Gelon of Syracuse
I’ve been reading Life of Greece by Will Durant lately. Here is a charming anecdote about Gelon, tyrant of Syracuse and suzerain of Sicily. This is the same Gelon who in 480 saved the western colonies by repelling the Carthaginian hordes at Himera—according to tradition on the same day the Athenians bested Xerxes at Salamis:
“Gelon of Syracuse,” says Lucian, “had disagreeable breath, but did not find it out himself for a long time, no one venturing to mention such a circumstance to a tyrant. At last a foreign woman who had a connection with him dared to tell him; whereupon he went to his wife and scolded her for never having, with all her opportunities of knowing, warned him of it; she put in the defense that as she had never been familiar or at close quarters with any other man, she had supposed all men were like that.” He was disarmed.