[Prousias] the king.[1] This man, after defeating Attalos[2] and after arriving at Pergamon, prepared a lavish sacrifice and brought it to the sanctuary of Asklepios. Sacrificing oxen and getting good omens, he then returned to his encampment. But on the next day, setting his force against the Nikephorion,[3] he destroyed all the temples and robbed the gods' sanctuaries of their statues[4] and the sculptures made of stone. Finally he lifted the statue of Asklepios, skilfully created by Phylomachos,[5] and carried it away for himself -- the very god to whom on the previous day he was pouring libations, sacrificing oxen, and offering prayers asking him, naturally, to become in every way propitious and kindly unto himself. Such dispositions are those of a maniac.[6] For at one moment to sacrifice and placate the deity, doing obeisance and anointing the altars in a special way, as Prousias usually did while bending his knee and playing the woman, and yet at the same moment to violate these things and, by their destruction, to evince your arrogance towards the deity -- how could one not say these were the deeds of a crazed spirit, a soul that has departed from reason?