Octogenerians (16-20)

Tiraeus, the second: successor of Hyspausines on the throne, died of * illness at the age of ninety-two. Artabazus, the sixth successor of Tiraeus on the throne of Charax, was reinstated by the Parthians and became king at the age of eighty-six. Cammascires, king of the Parthians, lived ninety-six years.

Massinissa, king of the Moors, lived ninety years. Asandrus, who, after being ethnarch, was proclaimed king of Bosporus by the divine Augustus, at about ninety years proved himself a match for anyone in fighting from horseback or on foot; but when he saw his subjects going over to Scribonius on the eve of battle, he* starved himself to death at the age of ninety-three. According to Isidore the Characene, Goaesus, who was king of spice-bearing Omania in Isidore’s time, died of illness at one hundred and fifteen years.

These are the kings who have been recorded as long-lived by our predecessors. Since philosophers and literary men in general, doubtless because they too take good care of themselves, have attained old age,

They say that when Zeno stumbled in entering the assembly, he cried out: “Why do you call me?” [*] and then, returning home, starved himself to death. Cleanthes, the pupil and successor of Zeno, was ninety-nine’ when he got a tumour on his lip. He was fasting when letters from certain of his friends arrived, but he had food brought him, did what his friends had requested, and then fasted anew until he passed away.

Xenophanes, son of Dexinus and disciple of Archelaus the physicist, lived ninety-one years; Xenocrates, the disciple of Plato, eighty-four; Carneades, the head of the New Academy, eightyfive; Chrysippus, eighty-one; Diogenes of Seleucia on the Tigris, a Stoic philosopher, eighty-eight; Posidonius of Apameia in Syria, naturalised in Rhodes,