Marsyas

L. Censorinus, gens Marcia
AR - Denar, 3.68g, 24.17mm
Rome 82 BC
obv. (no legend)
bust of Apollo, laureate, r.
rev. L. CENSOR
Marsyas walking l., gazing upwards, raising r. Hand, with wineskin above
shoulder; tall column behind, surmounted by a draped figure (Minerva?)
Crawf. 363/1d; Syd. 737; Marcia 24
gVF/nEF

Marsyas was a Silen who found the flute which Athene had invented some times before. But when Athene saw in a mirror how awful her face was looking when playing the flute, she throw it away with a curse. Marsyas then learned to play the flute better as everyone else so that he challenged Apollo to a contest. The Muses should be the arbiters. But in this contest Apollo outsmarts Marsyas by singing to the cithara what Marsyas was not able to do with his flute. So he lost the contest and Apollo hung him up in a tree and let him skinned by a Skyth alive. His blood or the tears of the Muses then became the river Marsyas.
(Ovid, Metamorphoses, lib.VI, 382-400)