Strabo, Geography

Well-known natives of Magnesia are: Hegesias the orator, who, more than any other, initiated the Asiatic style, as it is called, whereby he corrupted the established Attic custom; and Simus the melic poet, he too a man who corrupted the style handed down by the earlier melic poets and introduced the Simoedia,¹ just as that style was corrupted still more by the Lysioedi and the Magoedi, and by Cleomachus the pugilist, who, having fallen in love with a certain cinaedus² and with a young female slave who was kept as a prostitute by the cinaedus, imitated the style of dialects and mannerisms that was in vogue among the cinaedi. Sotades was the first man to write the talk of the cinaedi; and then Alexander the Aetolian. But though these two men imitated that talk in mere speech, Lysis accompanied it with song; and so did Simus, who was still earlier than he. As for Anaxenor, the citharoede³, the theatres exalted him, but Antony exalted him all he possibly could, since he even appointed him exactor of tribute from four cities, giving him a body.guard of soldiers. Further, his native land greatly increased his honors, having clad him in purple as consecrated to Zeus Sosipolis,⁴ as is plainly indicated in his painted image in the market-place. And there is also a bronze statue of him in the theatre, with the inscription,“Surely this is a beautiful thing, to listen to a singer such as this man is, like unto the gods in voice.
”⁵But the engraver, missing his guess, left out the last letter of the second verse, the base of the statue not being wide enough for its inclusion; so that he laid the city open to the charge of ignorance, Because of the ambiguity of the writing, as to whether the last word should be taken as in the nominative case or in the dative;⁶ for many write the dative case without the iota, and even reject the ordinary usage as being without natural cause.