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.