Athenodorus, son of Sando, of Tarsus, a Stoic, tutor of Caesar Augustus the divine, through whose influence the city of Tarsus was relieved of taxation, died in his native land at the age of eighty-two, and the people of Tarsus pay him honour each year as a hero. Nestor, the Stoic from Tarsus, the tutor of Tiberius Caesar, lived ninety-two years, and Xenophon, son of Gryllus, more than ninety.1 These are the noteworthy philosophers.
Of the historians, Ctesibius died at the age of one
hundred and four while taking a walk, according to
Apollodorus in his Chronology. Hieronymus, who
went to war and stood much toil and many wounds,
lived one hundred and four years, as Agatharchides
says in the ninth book of his History of Asia; and
he expresses his amazement at the man, because up
to his last day he was still vigorous in his marital
relations and in all his faculties, lacking none of the
symptoms of health. Hellanicus of Lesbos was
eighty-five, Pherecydes the Syrian eighty-five also,
Timaeus of Tauromenium ninety-six. Aristobulus
of Cassandria is said to have lived more than ninety
years. He began to write his history in his eightyfourth year, for he says so himself in the beginning of
Of the orators, Gorgias, whom some call a
sophist, lived to be one hundred and eight, and
starved himself to death. They say that when he
was asked the reason for his great age, sound in all
his faculties, he replied that he had never accepted
other people’s invitations to dinner! Isocrates
wrote his Panegyric at ninety-six ; and at the age of
ninety-nine, when he learned that the Athenians
had been beaten by Philip in the battle of Chaeronea,
he groaned and uttered the Euripidean line
alluding to himself; then, adding, “Greece will lose
her liberty,” he quitted life. Apollodorus, the Pergamene rhetorician who was tutor to Caesar Augustus
the divine and helped Athenodorus, the philosopher
of Tarsus, to educate him, lived eighty-two years, like
Athenodorus. Potamo, a rhetorician of considerable
repute, lived ninety years.
Sophocles the tragedian swallowed a grape and
choked to death at ninety-five. Brought to trial by
his son Iophon toward the close of his life on a charge
Cratinus, the comic poet, lived ninety-seven years, and toward the end of his life he produced “The Flask” and won the prize, dying not long thereafter. Philemon, the comic poet, was ninety-seven like Cratinus, and was lying on a couch resting. When he saw a donkey eating the figs that had been prepared for his own consumption, he burst into a fit of laughter; calling his servant and telling him, along with a great and hearty laugh, to give the donkey also a sup of wine, he choked with his laughter and died.1 Epicharmus, the comic poet, is also said to have lived ninety-seven years.
Anacreon, the lyric poet, lived eighty-five years ; Stesichorus, the lyric poet, the same, and Simonides of Ceos more than ninety.
Of the grammarians, Eratosthenes, son of Aglaus, of Cyrene, who was not only a grammarian but might also be called a poet, a philosopher and a geometrician, lived eighty-two years.
Lycurgus,
the Spartan lawgiver, is said to have lived eighty-five
years.
These are the kings and the literary men whose names I have been able to collect. As I have promised to record some of the Romans and the Italians who were octogenarians, I will set them forth for you, saintly Quintillus, in another treatise, if it be the will of the gods,