Atticus Satyros, 1839—1907(?)

Atticus Satyros was born in Millinocket, a small town in central Maine's Penobscot River Valley in February of 1839 to Greek immigrants Mikael and Lauren Satyros.  The young Atticus manifested an abiding passion for sleight of hand at a very young age, a passion which intensified with each passing year.  However, his practical nature and analytical mind led him to accept a position down river in Bangor as a clerk at the Venal Bros. Merchant Marine Bank.  Though Atticus was unaware of it, the institution had long been suspected by local police as a front for underworld business transactions.  The bank owners, brothers Brutus and Luigi Venal, were charismatic and personable in spite of their clandestine criminal activity, and became endeared to Atticus and his delightful feats of magic.

Atticus eventually uncovered conclusive evidence of criminal activity, which he swiftly brought to the attention of the Venal brothers.  His conscientious deed was ostensibly well received by the bankers, who patronized and promoted young Atticus—then only twenty-one years of age—to a senior position, granting him a generous bonus.  Luigi Venal formally introduced him to Traviata Maga, a becoming young lady to whom Atticus became inseparably devoted and eventually engaged.  Unfortunately for Atticus, the Venal brothers were merely assuaging his apprehensions long enough to eliminate him by means of a cruel and insidious deception.

The Venals undertook a campaign of trickery, expressing concern to Atticus' parents—at progressively shorter intervals—that the young man was not himself.  One wintry evening in 1861, as Atticus walked his regular route home, he fell unconscious and awoke days later confined to the Worcester, Massachusetts Insane Asylum.

Luigi Venal informed Atticus' parents that their son had evidenced his unbalanced mental state by strangling his fiancée while she slept.  He promised to use his influence to save Atticus from the gallows if the Satyroses agreed to have their son committed to a mental institution.  Atticus spent the next three years there among criminals, madmen and other tortured souls, bitterly protesting his committal and disavowing any culpability in the death of his beloved, but was nevertheless unable to recollect his actions or whereabouts on that fateful evening.

Confined and embittered, Atticus withdrew inward and became thoroughly immersed in prestidigitation in all its many forms.  He was able to relieve his boredom and charm even the most malevolent lunatics and murderers with whom he was forced to coexist by extracting horehound candies from their ears.  Satyros missed no opportunity to augment his skills, picking locks throughout the madhouse.  Doors, padlocks, and shackles—none could withstand his uncanny skills.

Satyros continued to plead for a reexamination of his mental competency.  His pleas went unanswered, leading to fits of rage, threats of revenge, and bouts of depression.  When all seemed lost, he was assigned a new physician—Dr. Yngve Hogalum—who was conducting research on a revolutionary brain elixir at the Worcester Asylum, which treatment which he prescribed for Satyros.  Removed from his former senseless and emotionally crippling treatment regime, Satyros made a dramatic recovery.

Dr. Hogalum marveled at Satyros' unusual dexterity and motor skills as well as his knack with complex theories of human behavior.  His natural talents—forged in a madhouse—produced several remarkable abilities, not the least of which was the ability to free himself from straightjackets.

Hogalum considered Atticus' incredible story acutely, and resolved to unravel the mystery.  Hogalum's investigation produced no evidence that a murder had been committed at all, much less by his new patient and friend.  He convinced authorities that Satyros had been falsely implicated in an elaborate scheme, thus securing his release at age 25.  Afterward, Satyros traveled extensively, maintaining contact with his family and Dr. Hogalum—his only remaining friend—by sending letters from every corner of the world.

Satyros' methods were nearly always unconventional and frequently controversial, and his research into mentalism and the perceptual deception inherent in magic illusions tended to the obscure and sinister.  It was said of Satyros that he was "just mad enough" to conjure up transcendental faculties of misdirection completely unknown to "any sane man."  Appearing on stage in Paris as The Amazing Satyros, he was himself shaken by the unexplained and lurid appearance of blood upon the stage, which resulted in his own fear that he had actually sawed his assistant in half.  His assistant was released from her "coffin" unharmed, but Satyros was convinced that he had stumbled upon dark archaic powers.

As a performer, he attained a measure of social stature which allowed him to make a variety of aristocratic liaisons within private social clubs, many of which invited him to join at the behest of one of their longstanding members bewitched by Satyros' magic.  He became something of a financial expert by socializing with tycoons at black tie parties and political events, though his own personal fortune remained tenuous.  Throughout his career, Satyros displayed little compunction about importuning well-heeled acquaintances for favors.  He was rumored to have borrowed as much as $100,000 from J. P. Morgan, which he reputedly paid back in the form of bond certificates which mysteriously vanished the day before they matured.

Atticus Satyros was tall and sinewy, with long, wavy brown hair.  Dark brown flashing eyes completed the picture of the passionate sorcerer.  He was fastidiously clean and dapper and well versed in social graces, although he was prone to abandoning his practiced poise in moments of anger, or when he felt he was being unjustly reproached.  In May of 1865, he was invited to join the Hogalum Society by none other than Dr. Hogalum.  There was concern among other Hogalum members about the possibility of long-term effects from his confinement in a sanitarium, but although Satyros displayed somewhat unpredictable behavior, he proved himself a man of integrity and good works.

In the biography, "Satyros the Unknown," historical researcher and descendant Martin Satyros uncovered Satyros' previously undocumented acrophobia, a disclosure which shed new light on a performer who frequently staged elaborate outdoor performances at dizzying heights.  Martin Satyros observes, "He was extremely passionate about magic, perhaps as sublimation of his feelings of rage and fear from his years in confinement.  This passion spread to all his many endeavors, and surmounted his many fears."

As a performer of international renown, he was extraordinarily well-traveled, but knew little of the cities in which he had performed.  Rather, his tourism consisted of seeking out bizarre mysticisms from obscure sources ranging from Tibetan monks to Egyptian street performers.  After Dr. Hogalum's death, Satyros played an active role in planning the Hogalum Society's adventures and itineraries, and also brought his considerable talents to bear on more routine chores, such as cooking and organizing case files.  He was frequently the group's "ear to the ground," typically the first to hear of strange goings on and alert the group to possible trouble.  He took advantage of his aristocratic connections—and occasionally his nimble legerdemain—to secure information and financial support for the team.  He did not hesitate to provide the Society with his unique insight into perplexing criminal motives, and to forewarn them when they were being misled.  He often attempted penetrating the stoic exterior of his Hogalum comrades, to their intense consternation.

Satyros continued to divide his energies between performing and serving with the Hogalum Society until his disappearance in 1907, a career interrupted only briefly by a torrid romance and short-lived matrimony with Emanuelle Vichyssoise, a fiery French dancer who became Satyros' onstage assistant during the early 1890's.  In his final appearance, The Amazing Satyros performed an illusion not duplicated since.  According to audience members in the Bangor, Maine theater, Satyros simply vanished into thin air without the aid of any prop or magical implement.  An intense manhunt yielded no hint of his whereabouts after that incident.  Questioned by authorities after the incident, Satyros' son Icarus—also a magician of some repute—replied simply, "Some mysteries ought to remain unknown."

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