Babys () is a figure in
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...
. He is the brother of the Phrygian satyr
Marsyas
In Greek mythology, the satyr Marsyas (; ) is a central figure in two stories involving music: in one, he picked up the double oboe (''aulos'') that had been abandoned by Athena and played it; in the other, he challenged Apollo to a contest of ...
who challenged
Apollo
Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...
to a flute-playing contest, and lost to him. Unlike his brother, who owned a
double flute
The ''double flute'' is an ancient category of wind instrument, a set of flutes that falls under more than one modern category in the Hornbostel Sachs system of musical instrument classification. The flutes may be double because they have paralle ...
, Babys's flute had only one pipe. Perceiving him to be a simpleton who lacked any apparent skill, the goddess
Athena
Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretism, syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarde ...
persuaded Apollo to spare Babys his anger when the god won the competition, as Babys's playing had been that bad.
[Plutarch, ''De Proverbiis Alexandrinorum'' 2]
See also
*
Aulos
An ''aulos'' (plural ''auloi''; , plural ) or ''tibia'' (Latin) was a wind instrument in ancient Greece, often depicted in art and also attested by archaeology.
Though the word ''aulos'' is often translated as "flute" or as " double flute", ...
*
Midas
Midas (; ) was a king of Phrygia with whom many myths became associated, as well as two later members of the Phrygian royal house.
His father was Gordias, and his mother was Cybele. The most famous King Midas is popularly remembered in Greek m ...
References
Bibliography
* {{cite book , title = A Concise Dictionary of Classical Mythology , last = Grimal , first = Pierre , date = 1986 , publisher = Basil Blackwell, Ltd , translator = A. R. Maxwell-Hyslop , location = Oxford , url = https://archive.org/details/concisedictionar00grim/ , isbn = 0-631-16696-3
Musicians in Greek mythology
Mythological Phrygians
Satyrs
Deeds of Athena
Deeds of Apollo