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

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But Diodorus Siculus, in his books On the Library, says that “the citizens of Agrigentum prepared for Gelon a very costly swimming-bath, being seven stadia in circumference” and twenty cubits deep; and water was introduced into it from the rivers and fountains, and it serve for a great pond to breed fish in, and supplied great quantities of fish for the luxury and enjoyment of Gelon. A great number of swans also," as he relates, “flew into it; so that it was a very beautiful sight. But afterwards the lake was destroyed by becoming filled with mud.” And Duris, in the tenth book of his History of Agathocles, says that near the city of Hip- ponium a grove is shown of extraordinary beauty, excellently well watered; in which there is also a place called the Horn of Amalthea; and that this grove was made by Gelon. But Silenus of Calatia, in the third book of his History of Sicily, says that near Syracuse there is a garden laid out in a most expensive manner, which is called Mythus, in which Hiero the king used to transact his business. And the whole country about Panormus,¹ in Sicily, is called The Garden, because it is full of highly-cultivated trees, as Callias tells us in the eighth book of his History of Agathocles.

And Posidonius, in the eighth book of his History, speaking of Damophilus the Sicilian, by whose means it was that the Servile war was stirred up, and saying that he was a slave to his luxury, writes as follows:—"He therefore was a slave to luxury and debauchery. And he used to drive through the country on a four-wheeled chariot, taking with him horses, and servants of great personal beauty, and a disorderly crowd of flatterers and military boys running around his chariot. And ultimately he, with his whole family, perished in a disgraceful manner, being treated with the most extreme violence and insult by his own slaves.