Heresy is a word to never say from celestia, if you do it , you will wish she is in good mood, Her highness dont want some fat lie and something can her the feeling of her sister or her subject! this is why you need to be careful of what you say or do from her highness! what this mare a do and say a not very good idea, is not surprise she angry!

I’ve got to keep reading to find out whether Fluttershy gets her massage or not.

@Eeveeinheat
 
I think it’s just one of the four corners of the bag he’s carrying.  
See also this more clear image of Hephaestus and the Sileni.
 

 
However, knowing about the kinkiness of the Satyrs in general, it could have been possible …

@brogor  
Is that a buttplug? Holy shit.

@brogor
 
oh wait, nvm I thought hephaestus was the thingy you were talking about.

We actually had a little purging done in the more recent entries. Most amusing!

@brogor  
I hate to necro a comment section. Just posting an interesting visual proof I’ve found some time ago.
 
As I said, Satyrs with horse-like features were also called Sileni by the ancient Greeks. In the oldest depictions, these creatures have the entire lower half body of a horse.
 
One of the oldest depictions comes from the famous François Vase, dated at circa 570/560 BC. In the scene of the return of the god Hephaestus to mount Olympus (bottom of the first image and second image), there’s the god Hephaestus on a mule, followed by the “Sileni” on the right side (the caption says: “SILENOI”.)
 
(images spoilered for Benis.)
 
 
(source of the image)
 
 
(source of the image)
 
A reproduction of the first Silenus from the same vase:
 

 
So, if we want to be incredibly pedantic, we should call all the pony-human hybrids “Sileni” instead of “Satyrs”.  
But I’m joking obviously lol. Stay tuned for more unnecessary pedantry. :^)

@AaronMk
 
no, I meant illiterate, ignorant peasants thought up the term “cloven hoof.” nothing cleaved the hoof in half though. it’s two toes.
 
to this day a lot of artists get that wrong, and draw a broken single toe.

@thestralpony  
No one who doesn’t obsessively study mythological lore is going to see “two-legged creature with top half human, lower half ungulate” and call it anything but a satyr. Especially not when we’ve been calling them satyrs for the last four years, despite people pointing out the pedantic term from the beginning

@shandesa  
It’s alright. I was really more focused on Fluttershy’s, and her dock, to really notice Mascara’s. Unf.

>MFW no heresy purge  

Mascara has a nice ass.

@AaronMk  

 
Beautiful and accurate cultural analysis, thank you.
 
@thestralpony  
Wikipedia articles about these myths are quite confusing indeed, but the evolution of Greek myths is usually quite chaotic.
 
However, eventually I found the time to do a research in my old book of Greek literature, and I found what I had forgotten about the Satyrs.  
The presence of both goat and horse features in Greek depictions of Satyrs, is derived from the fact that there were different traditions even in the same Ancient Greece.  
In fact, in Archaic and Classical Greece there were two species of Satyr:  

@redweasel  

 
It may not really be so much illiteracy on the parts of the peasantry but more shifting fashions. Pottery is one of those things that’s cited as being an object that changes a lot like blue-jeans today, but that’s besides the point.
 
Really, the shift in style associated with certain mythical characters and creatures may be more directly compared with rock and roll music of today which has changed frenetically over the decades. From Buddy Holly and Elvis, before shifting to something like the Rolling Stones and The Doors with acts like The Beatles being a sort of bridge in that stage of the genre’s evolution. But fast-forwarding ‘rock and roll’ becomes what became Smashing Pumpkins and Pearl Jam and more recently The Lumineers and Nathaniel Rateliff
 
The evolution in that genre of music isn’t a marked ‘illiteracy’ of the people producing or consuming it; but rather a marked change in the scope of the culture at the time and the paradigms at play then. It’s not something isolated strictly to music, and heading back into the visual and literary arts then the 20th century alone contains what would have been thousands of years of artistic change with the rise and fall of Romanticism in painting and the rise of Impressionism and the Modernist meta-genre.
 
In 21st literary tradition we have a quick and almost sudden slaying of “purple prose” by Earnest Hemmingway in such a quick and sudden way we can say with utmost certainty that Hemmingway was the sure-fire death of the classical flowery writing prevalent in 19th century Romantic literature.
 
The point I’m making with this is thus: shifting of focus and change in artistic styling and licensing is dependent on the culture utilizing it. The interests, attentions, and endeavors of the culture are effected by the circumstances the culture is in including the geo-political, social, economic, and technological forces at play in the region; or very recently in the grand scheme of history globally.
 
With a much broader global scope and range of influences and interests that now inter-connect human culture in the passed three centuries the pace of development and change is much more rapid than it was in the strictly mediteranean world of the height of Greek civilization, and the generally European culture of Rome (with some conquests of the Middle-east; though the size and brunt of the Roman Empire and the general Hellenic culture of the areas they ended up conquering would have at the time blunted any impact of cultural transfusion). Cultural paradigms moved slower, but affected by the same effects I argued above; introduction of foreign things, the held interests of the people at the time, economic and political needs and wants.
 
Observing that past though because even more complicated since we often view it through the rose-tinted glasses provided for us by the people that reintroduced that period to the west, namely the Greek scholars and writers who kick-started the Renaissance in Italy in the 15th century and encouraged them to re-examine the wisdom of the past to move ahead. But so much may have been destroyed in the times between then and when Greek/Roman culture was at its peak (see: Emperor Justinian’s confiscation of and/or the destruction of the Neoplatonic Academies at Athens) that even at that time a clear or whole picture may or may not have existed. But as an effect of the Renaissance I’d make the argument we have a pretty long-standing picture of what we think Greek Life may have been like; their ideals of beauty and a certain standardization of the appearance of things like Satyrs and Fauns.
 
In the end: A bunch of Italians defined for us what the hell “classical” anything is, and declared what may have been Greek porn as a standard of fine art.

@Meanlucario
 

@thestralpony  

 
I always default to using the Greek names for things, even if the Latin is more well known, such as Eros/Cupid.
 
 
@Meanlucario  

 
>not wanting to learn things
 

@brogor  
_sub In Greek mythology, a satyr (UK /ˈsætə/, US /ˈseɪtər/; Greek: σάτυρος satyros, pronounced [sátyros]) is one of a troop of ithyphallic male companions of Dionysus with goat-like features and often permanent erection. Early artistic representations sometimes include horse-like legs, but in 6th-century BC black-figure pottery human legs are the most common. In Roman Mythology there is a concept similar to satyrs, with goat-like features: the faun, being half-man, half-goat, who roamed the woods and mountains. In myths they are often associated with pipe-playing. Greek-speaking Romans often used the Greek term saturos when referring to the Latin faunus, and eventually syncretized the two. _sub
 
 
Since you love this page so much, let’s look at the whole thing you like quoting, shall we?
 
 
It first starts with the Satyr being described as having goat-like features with a somewhat permanent erection. It then goes on to say that “Early artistic representations sometimes include horse-like legs”. Those artistic representations being done on pottery and such. Note that it says sometimes. Meaning that the artist most likely took artistic liberties when they made the art. That or they didn’t do their research on what it was they were painting.
 
 
Then it goes into what the romans did. Saying that they had a similar concept to Satyrs called the Faun. Considering that the Romans pretty much stole the Greek Mythos and just renamed everything, all this adds up to is that the Fauns are actually Satyrs. Then Romans just decided to mix things up a bit by saying that Fauns were actually manifestations of forest and animal spirits that just happen to look like Satyrs but would either help or hinder humans at whim. This change to the species known as Satyrs is enuff to make the Faun a completely new race. The info on the Faun being spirits can be found on the same page under the word link “faun”.
 
 
Then it follows up with a tidbit about Greek-speaking Romans using the Greek term “Saturos” when referring to the Fauns. The fact that the words ‘Faun’ and ‘Saturos’ eventually becoming the same thing is nothing more than confirmation that slang existed even all the way back then.
 
 
Ultimately, MLP is based on Greek Mythology and not Roman. When looking for names that would fit into the MLP world set-up, the Greek Mythos is always going to be the first place to look for their creatures. That means Satyrs and Ipotanes will most likely be the names that people will look at first and possibly use. Not the Roman names. Even though they can possibly work too. However, that still won’t completely change that most people are going to see Satyrs as being half-human half-goat thanks to that same mythos. And since Fauns are described as not just looking like Satyrs but as also being manifestations of forest and animal spirits, people will most likely not immediately associate the Satyrs with the Faun. People who are looking for half-human half-horse creatures from Greek Mythology might find the concept of Ipotanes existing in the mythos and maybe use them. But like I’ve said before, they are very obscure and most people would most likely just use the name Satyr instead.

@Background Pony #0F96  
then there’s the whole can of worms of cloven-hooved, lion-tailed classical unicorns who might well have been related to goats
 
in the end I think it all comes down to the fact that illiterate, ignorant peasants were dumb enough to think that a two-toed ungulate has a hoof that got split in half, rather than two toes. getting goats confused with horses isn’t all that surprising, in that context.

@brogor  

 
Always me, and no, there were also goat-like Satyrs in Greece even before the Romans, as in the satyr plays of Athens. Disregard this last sentence. I’m a fool :/

@thestralpony  
Again from Satyr Wikipedia page:  
“Greek-speaking Romans (namely, influenced by Greek culture after Roman expansion in Southern Italy and Greece) often used the Greek term saturos when referring to the Latin faunus, and eventually syncretized the two.”
 
Today we call half-goat-half-humans “satyrs” or “fauns” indifferently, but Satyrs before the Roman conquest were a Greek thing, related to Dionysus, and (if I’m correct, but I’m not an expert) with equine features (tail and ears), as represented in Greek vases.
 
@Meanlucario  
Enough ancient mythology for today, I swear! XP

@brogor  
Am I the only one who thinks that it’s weird that Poseidon and Medusa not only had a kid together but that kid turned out to be a horse with wings?
 
Also, the Faun, according to the link you provided, are manifestations of forest and animal spirits that are often associated with the Satyrs. Not that they are Satyrs.

I come here to read ponies, not learn Latin or mythology people!

@cloudwish  
Eeeyup lol, exactly what I was thinking.

@thestralpony  
Faunus is the Roman god (yes, the Roman equivalent of Pan), while the “fauns” (or Roman-era “Satyrs” as well) (link to Wiki page) were the mythological race inspired by Faunus, just as the Pegasi (in art, and in cartoons as MLP) were inspired by Pegasus, who was originally the son of Poseidon (the god of Sea and horses) in his horse form, and Medusa.