According to the Latin author Aulus Gellius, who relates he was present at the episode, a man in a cloak, "with long hair and a beard that reached almost to his waist" once came to the Athenian aristocrat, ex-Roman consul and man of letters Herodes Atticus, who was renowned for his "charm and his Grecian eloquence" and asked that money be given him εἰς ἄρτους ("for bread").