Both of these statements point to his being of noble birth, and appear strangely at variance with the assertion that he was a mere professional grammarian Grammatodidascalus, a statement which Robert Geier[1] conjectures plausibly enough to refer in fact to Marsyas of Philippi.
The only other fact transmitted to us concerning the life of Marsyas, is that he was appointed by Demetrius Poliorcetes to command one division of his fleet in the Battle of Salamis in Cyprus (306 BC) (Diodorus, xx.
However, this circumstance is alone sufficient to show that he was a person who himself took an active part in public affairs, not a mere man of letters.
His principal work was a history of Macedonia, Makedonika, in 10 books, commencing from the earliest times, and coming down to the wars of Alexander in Asia, when it terminated abruptly in 331 BC, with the return of the monarch into Syria, after the conquest of Egypt and the foundation of Alexandria.
It is repeatedly cited by Athenaeus, Plutarch, Harpocration, Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus and Justin (historian).