But Hegesander the Delphian speaks of some men as ἔξοινοι; by which term he means, overtaken with wine; speaking thus:—“Comeon and Rhodophon being two of the ministers who managed the affairs of Rhodes, were both drunk; and Comeon attacking Rhodophon as a gambler, said—
O you old man, the crew of youthful gamblersAnd Rhodophon reproached him with his passion for women, and with his incontinence, abstaining from no sort of abuse.” And Theopompus, in the sixteenth book of his Histories, speaking of another Rhodian, says—“When Hegesilochus had become perfectly useless, partly from drunkenness and gambling, and when he had utterly lost all credit among the Rhodians, and when instead his whole course of life was found fault with by his own companions and by the rest of the citizens.” . . . .Then he goes on to speak of the oligarchy which he established with his friends, saying—“And they violated a great number of nobly-born women, wives of the first men in the state; and they corrupted no small number of boys and young men; and they carried their profligacy to such a height that they even ventured to play with one another at dice for the free-born women, and they made a bargain which of the nobly-born matrons he who threw the lowest number on the dice should bring to the winner for the purpose of being ravished; allowing no exception at all; but the loser was bound to bring her to the place appointed, in whatever way he could, using persuasion, or even force if that was necessary. And some of the other Rhodians also played at dice in this fashion; but the most frequent and open of all the players in this way was Hegesilochus, who aspired to become the governor of the city.” And Antheas the Lindian, who claimed to be considered a relation of Cleobulus the philosopher, as Philodemus reports, in his treatise on the Sminthians in Rhodes, being an oldish man, and very rich, and being also an accomplished poet, [p. 703] celebrated the festivals in honour of Bacchus all his life, wearing a dress such as is worn by the votaries of Bacchus, and maintaining a troop of fellow-revellers. An he was constantly leading revels both day and night; and he was the first man who invented that. kind of poetry which depends upon compound words, which Asopodorus the Phliasian afterwards employed in his conversational Iambics. And he too used to write comedies and many other pieces in the same style of poetry, which he used to recite to his phallus-bearers.
Beyond a doubt are pressing hard upon you.
