71. But how far superior to these men is Gorgias the Leontine; of whom the same Clearchus says, in the eighth book of his Lives, that because of the temperance of his life he lived nearly eighty years in the full possession of all his intellect and faculties. And when some one asked him what his system had been which had caused him to live with such comfort, and to retain such full possession of his senses, he said, "I have never done anything merely for the sake of pleasure." But Demetrius of Byzantium, in the fourth book of his treatise on Poems, says" Gorgias the Leontine, being once asked by some one what was the cause of his living more than a hundred years, said that it was because he had never done anything to please any one else except himself." And Ochus, after he had had a long enjoyment of kingly power, and of all the other things which make life pleasant, being asked towards the close of his life by his eldest son, by what course of conduct he had preserved the kingly power for so many years, that he also might imitate it; replied, " By behaving justly towards all men and all gods." And Carystius of Pergamus, in his Historical Commentaries, says "Cephisodorus the Theban relates that Polydorus the physician of Teos used to live with Antipater; and that the king had a common kind of coarse carpet worked in rings like a counterpane, on which he used to recline; and brazen bowls and only a small number of cups; for that he was a man fond of plain living and averse to luxury."

72. But the story which we have of Tithonus represents him as a person sleeping from daybreak to sunset, so that his appetites scarcely awakened him by evening. On which account he was said to sleep with Aurora, because he was so wholly enslaved by his appetites. And as he was at a later period of life prevented from indulging them by old age, and being wholly dependent on them.... And Melanthius, stretching out his neck, was choked by his enjoyments, being a greater glutton than the Melanthius of Ulysses. And many other men have destroyed their bodily strength entirely by their unreasonable indulgence; and some have become inòrdinately fat; and others have become stupid and insensible by reason of their inordinate luxury. Accordingly. Nymphis of Heraclen, in the second book of his History of Heradica, says Dionysius the son of Clearchus, who was the first tyrant

of Heraclea, and who was himself afterwards tyrant of his country, grew enormously fat without perceiving it, owing to his luxury and to his daily gluttony; so that on account of his obesity he was constantly oppressed by a difficulty of breathing and a feeling of suffocation. On which account his physicians ordered thin needles of an exceedingly great length to be made, to be run into his sides and chest whenever he fell into a deeper sleep than usual. And up to a certain point his flesh was so callous by reason of the fat, that it never felt the needles; but if ever they touched a part that was not so overloaded, then he felt them, and was awakened by them. And he used to give answers to people who came to him, holding a chest in front of his body so as to conceal all the rest of his person, and leave only his face visible; and in this condition he conversed with those who came to him." And Menander also, who was a person as little given to evil-speaking as possible, mentions him in his Fishermen, introducing some exiles from Heraclea as sayingFor a fat pig was lying on his face;

and in another place he says―

He gave himself to luxury so wholly,
That he could not last long to practise it;

and again he says

Forming desires for myself, this death
Does seem the only happy one, to grow
Fat in my heart and stomach, and so lie
Flat on my back, and never say a word,
Drawing my breath high up, eating my fill,

And saying, "Here I waste away with pleasure."

And he died when he was fifty-five years of age, of which he had been tyrant thirty-three,-being superior to all the tyrants who had preceded him in gentleness and humanity.

1

73. And Ptolemy the Seventh, king of Egypt, was a man of this sort, the same who caused himself to be styled Euergetes, but who was called Cacergetes by the Alexandrians. Accordingly, Posidonius the Stoic, who went with Scipio Africanus when he was sent to Alexandria, and who there saw this Ptolemy, writes thus, in the seventh book of his History,

"But owing to his luxury his whole body was eaten up with fat, and with the greatness of his belly, which was so large that no one could put his arms all round it; and he wore 1 Evepyéτns, from ev, well; Kakepyéтns, from кaкŵs, ill; and ěpyov, a work.

over it a tunic which reached down to his feet, having sleeves which reached to his wrists, and he never by any chance walked out except on this occasion of Scipio's visit." And that this king was not averse to luxury, he tells us when he speaks of himself, relating, in the eighth book of his Commentaries, how he was priest of Apollo at Cyrene, and how he gave a banquet to those who had been priests before him; writing thus:-"The Artemitia is the great festival of Cyrene, on which occasion the priest of Apollo (and that office is one which lasts a year) gives a banquet to all those who have been his predecessors in the office; and he sets before each of them a separate dish. And this dish is an earthenware vessel, holding about twenty artabæ,' in which there are many kinds of game elaborately dressed, and many kinds of bread, and of tame birds, and of sea-fish, and also many species of foreign preserved meats and pickled-fish. And very often some people also furnish them with a handsome youth as an attendant. But we ourselves omitted all this, and instead we furnished them with cups of solid silver, each being of as much value as all the things which we have just enumerated put together; and also we presented each man with a horse properly harnessed, and a groom, and gilt trappings; and we invited each man to mount his horse and ride him home."

His son Alexander also became exceedingly fat, the one, I mean, who put his mother to death who had been his partner in the kingdom. Accordingly Posidonius, in the fortyseventh book of his History, mentions him in the following terms:-"But the king of Egypt being detested by the multitude, but flattered by the people whom he had about him, and living in great luxury, was not able even to walk, unless he went leaning on two friends; but for all that he would, at his banquets, leap off from a high couch, and dance barefoot with more vigour than even those who made dancing their profession."

74. And Agatharchides, in the sixteenth book of his History of Europe, says that Magas, who was king of Cyrene for fifty years, and who never had any wars, but spent all his time in luxury, became, towards the end of his life, so im

The artabe was equivalent to the Greek medimnus, which was a measure holding about twelve gallons.

mensely bulky and burdensome to himself, that he was at last actually choked by his fat, from the inactivity of his body, and the enormous quantity of food which he consumed. But among the Lacedæmonians, the same man relates, in his twenty-seventh book, that it is thought a proof of no ordinary infamy if any one is of an unmanly appearance, or if any one appears at all inclined to have a large belly; as the young men are exhibited naked before the ephori every ten days. And the ephori used every day to take notice both of the clothes and bedding of the young men; and very properly. For the cooks at Lacedæmon were employed solely on dressing meat plainly, and, on nothing else. And in his twenty-seventh book, Agatharchides says that the Lacedæmonians brought Nauclides, the son of Polybiades, who was enormously fat in his body, and who had become of a vast size through luxury, into the middle of the assembly; and then, after Lysander had publicly reproached him as an effeminate voluptuary, they nearly banished him from the city, and threatened him that they would certainly do so if he did not reform his life; on which occasion Lysander said that Agesilaus also, when he was in the country near the Hellespont, making war against the barbarians, seeing the Asiatics very expensively clothed, but utterly useless in their bodies, ordered all who were taken prisoners, to be stripped naked and sold by the auctioneer; and after that he ordered their clothes to be sold without them; in order that the allies, knowing that they had to fight for a great prize, and against very contemptible men, might advance with greater spirit against their enemies. And Python the orator, of Byzantium, as Leon, his fellow-citizen, relates, was enormously fat; and once, when the Byzantians were divided against one another in seditious quarrels, he, exhorting his fellow-citizens to unanimity, said " You see, my friends, what a size my body is; but I have a wife who is much fatter than I am; now, when we are both agreed, one small bed is large enough for both of us; but when we quarrel, the whole house is not big enough for us."

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75. How much better, then, is it, my good friend Timocrates, to be poor and thinner than even those men whom Hermippus mentions in his Cercopes, than to be enormously rich, and like that whale of Tanagra, as the before-mentioned'

men wor! But Hermippus uses the following language, aggong Bacchus on the present occasion—

Mur pour men now to sacrifice to you

Bu o'td and crippled oxen; thinner far
Then een Thoamanus or Levareça:des.

And Aristophanes in his Gervades gives a list of the Acvwa pegue as very thin, who says were sent as ambasadors by the poet an arch down to hell to the poets save and die Wered A