Antiquity has preserved the names of many celebrated actors, of whom several played a conspicuous though sometimes a dishonourable part in the great theatre of the world. Thus Aristodemos, who performed the first character alternately with Theodoros, became afterwards a traitor and betrayed the state to Philip. Such too was the case with Philocrates and Æschines, both actors,[942] and both rogues. Satyros, a comedian of the same period, appears to have been a man of high character and honour, who in consequence obtained the friendship of Demosthenes. But the Garrick of that age seems to have been Theocrines,[943] who by many, however, is supposed to have afterwards degenerated into a sycophant. Callipedes is chiefly known to us from the anecdote which describes the check his vanity received from Agesilaos. Having acquired great reputation as a tragic actor, he appears to have considered himself as equal at least to any king, and therefore, meeting one day with Agesilaos, he ostentatiously put himself forward, mingled with the courtiers and took much pains to attract his notice. Finding all these efforts useless, his pride was wounded, and going up directly to the Spartan, he said, “Dost thou not know me, king?” “Why,” replied Agesilaos, “art thou not Callipedes, the stage-buffoon?”[944] ----- Footnote 942: Dem. de Fal. Leg. § 58. Footnote 943: Dem. de Coron. § 97. Footnote 944: Δεικηλίκτας. Plut. Ages. § 21. Apothegm. Lac. Ages. 57. ----- The account transmitted to us of Æsopos is somewhat puzzling; he is described as one of the actors[945] who performed in the tragedies of Æschylus, but is said to have been at the same time a fellow of infinite merriment who turned everything into a jest, a sort I suppose of comic Macbeth. Œagros obtained celebrity in the part of Niobe,[946] in the tragedy of Æschylus or Sophocles; and Aristophanes enumerates among the pleasures of Dicasts the power, should such an actor appear before them in a court of justice, of requiring him by way of pleading his own cause, to give them a few choice speeches of his favourite tragic queen. ----- Footnote 945: Sch. Aristoph. Vesp. 566. Flor. Christ. ad loc. In Plato’s time there were few or no actors who excelled at the same time in tragedy and comedy. Plat. de Rep. t. vi. p. 123. Footnote 946: Sch. Aristoph. Vesp. 579. ----- Among the most celebrated actors of antiquity was Polos, a native of Ægina, who studied the art of stage-declamation under Archias, known in his own age by the infamous surname of Phugadotheras, or the “Exile Hunter.”[947] This miscreant it was, who, under the orders of Antipater, pursued Demosthenes to the temple of Poseidon in Calauria, where, to escape the cruelty of the Macedonians, the orator put a period to his own life. ----- Footnote 947: Plut. Dem. § 28. Vit. x. Orat. 8. Another actor obtained the name of the Partridge. Athen. iii. 82. -----