Book 10
52
And Antiochus the king, who was surnamed Epiphanes, was also a great drinker,—the one, I mean, who had been a hostage among the Romans, whom Ptolemy Euergetes mentions in the third book of his Commentaries, and also in the fifth; saying that he turned to Indian revellings and drunkenness, and spent a vast quantity of money in those practices; and for the rest of the money which he had at hand, he spent a part of it in his daily revels, and the rest he would scatter about, standing in the public streets, and saying, Let whoever chance gives it to, take it: and then, throwing the money about, he would depart. And very often, having a plaited garland of roses on his head, and wearing a golden embroidered robe, he would walk about alone, having stones under his arm, which he would throw at those of his friends who were following him. And he used to bathe also in the public baths, anointed all over with perfumes; and, on one occasion, some private individual, seeing him, said, You are a happy man, O king; you smell in a most costly manner: and he, being much pleased, said, I will give you as much as you can desire of this perfume. And so he ordered an ewer containing more than two choes of thick perfumed unguent to be poured over his head; so that the multitude of the poorer people who were about all collected to gather up what was spilt; and, as the place was made very slippery by it, Antiochus himself slipped and fell, laughing a great deal, and most of the bathers did the same.
