bacchanalia; Dionysus; Gods and Goddesses, Vice and Virtue; Pan; Silenus.