Menander in Dedicated Girl or Messenian Woman [uses the phrase].[1] From the proverb [about the] "Arabian piper". "So I started an Arabian pipe going"; it is applied to those who speak incessantly. Long ago, they say, free men did not learn to play the pipe because it was vulgar. But many of the slaves were barbarians and Arabians, about whom a proverb is said: "he plays the pipe for a drachma, but he stops for four."[2] Also "Arabian piper", in reference to the unceasing. Cantharus in Medea [writes]: "strike up this dance on an Arabian kithara."[3]
The Arabians greatly surpassed the others in excellence; they used arrows the height of a man and, instead of using their hands, they stepped with the foot onto the string, drawing the bow into a circle.[4]