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.
73. And Ptolemy the Seventh, king of Egypt, was a man of this sort, the same who caused himself to be styled Euergetes,[9] 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 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,[10] 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."