Polybios reports that Antiochos III was awakened each morning at the same time by a select group of philoi. This custom has also been attested for the court of Alexander and Mithradates Eupator, and is reminiscent of the ceremonial of lever known from the French court of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. To be present when the king got dressed was a form of ‘favour’, a privilege that gave a courtier direct influence through access to the king. Like being a companion of the king in the hunt or a guest at his dinners and drinking bouts, this was a privilege indicative of a courtier's relative status within the informal hierarchy of the court. Polybios makes it clear that controlling court hierarchy was not at all a simple task for the king. In this specific instance it proved impossible for Antiochos to change the persons whose prerogative it was to be present. The king had to feign an illness to be alone in the early morning and be able to talk in private with one of his confidants, his personal physician Apollophanes, who subsequently secretly acted as messenger between the young king and his supporters. Thus, although the selection of men attending the royal dressing room could be turned into an instrument of the king to manipulate access to his person, as Elias would have suggested, it could as well be a reflection of established positions and prerogatives beyond the grasp of the ruler.