Magadis is believed to be a musical instrument similar to a psaltery or harp, though some earlier sources like the translated fragments of Posidonius discuss arguments that it may have been a woodwind. Modern scholars have mostly accepted the string instrument classification while noting that the evidence from ancient texts "falls well short of proving it." Scholars believe the word may be Lydian in origin.
Background
writers like Alkman and Anakreonmention both magadis and pektis. According to Aristoxenosmagadis and pektis were the same instrument; if this is correctmagadis would have been associated with dancing or serenades as the pektis was, however, direct literary evidence about the magadis and its role in society is lacking. Euphorion wrote that the magadis was an ancient instrument, but that in latter times it was altered, and had the name also changed to that of the Sambuca. Adding that it was popular on Lesbos and that a sculptor named Lesbothemis, about whom little else is known, depicted one of the muses holding the magadis. Menaechmus, in his treatise on Artists, said that the pektis, which he called identical with the magadis, was invented by Sappho. Scholars have said it is an invention of the Lydians or Thracians. There is a discussion in Deipnosophistae about whether the magadis is a harp-like string instrument or a woodwind similar to the aulos or kithara with those involved eventually reaching agreement that it was a string instrument. The gathered company then turn to the question of whether the instrument is of Lydian origin beginning a sharpdispute between Athenaeus and Posidonius.
Verses
Anakreon's verse indicates the magadis was a plucked string instrument:Holding the magadis I pluck its twenty strings; But you, Leukaspis, are in the bloom of youth
According to Aristoxenos, the "twenty strings" mentioned by Anakreon would have been plucked without a plectrum. The skill of a magadisplayer is described in a dithyramb by Telestes:Each man hurling forth a different sound from the others Roused up the horn-voiced magadis Turning his hand quickly back and forth across Five-staved joinings of the strings Like a runner at the turning post Scholars have speculated whether "horn-voiced" could be a reference to plucking of strings with a plectrum, or perhaps a reference to the tone of the instrument, or a structural element of the instrument. Xenophon mentions Thracian soldiers playing ox-hide trumpets in what he calls the "manner of the magadis".
