Encyclopedia > Silenus

  Article Content

Silenus

In Greek mythology, sileni were a race of half-horse, half-humans.

Later, sileni lost the plural connotation and the only references were to one named Silenus (Roman equivalent: Silvanus) , the teacher and faithful companion of the wine-god Dionysus. A notorious consumer of wine, he was usually drunk and had to be supported by satyrs or carried by a donkey. When the Phrygian king Midas took the drunk Silenus in his house, Dionysus handsomely rewarded Midas for his hospitality. Silenus was thought to have much wisdom and be able to reveal important secrets to mortals if captured and questioned.

Silenus was equated with the Roman Silvanus and Etruscan Selvans.



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Thomas a Kempis

... of the schools and lifts the mind to perceive more of eternal truth in a moment of time than a student might learn in the schools in ten years. Excellent as these ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 22 ms