Diodorus Siculus, Library

Contents of the Thirteenth Book of Diodorus

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LXXXIV. It was not in the case of Tellias only that such magnificence of wealth occurred, he says, but also of many other inhabitants of Acragas. Antisthenes at any rate, who was called Rhodus, when celebrating the marriage of his daughter, gave a party to all the citizens in the courtyards where they all lived and more than eight hundred chariots followed the bride in the procession; furthermore, not only the men on horseback from the city itself but also many from neighbouring cities who had been invited to the wedding joined to form the escort of the bride. [2] But most extraordinary of all, we are told, was the provision for the lighting: the altars in all the temples and those in the courtyards throughout the city he had piled high with wood, and to the shopkeepers he gave firewood and brush with orders that when a fire was kindled on the acropolis they should all do the same; [3] and when they did as they were ordered, at the time when the bride was brought to her home, since there were many torch-bearers in the procession, the city was filled with light, and the main streets through which the procession was to pass could not contain the accompanying throng, all the inhabitants zealously emulating the man's grand manner. For at that time the citizens of Acragas numbered more than twenty thousand, and when resident aliens were included, not less than two hundred thousand. [4] And men say that once when Antisthenes saw his son quarrelling with a neighbouring farmer, a poor man, and pressing him to sell him his little plot of land, for a time he merely reproved his son; but when his son's cupidity grew more intense, he said to him that he should not be doing his best to make his neighbour poor but, on the contrary, to make him rich; for then the man would long for more land, and when he would be unable to buy additional land from his neighbour he would sell what he now had.

[5] Because of the immense prosperity prevailing in the city the Acragantini came to live on such a scale of luxury that a little later, when the city was under siege, they passed a decree about the guards who spent the nights at their posts, that none of them should have more than one mattress, one cover, one sheepskin, and two pillows. [6] When such was their most rigorous kind of bedding, one can get an idea of the luxury which prevailed in their living generally. Now it was our wish neither to pass these matters by nor yet to speak of them at greater length, in order that we may not fail to record the more important events.

This text is based on the following book(s):
Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.
OCLC: 24758311
ISBN: 0674994132, 0674994221, 0674994396, 0674994280, 0674994647

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