Some of them played the part of professional jesters (like the later buffoons and court fools), and kept collections of witticisms ready for use at their patrons' table; others relied upon flattery, others again condescended to the most degrading devices (Plutarch, De adulatore, 23; De educatione puerorum, 17).
The show's point was to make buffoons of the out-of-touch representatives responsible for the games industry.
Nor had he any taste for rule; his days were spent in the society of musicians, buffoons and poets, and he himself dabbled in verse-making of a mystic tendency.
It is reported that the caliph even permitted one of his buffoons to turn the person of Ali into mockery.
I have to say, the men seem to be incompetent buffoons.