Batalus
Βάταλος
(Βάταλος), according to some, the author of lascivious drinking-songs, and according to others, an effeminate flute-player, who must have lived shortly before the time of Demosthenes, for the latter is said to have been nick-named Batalus on account of his weakly and delicate constitution. (Plut. Dem. 4, Vit. X. Orat. p. 847e.) According to Libanius ( Vit. Dem. p. 2, ed. Reiske), Batalus, the flute-player, was a native of Ephcsus, and the first man that ever appeared on the stage in women's shoes, for which reason he was ridiculed in a comedy of Antiphanes. Whether the poet and the flute-player were the same, or two different persons, is uncertain. (Comp. Meineke, Hist. Crit. Com. Graec. p. 333, &c.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.