And all sorts of shell-fish, and drinking strong wine
From the island of Chios, and having, besides,
A lot of Ephesian beautiful letters,
In carefully-sewn leather bags.
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."
PTOLEMY EUERGETES.
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 inordinately fat; and others have become stupid and insensible by reason of their inordinate luxury. Accordingly, Nymphis of Heraclea, in the second book of his History of Heraclea, 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 saying—
For a fat pig was lying on his face;
and in another place he says—
He gave himself to luxury so wholly,