Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/411

CHARACTER OF THE SYBARITES. 395 multiplied them indefinitely. It is probable that the Pythagorean philosophers (who belonged originally to Kroton, but maintained themselves permanently as a philosophical sect in Italy and Si- cily, with a strong tinge of ostentatious asceticism and mysticism), in their exhortations to temperance and in their denunciations of luxurious habits, might select by preference examples from Syb- aris, the ancient enemy of the Krotonians, to point their moral, and that the exaggerated reputation of the city thus first became the subject of common talk throughout the Grecian world ; for little could be actually known of Sybaris in detail, since its hu- miliation dates from the first commencement of Grecian contem- poraneous history. Hekatseus of Miletus may perhaps have visited it in its full splendor, but even Herodotus knew it only by past report, and the principal anecdotes respecting it are cited from authors considerably later than him, who follow the tone of thought so common in antiquity, in ascribing the ruin of the Sybarites to their overweening corruption and luxury. 1 Making allowance, however, for exaggeration on all these ac- counts, there can be no reason to doubt that Sybaris, in 5 GO B. c., was one of the most wealthy, populous, and powerful cities of the Hellenic name ; and that it also presented both comfortable abundance among the mass of the citizens, arising from the easy 1 Thus Herodotus (vi, 127) informs us that, at the time when Kleisthcnes of Sikyon invited from all Greece suitors of proper dignity for the hand of his daughter, Smindyrides of Sybaris came among the number, "the most delicate and luxurious man ever known," (tiri Trheiarov <5/) /U(5;/c elf uvr/p aty'iKfTo Hcrodot. vi, 127), and Sybaris was at that time (B. c. 580-560) in its greatest prosperity. In Chamaeleon, Timauis, and other writers subse- quent to Aristotle, greater details were given. Smindyrides was said to have taken with him to the marriage one thousand domestic servants, fishermen, bird-catchers, and cooks (Athenae. vi, 271 ; xii, 5-H). The details of Syb- aritic luxury, given in Athenrcus, are chiefly borrowed from writers of this ].o<t-Aristotclian age, Hcrakleides of Pontus, Phylarchus, Klearchus, Timreus (Athena;, xii, 519-522). The best-authenticated of all the exam- ples of Sybaritic wealth, is the splendid figured garment, fifteen cutits in length, which Alkimenes the Sybarite dedicated as a votive offering in the temple of the Lakinian Here. Dionysius of Syracuse plundered that tern pic, got possession of the garment, and is said to have sold it to the Cartlia- Lri;ii:u)s for the price of one hundred and twenty talents: Polemon, the Pcriegctcs, seems to have seen it at Carthage (Aristot. Mirab. Ausc. 98; Athenae. xii, 541). Whether the price be correctly stated, we are not in o itiintirm tn ilpti-riniiuv