VORACITY OF MITHRIDATES.
9. And Nicolaus the Peripatetic, in the hundred and third
book of his History, says that Mithridates, the king of Pontus,
once proposed a contest in great eating and great drinking
(and the prize was a talent of silver), and that he himself
gained the victory in both; but he yielded the prize to the
man who was judged to be second to him, namely, Calomodrys,
the athlete of Cyzicus. And Timocreon the Rhodian,
a poet, and an athlete who had gained the victory in the
pentathlum, ate and drank a great deal, as the epigram on
his tomb shows—
Much did I eat, much did I drink, and much
Did I abuse all men; now here I lie;—
My name Timocreon, my country Rhodes.
And Thrasymachus of Chalcedon, in one his Prefaces, says that Timocreon came to the great king of Persia, and being entertained by him, did eat an immense quantity of food; and when the king asked him, What he would do on the strength of it? he said that he would beat a great many Persians; and the next day, having vanquished a great many, one after another, taking them one by one, after this, he beat the air with his hands; and when they asked him what he wanted, he said that he had all those blows left in him if any one was inclined to come on. And Clearchus, in the fifth book of his Lives, says, that Cantibaris the Persian, whenever his jaws were weary with eating, had his slaves to pour food into his mouth, which he kept open as if they were pouring it into an empty vessel. But Hellanicus, in the first book of his Deucalionea, says that Erysichthon, the son of Myrmidon, being a man perfectly insatiable in respect of food, was called Æthon. And Polemo, in the first book of his Treatise addressed to Timæus, says that among the Sicilians there was a temple consecrated to gluttony, and an image of Ceres Sito;[1] near which, also, there was a statue of Himalis,[2] as there is at Delphi one of Hermuchus,[3] and as at Scolum, in Bœotia, there are statues of Megalartus[4] and Megalomazus., food.].], large, and [Greek: artys], a loaf. Megalomazus, from [Greek: megas]; great, and [Greek: maza], a barley-cake.]
