Meton
Μέτων
(Μέτων), a citizen of Tarentum, who, when the decree was proposed for calling in the assistance of Pyrrhus, came into the assembly of the people, in the garb of a reveller, and accompanied by a flute-player, as if just come from a banquet. When the people laughed at him and called out to him to sing them a song, he answered, " You are right to encourage men to sing and make merry now while they can, for when Pyrrhus is arrived we shall have to lead a very different sort of life." By this artifice he produced a great effect upon the assembly; but the decree was nevertheless carried. (Plut. Pyrrh. 13; Dio Cass. Fr. Vat. 45, p. 169, ed. Mai; Dionys. A. R. 17.13, 14.)
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.