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

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But the ancient Romans were prudent citizens, and eminent for all kinds of good qualities. Accordingly Scipio, surnamed Africanus, being sent out by the Senate to arrange all the kingdoms of the world, in order that they might be put into the hands of those to whom they properly belonged, took with him only five slaves, as we are informed by Polybius and Posidonius. And when one of them died on the journey, he sent to his agents at home to bring him another instead of him, and to send him to him. And Julius Cæsar, the first man who ever crossed over to the British isles with a thousand vessels, had with him only three servants altogether, as Cotta, who at that time acted as his lieutenant-general, relates in his treatise on the History and Constitution of the Romans, which is written in our national language. But Smindyrides the Sybarite was a very different sort of man, my Greek friends, who, when he went forth to marry Agaroste, the daughter of Cleisthenes, carried his luxury and ostentation to such a height, that he took with him a thousand slaves, fishermen, bird-catchers, and cooks. But this man, wishing to display how magnificently he was used to live, according to the account given to us by Chamæleon of Pontus, in his book on Pleasure, (but the same book is also attribute to Theophrastus,) said that for twenty years he had never seen the sun rise or set; and this he considered a great and marvellous proof of his wealth and happiness. For he, as it seems, used [p. 430] to go to bed early in the morning, and to get up in the even- ing, being in my opinion a miserable man in both particulars. But Histiæus of Pontus boasted, and it was an honourable boast, that he had never once seen the sun rise or set, because he had been at all times intent upon study, as we are told by Nicias of Nicæa in his Successions.