Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists
C. D. Yonge, B.A., Ed.

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And Masurius replied—Didymus the gramarian, in his work entitled Interpretations of the Plays of Ion different from the Interpretations of others, says, my good friend Aemilianus, that by the term μάγαδις αὐλὸς he understands the instrument which is also called κιθαριοτήριος; which is mentioned by Aristoxenus in the first book of his treatise on the Boring of Flutes; for there he says that there are five kinds of flutes; the parthenius, the pædicus, the citharisterius, the perfect, and the superperfect. And he says that Ion has omitted the conjunction τε improperly, so that we are to understand by μάγαδις αὐλὸς the flute which accompanies the magadis; for the magadis is a stringed (ψαλτικὸν) instrument, as Anacreon tells us, and it was invented by the Lydians, on which account Ion, in his Omphale, calls the Lydian women ψάλτριαι, as playing on stringed instruments, in the following lines—

But come, ye Lydian ψάλτριαι, and singing
Your ancient hymns, do honour to this stranger.

But Theophilus the comic poet, in his Neoptolemus, calls playing on the magadis μαγαδίζειν, saying—

It may be that a worthless son may sing
His father or his mother on the magadis (μαγαδίζειν),
[p. 1014] Sitting upon the wheel; but none of us
Shall ever play such music now as theirs.

And Euphorion, in his treatise on the Isthmian Games, says, that the magadis is an ancient instrument, but that in latter times it was altered, and had the name also changed to that of the sambuca. And, that this instrument was very much used at Mitylene, so that one of the Muses was represented by an old statuary, whose name was Lesbothemis, as holding one in her hand. But Menæchmus, in his treatise on Artists, says that the πηκτὶς, which he calls identical with the magadis, was invented by Sappho. And Aristoxenus says that the magadis and the pectis were both played with the fingers without any plectrum; on which account Pindar, in his Scolium addressed to Hiero, having named the magadis, calls it a responsive harping (ψαλμὸν ἀντίφθογγον), because its music is accompanied in all its keys by two kinds of singers, namely, men and boys. And Phrynichus, in his Phœnician Women, has said—

Singing responsive songs on tuneful harps.

And Sophocles, in his Mysians, says—

There sounded too the Phrygian triangle,
With oft-repeated notes; to which responded
The well-struck strings of the soft Lydian pectis.