. tum. Its water is said to have petrified plants.(Strab. pp. 251, 252; Mel. ii, 4, 9.) Silenus (SeiA-nerfs). 1. (Mythological.) Si-lenus, who is familiar in Greek and Romanliterature and art as the satyr-like half-drunkenattendant of the youthful Dionysus, or foster-father of the infant Dionysus, was originallysomething quite different. In Lydia, which wasalways recognised as his home (Lucian, , 4) he was the god of springs and runningwater, and even the personification of popular belief there were several Sileni,
. tum. Its water is said to have petrified plants.(Strab. pp. 251, 252; Mel. ii, 4, 9.) Silenus (SeiA-nerfs). 1. (Mythological.) Si-lenus, who is familiar in Greek and Romanliterature and art as the satyr-like half-drunkenattendant of the youthful Dionysus, or foster-father of the infant Dionysus, was originallysomething quite different. In Lydia, which wasalways recognised as his home (Lucian, , 4) he was the god of springs and runningwater, and even the personification of popular belief there were several Sileni, whowere, in fact, male Naiads (among whom maybe reckoned Mabsyas), and also inventors ofthe flute; but one Silenus had a separate per-sonality, and was regarded as the Lydian water-god. As was the case with nymphs and othernature-deities in Greece, Silenus was creditedwith prophetic power. This attribute, as wellas his connexion with springs, appears in theLydian story of Midas capturing him by mixingwine with the spring, and so extorting a pro- SILSILIS 875. Silenus on a wine-akin. (From a bronze statue atNaples: originally belonging to a fountain.) phecy. [Midas.] It is probubly right to under-stand the ass in the Asiatic myth of Silenus assymbolising his prophetic power, since Pindarspeaks of the ass as the animal sacrificed tothe Hyperborean Apollo (Pyth. x. 83). Evenin Greece and Italy there were traces of thebelief in Sileni as water-deities. In the HomericHymn to Aphrodite (262) they are companionsof nymphs. At Malea in Laconia the peoplebelieved that Silenus gave them their water,and that he was the son of a Malean naiad(Paus. iii. 25, 21; and in Italy fountains werecalled silani, and the water was made to flowfrom the head or from the water skin of asculptured Silenus (Lucr. vi. 12(11). Whenthe worship of Dionysus prevailed, it wasnatural that Silenus should be brought intoconnexion with that deity as the tree-god,since water gives vitality to trees; and whenDionysus w
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