Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists
C. D. Yonge, B.A., Ed.

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But Theophilus says:—"We should not act like Philoxenus, the son of Eryxis; for he, blaming, as it seems, the niggardliness of nature, wished to have the neck of a crane for the purposes of enjoyment. But it would be better still to wish to be altogether a horse, or an ox, or a camel, or an elephant; for in the case of those animals the desires and pleasures are greater and more vehement; for they limit their enjoyments only by their power. And Clearchus says that Melanthius did pray in this way, saying, “Melanthius seems to have been wiser than Tithonus; for this last, having desired immortality, is hung up in a basket; being deprived of every sort of pleasure by old age. But Melanthius, being devoted to pleasure, prayed to have the neck of an ostrich, in order to dwell as long as possible on sweet things.”

The same Clearchus says that Pithyllus, who was called Tenthes, not only had a covering to his tongue made o skin, but that he also wrapped up his tongue for the sake of luxury, and then that he rubbed it clean again with the skin of a fish. And he is the first of the epicures who is said to have eaten his meat with fingerstalls on, in order to convey it to his mouth as warm as possible. And others call Philoxenus Philicthus;¹ but Aristotle simply calls him Philodeipnus,² [p. 10] writing in this way:—“Those who make harangues to the multitude, spend the whole day in looking at jugglers and mountebanks, and men who arrive from the Phasis or the Borysthenes; having never read a book in their lives except The Banquet of Philoxenus, and not all of that.”