516 PKOSE HALIEIJTICS. 



as proverbial as ' to drink like a Scythian •/ these people 

 would eat without intermission day and night, hoasting, 

 that whereas ' the Athenians only talked and tasted, 

 they ate and stuffed/ their whole converse being such 

 as might be supposed to pass between over-full sacks of 

 flour with their mouths open : viz. how much each could 

 hold ! The ThessaHans gave suppers known as Capanean 

 or cupboard suppers, from the quantity of victuals they 

 used to stow away on such occasions. The Lydians per- 

 formed great feats in gluttony, and were called the ' wide- 

 mouth nation' in consequence : one of their voracious 

 kings is reported to have eaten up all of his wife except 

 her hand, which not being able to gorge, he afterwards 

 killed himself, that the story might not get wind. Thus, 

 though a temple was built to Voracitas {aSrjtfyar/la) in 

 Sicily, her worship was by no means localized, and she 

 had proselytes in every part of the world. Amongst im- 

 mortal gluttons, Hercules (fiov<par/of:) the beef-eater was 

 chief; he woidd eat up the grilled carcase of a cow at a 

 meal, with aU the live coals attached to it ; Ulysses' eda- 

 city is competently attested in the Odyssey ; Milo carried 

 an ox round the stadium in his arms, and then, with as 

 little difficulty, in his inside ; Astydamus of Miletus wa- 

 gered to despatch a dinner prepared for nine persons, 

 and was as good as his word. The notices of inferior 

 gourmets, of Megarian trumpeters and Thracian boxers 

 who ate, according to report, twenty pounds of beef, and 

 drank two gallons of swiU with it, and of ladies who, like 

 Aglais, could eat twelve pounds, and take their gallon 

 too, are still more numerous. Clearchus mentions one 

 Persian Cantibaris, who having eaten tiU he could eat no 

 longer, kept his mouth open like a young bird, to be 

 stuffed by his servants ; and a son of Myrmidon was called 

 iEthon, because he devoured everything before him, like a 

 consuming fire. The precepts of philosophers were in ac- 



