Octogenerians (21-25)

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

When Cadmus, long agone, quit Sidon town,[*]

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.