VORACITY OF CERTAIN PERSONS.
For naked they did wave their glistening arms,
And move along exulting in their youth,
Their valiant shoulders swelling in their prime
Of health and strength; while they anoint with oil
Their chests and feet and limbs abundantly,
As being used to luxury at home.
7. But Heraclitus, in his Entertainer of Strangers, says that there was a woman named Helena, who ate more than any other woman ever did. And Posidippus, in his Epigrams, says that Phuromachus was a great eater, on whom he wrote this epigram:—
This lowly ditch now holds Phuromachus,
Who used to swallow everything he saw,
Like a fierce carrion crow who roams all night.
Now here he lies wrapp'd in a ragged cloak.
But, O Athenian, whoe'er you are,
Anoint this tomb and crown it with a wreath,
If ever in old times he feasted with you.
At last he came sans teeth, with eyes worn out,
And livid swollen eyelids; clothed in skins,
With but one single cruse, and that scarce full;
For from the gay Lenæan games he came,
Descending humbly to Calliope.
But Amarantus of Alexandria, in his treatise on the Stage, says that Herodorus, the Megarian trumpeter, was a man three cubits and a half in height; and that he had great strength in his chest, and that he could eat six chœnixes[1] of bread, and twenty litræ of meat, of whatever sort was provided for him, and that he could drink two choes of wine; and that he could play on two trumpets at once; and that it was his habit to sleep on only a lion's skin, and when playing on the trumpet he made a vast noise. Accordingly, when Demetrius, the son of Antigonus, was besieging Argos, and when his troops could not bring the helepolis against the walls on account of its weight, he, giving the signal with his two trumpets at once, by the great volume of sound which he poured forth, instigated the soldiers to move forward the engine with great zeal and earnestness; and he gained the prize in all the games ten times; and he used to eat sitting down, as Nestor tells us in his Theatrical Reminiscences. And there was a woman, too, who played on the trumpet, whoseis only the Greek form of the Roman libra, and was a little more than three-quarters of a pound.]
- ↑ It is not quite certain what was the size of the chœnix; some make it about a pint and a half, while others make it nearly four pints. The [Greek: litra
