to espy a goat brouzing upon his plantations, immediately seized, and
offered it up as a sacrifice to his divine benefactor; the peasants
assembled round their master, assisted in the ceremony, and expressed
their joy and gratitude in music, songs, dances, and Pantomime on the
occasion; the sacrifice grew into a festival, and the festival into an
annual solemnity, attended most probably every year with additional
circumstances, when the countrymen flocked together in crowds, and sang
in rustic strains the praises of their favourite deity."

Amongst the reported followers of these Bacchanalian festivals were
those fabulous race of grotesque sylvan beings, previously referred to,
known as the Satyrs. They were of a sturdy frame, in features they had
broad snub noses, and appeared in rough skins of animals with large
pointed ears, heavy knots on their foreheads, and a small tail. The
elder Satyrs were known as Sileni. The younger were more pleasing and
not so grotesque or repulsive in appearance as the elder Satyrs. To the
Satyrs can be traced the variegated dress of the modern Harlequin, as in
ancient Greek history mention is made of the performers enacting Satyrs
being sometimes habited in a tiger's skin of various colours, which
encircled the performer's body tightly, and who carried a wooden sword,
wore a white hat, and a brown mask. According to Servius (as we have
seen) Pan had also a bright spotted dress "in likeness of the stars."

From these rustic festivals originated the Satyr, or Satirical Drama, as
did its Italian prototype, the _Fabulae Atellanae_ or, _Laudi Osci_.
These rural sacrifices became, in process of time, a solemn fast, and
assumed all the pomp and splendour of a religious ceremony; poets were
employed by the magistrate to compose hymns, or songs, for the occasion;
such was the rudeness and simplicity of the age that their bards
contended for a prize, which, as Horace intimates, was scarce worth