(Μαίσων), a comic actor of Megara, who seems to have been celebrated for his skill in the buffoonery which characterised the old Megaric comedy. He invented the masks of the slave and the cook; and the coarse jokes of those characters were called σκώμματα μαισωνικά. (Athen. 14.659a; Eustath. ad Hom. p. 1751, 56.) The following proverb is attributed to him by several ancient writers-- ἀντʼ εὐεργεσίης Ἀγαμέμνονα δῆσαν Ἀχαιοί.

(Zenob. Cent. 2.11; Liban. de Nec. Julian. p. 285b; Harpocr. s. v. Ἑρμαῖ; Diogeman. apud Gaisford, Paroemiogr. p. v.) Polemon (apud Atlhen. xiv. p. 659c) maintained, in opposition to Timaeus, that Maeson was a native of Megara in Sicily, and not of the Nisaean Megara. If so, he niust have lived before B. C. 483, in which year the Megarians were expelled by Gelo. (Thue. 6.4, comp. Hdt. 7.156.)

It may be conjectured, with some probability, that Maeson was a native of the Nisaean Megara, but migrated to Megara in Sicily, and was thus one of those who introduced into Sicily that style of comedy which Epicharmus afterwards brought to perfection. (Meineke, Hist. Crit. Com. Graec. pp. 22, 24; Grysar, de Com. Dor. p. 16.)