sybarite: [16] Sybaris was an ancient Greek colony in southern Italy. It was a flourishing trading centre, and its inhabitants put their considerable wealth to the service of unrestrained self-indulgence. Their luxurious and debauched ways became a byword in the ancient world, and Greek Subarítēs ‘inhabitant of Sybaris’ came to be synonymous with ‘pleasure-seeker’, and also with ‘lecher’ – both heterosexual and homosexual. English acquired the word via Latin Sybarīta, and has rather toned down its connotations.
