The Silenus of Alkibiades

This excerpt is from "Leonardo Mind for Modern Times", published in "Uncle Donnie's Stories About Everything" in March 2010.


.......“I continued, ‘Then there is the very interesting incident of the Silenus of Alkibiades. Alkibiades arrives at the Symposium party rather late and a bit drunk, but still highly articulate and percipient.’

“Adrienne was become ever more interested, her hands adeptly unbuttoning and unzipping.”

“I’m beginning to see your philosophical point”, said Strellitz, a touch dryly, although it occurred to Memus44 that his comments might be aimed more at the Recorded Research Assessment people than himself.

“I endeavoured to explain to Adrienne, whose attention I must say never wavered, how intrigued I was by the idea that the Silenus figures mentioned by Alkibiades might refer to technical processes in sculpture.

“I’d observed that the term ‘Sileni’ refers to water spirits in the ancient Greek world, with characteristics or connotations of ‘water bubbling as it flows’, and from my experience of sculpture-casting, that's a recognisable description of molten bronze being poured into a mold.

“You may recall that other attributes of the Sileni are said to be horse-like. Now, in the lost-wax method of bronze-casting, the receiving cup of the ceramic mold is like an upside-down hoof in appearance, and its runners & risers are like a horse’s legs and tail.

“‘So you see, the term ‘Silenus’ used by ancient craftsmen in referring to a ceramic mold, which is central to the lost-wax method and which is subsequently broken open to reveal a cast figure, seems, according to my theory, to have had its origins in a reference to the water-spirits, the Sileni. In the Symposium, Plato has Alkibiades make a multiple pun based on Socrates’ physical similarity to the satyr whose name was Silenus. And he says that although he has an ugly and off-putting exterior, once you get inside his outer layers there is something beautiful to be found.’

“’Yes yes YESYES!’ Adrienne exclaimed at this point in my description, which was delightfully insightful of her”.

“Yes indeed, Memus44,” said Strellitz, poker-faced.

“‘Could you maybe just hold me,’ Adrienne was murmuring, as I segue’d into another theory of mine, the one that describes how the Greek alphabet is actually a series of pictograms or little diagrams showing how the sound of each letter is produced by the lips, teeth, tongue and palate, viewed either from in front or laterally. The extraordinary thing is, every single one of the 25 Greek letters in lower case is recognisable in this way as a pictogram.”

“Oh, interesting,” said Strellitz, “so it’s not actually an alphabet after all!”

“It can be difficult to keep the thread,” said Memus44, “when you have to disentangle arms from legs and legs from gear-sticks and steering-wheels, find discarded items of underclothing under car-seats in the dark, all the time trying to avoid snagging a finger on sharp bits of under-seat-mooring, replacing fascia parts and so on dislodged by an incautious foot. Getting rid of squishy wet articles too, that can be a problem if you’re determined not to sully and degrade the environment by chucking things out of the window through a process of extraordinary defenestration.”


© Donnie Ross 2012