Marsyas the satyr found the pipes Athena cast away and challenged Apollo to a contest — lyre against flute, with the loser's body at the victor's mercy. Apollo turned his lyre upside down and demanded Marsyas do the same; the satyr could not, and Phoebus flayed him alive until his tears became the river Marsyas in Phrygia.1
The pipes
Athena invented the flute but threw it away when Juno and Venus mocked her puffed cheeks in the mirror; she vowed whoever picked it up would be punished. Marsyas son of Olympus found the pipes on Ida and grew so skilled that he dared challenge Apollo — they agreed the loser should suffer whatever the winner willed.2
The contest
The Muses judged; Marsyas seemed to win until Apollo inverted his lyre and sang while playing — a feat impossible on the flute. Apollodorus says Apollo hung the satyr on a tall pine and stripped off his skin; Ovid tells how Marsyas cried that a flute was not worth his life as living skin was torn from limbs until nerves and viscera lay exposed.3
The river
Fauns, satyrs, nymphs, and Olympus his pupil wept; their tears sinking into Phrygian earth became a fountain clear as any spring — the river Marsyas, named for the flayed satyr to this day. Hyginus adds that Midas judged the contest on Tmolus and received ass's ears for preferring Marsyas — a judgment told fully in the tale of Midas.4
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