But Sardanapalus was not the only king who was very luxurious, but so was also Androcotus the Phrygian. For he also used to wear a robe embroidered with flowers; and to adorn himself more superbly than a woman, as Mnaseas relates, in the third book of his History of Europe. But Clearchus, in the fifth book of his Lives, says that Sagaus the king of the Mariandyni used, out of luxury, to eat, till he arrived at old age, out of his nurse's mouth, that he might not have the trouble of chewing his own food; and that he never put his hand lower than his navel; on which account Aristotle, laughing at Xenocrates the Chalcedonian, for a similar preposterous piece of laziness, says—
His hands are clean, but sure his mind is not.And Ctesias relates that Annarus, a lieutenant of the king of Persia, and governor of Babylon, wore the entire dress and ornaments of a woman; and though he was only a slave of the king, there used to come into the room while he was at supper a hundred and fifty women playing the lyre and singing. And they played and sang all the time that he was eating. And Phoenix of Colophon, the poet, speaking of Ninus, in the first book of his Iambics, says— [p. 850]
There was a man named Ninus, as I hear,
King of Assyria, who had a sea
Of liquid gold, and many other treasures,
More than the whole sand of the Caspian sea.
He never saw a star in all his life,
But sat still always, nor did wish to see one;
He never, in his place among the Magi,
Roused the sacred fire, as the law bids,
Touching the God with consecrated wand;
He was no orator, no prudent judge,
He never learn'd to speak, or count a sum,
But was a wondrous man to eat and drink
And love, and disregarded all besides:
And when he died he left this rule to men,
Where Nineveh and his monument now stands:—
"Behold and hear, whether from wide Assyria
You come, or else from Media, or if
You're a Choraxian, or a long-hair'd native
Of the lake country in Upper India,
For these my warnings are not vain or false:
I once was Ninus, a live breathing man,
Now I am nothing, only dust and clay,
And all I ate, and all I sang and jested,
And all I loved. . . .
But now my enemies have come upon me,
They have my treasures and my happiness,
Tearing me as the Bacchæ tear a kid;
And I am gone, not taking with me gold,
Or horses, or a single silver chariot;
Once I did wear a crown, now I am dust.
