The various classes of actors known to the ancients were numerous. Among the lower grades were the Magodos, and the Lysiodos,[927] who though confounded by some, appear clearly to have been distinct; the former personating both male and female characters; the latter female characters only, though disguised in male costume. But the songs, and every other characteristic of their performances, were the same. The spirit of the coarse satirical farces they acted forbids my explaining their nature fully. ----- Footnote 927: Athen. iv. 80. v. 47. vi. 61. Cf. Eustath. ad Odyss. ψ. p. 106, sub fin. ----- There were even several authors who attained a “bad eminence” in this department of literature, which especially affected the Ionic dialect, as Alexander, the Ætolian,[928] Pyretos of Miletos, a city noted for its dissolute characters, and Alexos, who obtained on this account an opprobrious sobriquet. The most remarkable, however, of this vicious brood would appear to have been Sotades[929] the Maronite, and his son Apollonios who wrote a work on his father’s poems. Sotades was probably the original imitated by Pietro Aretino, who obtained in modern times a like reputation, though timely penitence may have snatched him from a similar end. The ancient libeller, enacting the part of Thersites, fastened with peculiar delight on the vices of princes, not from aversion to their manners, but because such scandal paved the way to notoriety. Thus at Alexandria, he covered Lysimachos with obloquy, which, when at the court of Lysimachos, he heaped upon Ptolemy Philadelphos. His punishment, however, exceeded the measure of his offences. Being overtaken in the island of Caunos by Patrocles, one of Ptolemy’s generals, the obsequious mercenary caused him to be enclosed in a leaden box and cast into the sea.[930] ----- Footnote 928: Suid. v. φλύακες, t. ii. p. 1073. b. Footnote 929: Cf. Fabric. Bib. Græc. ii. p. 495, seq. Footnote 930: Athen. xiv. 13. ----- The Magodos, then, was a wandering farce actor, not unlike the tumbling mountebanks one sometimes sees in France and southern Europe. He travelled about with an apparatus of drums, cymbals, and female disguises, sometimes impersonating women, sometimes adulterers or the mean servants of vice; and the style of his dancing and performances corresponded with the low walk he selected, being wholly destitute of beauty or decorum. It seems necessary, therefore, to adopt the opinion of Aristoxenos, who considered the art of the Hilarodos as a serious imitation of tragedy; that of the Magodos as a comic parody, brought down to the level of the grossly vulgar. The latter art would appear to have derived its name from the charms, spells, or magical songs chanted by the mountebanks who likewise pretended to develope the secrets of pharmaceutics.