Attic red-figure plate from Vulci, Etruria, dated c. 520–500 BC, showing an ithyphallic satyr holding an aulos, a kind of ancient Greek woodwind instrument.
Satyr plays featured a chorus of actors dressed as satyrs (creatures who were half-man and half-goat). They were raunchy, and their main purpose was to cheer up the audience at the end of tragedies. Most satyr plays displayed the carefree, drunken, and cowardly nature of satyrs; with some human characters involved sometimes as well, as to offer moments of serious moral debate. To this day, only Euripides’s ‘Cyclops’ is the only complete satyr play that survives.