Once upon a time Athena found a bone in the forest and started to play music out of it. It cannot be compared it with the flute of today: it was a kind of reed with a leave inside that vibrated making some tones. Aulos is its name today.

Athena wanted to show the other gods what a beautiful thing she had found and played for them. Although she played very beautifully, the other gods started to laugh at her. This irritated her a lot, until she looked herself in the mirror and saw her own face, which was stretched from the effort and looked really silly. Then she grabbed the flute and threw it behind her putting a curse on it: everybody who would play this instrument would be punished in a very terrible way.

One day the satyr Marsyas past by where the flute had fell. He was a harmless satyr, not really the smartest one, but totally satisfied with himself and his life. When he saw the flute he started playing it and it sounded very beautiful. So he went to his friends and played also for them. These were really amazed and told him that just the god Apollo could play as good as him. And this was the beginning of the end. After this, he took this sentence as a promotion slogan and started to make a tour around his area giving concerts. With the time Apollo got to know about it and stepped down from the Olympus to talk with Marsyas; he wanted a competition with a jury to see who of them was the best musician. Marsyas would play his flute and Apollo his lira, and the jury would be the Muses, the goddesses of art and science. The winner could do whatever he wished with the looser. Marsyas committed the biggest mistake of his life and accepted the threatening.

At the beginning the Jury really couldn’t say who was the best musician, since both of them were really good. There Apollo expanded the competition and said to Marsyas that he should imitate him in everything what he did. There were not many options at that point, so he agreed again. Apollo turned then his instrument and played upside down at the same time that he started singing. Unfortunately this was something impossible for Marsyas, so he lost.

The punishment of Apollo was as hard as it could be: he hung him up and skinned all his body.