Palamedes a hero of post-Homeric stories of the Trojan War.
Daedalus a legendary Athenian inventor, architect, and artist, who according to legend, built the Labyrinth.
Pythagoreans followers of Pythagoras, a philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician of the sixth century B.C.
"rack [the strings] on the pegs of the instrument . . . ." Socrates is referring to music theorists who, in trying to determine precise intervals of pitch, tighten and loosen the strings of a lyre to change the pitch ever so slightly; figuratively, he says they are torturing the strings the way a prisoner might be tortured on a rack, stretching them little by little to make them give up information.
plectrum a thin piece of metal, bone, plastic, etc., used for plucking the strings of a lyre; a pick.
