being neighbours of the Limyres, having got involved in debt, on account of the intemperance and extravagance of their way of living, and, by reason of their indolence and devotion to pleasure, being unable to discharge their debts, placed all their hopes on Mithridates, thinking that he would reward them with a general abolition of debts." And, in his thirty-first book, he says that the Zacynthians were inexperienced in war, because they were accustomed to live in ease and opulence.
36. And Polybius, in his seventh book, says, that the inhabitants of Capua in Campania, having become exceedingly rich through the excellence of their soil, fell into habits of luxury and extravagance, exceeding all that is reported of the inhabitants of Crotona or Sybaris. "Accordingly," says he, "they, not being able to bear their present prosperity, called in Hannibal, owing to which act they afterwards suffered intolerable calamities at the hands of the Romans. But the people of Petelia, who kept the promises which they had made to the Romans, behaved with such resolution and fortitude when besieged by Hannibal, that they did not surrender till they had eaten all the hides which there were in the city, and the bark and young branches of all the trees which grew in the city, and till they had endured a siege for eleven months, without any one coming to their assistance; and they did not even then surrender without the permission of the Romans."
37. And Phylarchus, in the eleventh book of his History, says that Æschylus says that the Curetes derived their name from their luxurious habits—
And their luxurious curls, like a fond girl's,
On which account they call'd him [Greek: Kourêtes].[1]
And Agathon in his Thyestes says, that "the suitors who courted the daughter of Pronax came sumptuously dressed in all other points, and also with very long, carefully dressed hair. And when they failed in obtaining her hand—
At least (say they) we cut and dress'd our hair,
To be an evidence of our luxury,
A lovely action of a cheerful mind;
And thence we gain'd the glory of a name,—
To be [Greek: kourêtes], from our well-cut ([Greek: kourimos]) hair."
And the people of Cumæ in Italy, as Hyperochus tells us, or whoever else it was who wrote the History of Cumæ which, to cut and dress the hair.]
- ↑ From [Greek: keirô
