Note 752 — Chapter XXII · WESTERN COLONIES OF GREECE — IN EPIRUS, ITALY, SICILY, AND GAUL.

Thus Herodotus (vi, 127) informs us that, at the time when Kleisthenês of Sikyon invited from all Greece suitors of proper dignity for the hand of his daughter, Smindyridês of Sybaris came among the number, “the most delicate and luxurious man ever known,” (ἐπὶ πλεῖστον δὴ χλιδῆς εἷς ἀνὴρ ἀφίκετο—Herodot. vi, 127), and Sybaris was at that time (B. C. 580-560) in its greatest prosperity. In Chamæleon, Timæus, and other writers subsequent to Aristotle, greater details were given. Smindyridês was said to have taken with him to the marriage one thousand domestic servants, fishermen, bird-catchers, and cooks (Athenæ. vi, 271; xii, 541). The details of Sybaritic luxury, given in Athenæus, are chiefly borrowed from writers of this post-Aristotelian age,—Herakleidês of Pontus, Phylarchus, Klearchus, Timæus (Athenæ. xii, 519-522). The best-authenticated of all the examples of Sybaritic wealth, is the splendid figured garment, fifteen cubits in length, which Alkimenês the Sybarite dedicated as a votive offering in the temple of the Lakinian Hêrê. Dionysius of Syracuse plundered that temple, got possession of the garment, and is said to have sold it to the Carthaginians for the price of one hundred and twenty talents: Polemon, the Periegetes, seems to have seen it at Carthage (Aristot. Mirab. Ausc. 96; Athenæ. xii, 541). Whether the price be correctly stated, we are not in a situation to determine.