SATYR PLAY

burlesque comedy performed as comic relief after a classical Greek tragic trilogy. Satyr plays are believed to have developed from the dithyramb, a hymn to Dionysus, concurrently with tragedy. They were evidently introduced at the Great Dionysia celebration at Athens in the late 6th century BC. They were written by the competing authors of the three tragedies and featured a legendary hero, frequently from the preceding trilogy. This character was joined by a cowardly, lecherous, and wine-loving chorus of 11 satyrs led by Silenus, the foster father of Dionysus, in a farcical plot or a parody of a myth. Euripides' Cyclops is the only complete Satyr play remaining.