Money attracts not only people, but also stories. For example, among his many digressions, the Greek historian Herodotus recounts the story of the Athenian Alkmeon. Alkmeon had assisted the Lydians upon their visit to the oracle in Delphi and, as a token of his gratitude, king Kroisos invited him to the palace in Sardis and told him to take as much gold as he could bear.

Dressed in a wide gown and wearing large boots, he immediately jumped onto a heap of gold dust (presumably that from the nearby Paktolos river) and loaded his boots and the folds of his garment with as much as he could carry, even sprinkling it over his hair and stuffing it in his mouth. Herodotus amusingly details how he stumbled out of the treasury, stuffed and swollen, ‘looking like anything but a human being’, a sight that caused Kroisos to burst out in laughter (Hdt. 6.125).

[www.asor.org]