Plato was of the opinion that it had been made into a wineskin. Ovid touches upon the theme of Marsyas twice, very briefly telling the tale in "Metamorphoses" vi.383–400, where he concentrates on the tears shed into the river Marsyas, and making an allusion in "Fasti", vi.649–710, where Ovid's primary focus is on the "aulos" and the roles of flute-players rather than Marsyas, whose name is not actually mentioned. The hubristic Marsyas in surviving literary sources eclipses the figure of the wise Marsyas suggested in a few words by the Hellenistic historian Diodorus Siculus, who refers to Marsyas as admired for his intelligence ("sunesis") and self-control ("sophrosune"), not qualities found by Greeks in ordinary satyrs. In Plato's "Symposium", when Alcibiades likens Socrates to Marsyas, it is this aspect of the wise satyr that is intended. Jocelyn Small identifies in Marsyas an artist great enough to challenge a god, who can only be defeated through a ruse. A prominent statue of Marsyas as a wise old silenus stood near the Roman Forum. This is the Marsyas of the journal "Marsyas: Studies in the History of Art", published since 1941 by students of the Institute of Art, New York University. Among the Romans, Marsyas was cast as the inventor of augury and a proponent of free speech (the philosophical concept παρρησία, "parrhesia") and "speaking truth to power". The earliest known representation of Marsyas at Rome stood for at least 300 years in the Roman Forum near or in the comitium, the space for political activity. He was depicted as a "silen", carrying a wineskin on his left shoulder and raising his right arm. The statue was regarded as an "indicium libertatis", a symbol of liberty, and was associated with demonstrations of the "plebs", or common people. It often served as a sort of kiosk upon which invective verse was posted. Marsyas served as a minister for Dionysus or Bacchus, who was identified by the Romans with their Father Liber, one of three deities in the Aventine Triad, along with Ceres and Libera (identified with Persephone). These gods were regarded as concerning themselves specially with the welfare of the "plebs".