Fairy Tale Spotlight: Silenus

Stumbled across this one. A species of man/horse hybrids from the time of Ancient Greece. The creature was called Silenus and may have had similar counterparts. A demon, of course.

The term Silenus seems to be referring to an actual man-creature who was one of these man-horse hybrids. The most famous one seems to have been a personal adviser to Dionysus himself. That's pretty good! He did well for hismelf. But there is also a reference to the plural form of his name: sileni. This seems to refer to others of his kind and was later discontinued to pay homage to the more famous adviser to a local god.

If the point of the former paragraph is not perfectly clear: I am saying that, although there was a famous man-horse hybrid named Silenus, his species as a whole was called the Sileni or Silen. [I've seen it done both ways in my research.]

Unlike the Cynocephaly and the goat-headed man (such as Leonard), Silenus and his kind looked far more human. Imagine a large burly human man but with horse ears and a tail. The rest of the body is still normal, albeit very broad and strong. And I am sorry to say, if you were wondering at all, I can't find anything about him having a large... part between his legs. All the records I found show it to be fairly underwhelming compared to that of a proper horse.

Maybe the latter was why he always seems to get piss drunk all the time! There are a lot of accounts of him drinking until he can't even move anymore. Satyrs and donkeys would have to work together to carry him away. Poor guy. Although this part does also account for how large he must have been in stature. His physique was still based on a horse which made him large and heavy.

It seems that the famous Silenus suffered from terrible depression... like massively, intense depression that would lead any mortal man to swift suicide. From his position as a rare-form demon, he considered life itself to be one of the most miserable existences imaginable. A famous line made by Silenus, while acting as a slave for the Phrygian King Midas, reads, "...the best thing for a man is not to be born, and if already born, to die as soon as possible."

This antinatalist viewpoint is heavily expanded on in this passage written by Aristotle:

"You, most blessed and happiest among humans, may well consider those blessed and happiest who have departed this life before you, and thus you may consider it unlawful, indeed blasphemous, to speak anything ill or false of them, since they now have been transformed into a better and more refined nature. This thought is indeed so old that the one who first uttered it is no longer known; it has been passed down to us from eternity, and hence doubtless it is true. Moreover, you know what is so often said and passes for a trite expression. What is that, he asked? He answered: It is best not to be born at all; and next to that, it is better to die than to live; and this is confirmed even by divine testimony. Pertinently to this they say that Midas, after hunting, asked his captive Silenus somewhat urgently, what was the most desirable thing among humankind. At first he could offer no response, and was obstinately silent. At length, when Midas would not stop plaguing him, he erupted with these words, though very unwillingly: 'you, seed of an evil genius and precarious offspring of hard fortune, whose life is but for a day, why do you compel me to tell you those things of which it is better you should remain ignorant? For he lives with the least worry who knows not his misfortune; but for humans, the best for them is not to be born at all, not to partake of nature's excellence; not to be is best, for both sexes. This should be our choice, if choice we have; and the next to this is, when we are born, to die as soon as we can.' It is plain therefore, that he declared the condition of the dead to be better than that of the living."

It doesn't sound like he was very happy with either himself or us. It also smacks of him not being in control of really anything at the end. He may have been placed in a high spot of sorts, but I think Silenus was under no dissolution of who and what he was... and what that ultimately ment. Silenus was a bitter and jaded demon who is still very much alive today in some form. And he hates everything. He truly hates everything... and he wants it all to die. He wants you and everyone... to die.

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