Greek satirist, of Maronea in Thrace (or of Crete), chief representative of the writers of coarse satirical poems, called κίναιδοι, 1 composed in the Ionic dialect and in a metre named after him sotadic. He lived in Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy II. Philadelphus (285247 B.C.). For a violent attack on the king, on the occasion of his marriage to his own sister Arsinoë, Sotades was imprisoned, but escaped to the island of Caunus, where he was afterwards captured by Patroclus, Ptolemys admiral, shut up in a leaden chest, and thrown into the sea (Athenæus xiv. p. 620; Plutarch, De educatione puerorum, 14).