Strabo, Geography

Cleon was from the village Gordium, which he later enlarged, making it a city and calling it Juliopolis; but from the beginning he used the strongest of the strongholds, Callydium by name, as retreat and base of operations for the robbers. And he indeed proved useful to Antony, since he made an attack upon those who were levying money for Labienus¹ at the time when the latter held possession of Asia,² and he hindered his preparations, but in the course of the Actian War, having revolted from Antony, he joined the generals of Caesar and was honored more than he deserved, since he also received, in addition to what Antony had given him, what Caesar gave him, so that he was invested with the guise of dynast, from being a robber, that is, he was priest of Zeus Abrettenus, a Mysian god, and held subject a part of Morene, which, like Abrettene, is also Mysian, and received at last the priesthood of Comana in Pontus, although he died within a month's time after he went down to Comana. He was carried off by an acute disease, which either attacked him in consequence of excessive repletion or else, as the people round the temple said, was inflicted upon him because of the anger of the goddess; for the dwelling of both the priest and the priestess is within the circuit of the sacred precinct, and the sacred precinct, apart from its sanctity in other respects, is most conspicuously free from the impurity of the eating of swine's flesh; in fact, the city as a whole is free from it; and swine cannot even be brought into the city. Cleon, however, among the first things he did when he arrived, displayed the character of the robber by transgressing this custom, as though he had come, not as priest, but as corrupter of all that was sacred.