Page:The Deipnosophists (Volume 3).djvu/42

 There was a man named Ninus, as I hear, King of Assyria, who had a sea Of liquid gold, and many other treasures, More than the whole sand of the Caspian sea. He never saw a star in all his life, But sat still always, nor did wish to see one; He never, in his place among the Magi, Roused the sacred fire, as the law bids, Touching the God with consecrated wand; He was no orator, no prudent judge, He never learn'd to speak, or count a sum, But was a wondrous man to eat and drink And love, and disregarded all besides: And when he died he left this rule to men, Where Nineveh and his monument now stands:— "Behold and hear, whether from wide Assyria You come, or else from Media, or if You're a Choraxian, or a long-hair'd native Of the lake country in Upper India, For these my warnings are not vain or false: I once was Ninus, a live breathing man, Now I am nothing, only dust and clay, And all I ate, and all I sang and jested, And all I loved But now my enemies have come upon me, They have my treasures and my happiness, Tearing me as the Bacchæ tear a kid; And I am gone, not taking with me gold, Or horses, or a single silver chariot; Once I did wear a crown, now I am dust.

41. But Theopompus, in the fifteenth book of his History of Philip, says that "Straton the king of Sidon surpassed all men in luxury and devotion to pleasure. For as Homer has represented the Phæacians as living feasting and drinking, and listening to harp-players and rhapsodists, so also did Straton pass the whole of his life; and so much the more devoted to pleasure was he than they, that the Phæacians, as Homer reports, used to hold their banquets in the company of their own wives and daughters; but Straton used to prepare his entertainments with flute-playing and harp-playing and lyre-playing women. And he sent for many courtesans from Peloponnesus, and for many musicians from Ionia, and for other girls from every part of Greece; some skilful in singing and some in dancing, for exhibitions of skill in which they had contests before himself and his friends; and with these women he spent a great deal of his time. He then,