The Satyrs are not pleasant to contemplate; they are ugly in form and degraded in habits, and but for a recent theory[987] it might not be needful to emphasize so strongly their nature and functions. This theory, which has gained wide and speedy popularity, maintains that the familiar horse-men of black and red figured vases are not Satyrs at all. The Satyrs, we are told, are goat-men, the horse-men of the vases are Seilenoi. This theory, if true, would cut at the root of our whole argument. To deny the identity of the horse-men with the Satyrs is to deny their identity with the Satrai, i.e. with the primitive population who worshipped Dionysos. Why then, with the evidence of countless vase-paintings to support us, may we not call the horse-men who accompany Dionysos Satyrs? Because, we are told, _tragedy_ is the _goat-song_, the goat-song gave rise to the Satyric drama, hence the Satyrs must be _goat_-demons, hence they cannot be _horse_-demons, hence the _horse_-demons of vases cannot be Satyrs, hence another name must be found for them. On the François-vase (fig. 116) the horse-demons are inscribed Seilenoi, hence let the name Seilenoi be adopted for all _horse_-demons. Be it observed that the whole complex structure rests on the philological assumption that _tragedy_ means the goat-song. What _tragedy_ really does or at least _may_ mean will be considered later (p. 421); for the present the point is only raised because I hold to the view now discredited[988] that the familiar throng of idle disreputable vicious _horse_-men who constantly on vases attended Dionysos, who drink and sport and play and harry women, are none other than Hesiod’s[989] ‘race Of worthless idle Satyrs.’ That they are also called Seilenoi I do not for a moment deny. In different lands their names were diverse. THE MAENADS. It is refreshing to turn from the dissolute crew of Satyrs to the women-attendants of Dionysos, the Maenads. These Maenads are as real, as actual as the Satyrs; in fact more so, for no poet or painter ever attempted to give them horses’ ears and tails. And yet, so persistent is the dislike to commonplace fact, that we are repeatedly told that the Maenads are purely mythological creations and that the Maenad orgies never appear historically in Greece. It would be a mistake to regard the Maenads as the mere female correlatives of the Satyrs. The Satyrs, it has been seen, are representations of a primitive subject people, but the Maenads do not represent merely the women of the same race. Their name is the corruption of no tribal name, it represents a state of mind and body, it is almost a cultus-epithet. Maenad means of course simply ‘mad woman,’ and the Maenads are the women-worshippers of Dionysos of whatever race, possessed, maddened or, as the ancients would say, inspired by his spirit.