When I have eaten my fill, I then incline
To send you off to sing a match with Argas,
That you, my friend, may thus the sophists conquer.
43. But the author of the play called the Beggars, which is attributed to Chionides, mentions a certain man of the name of Gnesippus as a composer of ludicrous verses, and also of merry songs; and he says—
I swear that neither now Gnesippus, nor
Cleomenes with all his nine-string'd lyre,
Could e'er have made this song endurable.
And the author of the Helots says—
He is a man who sings the ancient songs
Of Alcman, and Stesichorus, and Simonides;