Deipnosophistae

But in Anacreon we find one measure of wine to two of water spoken of—

1. Come, my boy, and bring to me
2. Such a cup as I may drink
3. At one easy draught: pour in
4. Ten cyathi of water pure,
5. And five of richest Chian wine;
6. That I may drink, from fear removed,
7. And free from drunken insolence.

And going on presently, he calls the drinking of unmixed wine, a Scythian draught—

1. Come hither, now, and let us not
2. Give way to vulgar shouts and noise,
3. Indulging in the Scythian draughts
4. While o'er our wine; but let us drink,
5. Singing well-omen'd, pious hymns.

And the Lacedæmonians, according to the statement of Herodotus, in his sixth book, say that Cleomenes the king, having lived among the Scythians, and got the habit of drinking unmixed wine, became perfectly mad from his habit of drunkenness. And the Lacedæmonians themselves, when they take it into their heads to drink hard, say that they are Episcythising. Accordingly, Chamæleon of Heraclea, in his book on Drunkenness, writes thus concerning them:—

Since the Lacedæmonians say also, that Cleomenes the Spartan became ma d from having lived among the Scythians, and there learnt to drink unmixed wine; on which account, when they take a fancy to drink unmixed wine they desire their slaves to pour out in the Scythian fashion.

And Achæus, in his Aethon, a satyric drama, represents the Satyrs as indignant at being compelled to drink their wine watered, and as saying—

1. Was the whole Achelous in this wine?
2. But even then this race would not cease drinking,
3. For this is all a Scythian's happiness.

But the habit of pouring libations of pure wine, as Theophrastus says, in his treatise on Drinking, was not ancient; but originally libations were what is given to the Gods, and the cottabus, what was devoted to the object of one's love. For men practised throwing the cottabus with great care, it being originally a Sicilian sport, as Anacreon - the Teian says—

1. Throwing, with his well-bent arm
2. The Sicilian cottabus.

On which account those songs of the ancient poets, which are called scolia, are full of mention of the cottabus.[*](The cottabus was a Sicilian game, much in vogue at the drinking-parties of young men in Athens. The simplest mode was when each threw the wine left in his cup so as to strike smartly in a metal basin, at the same time invoking his mistress's name. If all fell in the basin, and the sound was clear, it was a sign that he stood well with her. The basin was called κοτταβεῖον, the action of throwing ἀποκοτταβίζειν, and the wine thrown λάταγες, or λαταγή. The game afterwards became more complicated, and was played in various ways; sometimes a number of little cups (ὀξύβαφα) were set floating, and he who threw his cottabus so as to upset the greatest number, in a given number of throws, won the prize, which was also called κοτταβεῖον. Sometimes the wine was thrown upon a scale (πλάστιξ), suspended over a little image (μάνης) placed in water: here the cottabus was to be thrown so as to make the scale descend upon the head of the image. It seems quite uncertain what the word is derived from.—Vide L. & S. Gr. Eng. Lex. υ. κότταβος. ) I mean, for instance, such a scolion as Pindar composed—

1. And rightly I adore the Graces,
2. Nymphs of Venus and of Love,
3. While drinking with a loving heart
4. This sounding cottabus I pour
5. To Agathon, my heart's delight.

And they also consecrated to those of their friends who were dead, all that portion of their victuals which fell from their tables. On which account Euripides says of Sthenoboea, when she thinks that Bellerophon is dead—

1. Nothing escaped her from her hand which fell,
2. But in a moment she did couple it
3. With the loved name of the Corinthian stranger.

But the ancients were not in the habit of getting drunk. But Pittacus recommended Periander of Priene not to get drunk, nor to become too much addicted to feasting,

so that,

says he,

it may not be discovered what sort of a

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person you really are, and that you are not what you pretend to be.

—

1. For brass may be a mirror for the face,—
2. Wine for the mind.

On which account they were wise men who invited the proverb,

Wine has no rudder.

Accordingly, Xenophon the son of Gryllus, (when once at the table of Dionysius the tyrant of Sicily, the cupbearer was compelling the guests to drink,) addressed the tyrant himself by name, and said,

Why, O Dionysius, does not also the confectioner, who is a skilful man in his way, and one who understands a great many different recipes for dressing things, compel us also, when we are at a banquet, to eat even when we do not wish to; but why, on the contrary, does he spread the table for us in an orderly manner, in silence?

And Sophocles, in one of his Satyric dramas, says—

1. To be compell'd to drink is quite as hard
2. As to be forced to bear with thirst.

From which also is derived the saying—

1. Wine makes an old man dance against his will.

And Sthenelus the poet said very well—

1. Wine can bring e'en the wise to acts of folly.

And Phocylides says—

1. It should be a rule for all wine-bibbing people
2. Not to let the jug limp round the board like a cripple,
3. But gaily to chat while enjoying their tipple:

and to this day this custom prevails among some of the Greeks. But since they have begun to be luxurious and have got effeminate they have given up their chairs and taken to couches; and having taken indolence and laziness for their allies, they have indulged in drinking in an immoderate and disorderly manner; the very way in which the tables were laid contributing, as I imagine, to luxury.

And it is on this account that Hesiod, in his Eoæ, has said—

1. What joys and also what exceeding pains
2. Has Bacchus given to mortal men who drink,
3. Indulging in excess: for to such men
4. Wine is an insolent master, binding fast'
5. Their feet and hands, their tongues and intellects,
6. With chains unspeakable, unnoticeable;
7. And tender sleep loves on their eyes to fall.

And Theognis says—

1. I come like wine, the sweetest drink of men,—
2. I am not sober, nor yet very drunk;
3. But he who goes to great excess in drink
4. Is no more master of his mind or senses;
5. Then he talks unintelligible nonsense,
6. Which seems to sober men a shameful thing;
7. But he, when drunk, is not ashamed of anything,
8. E'en though at other times a modest man
9. And gentle-minded. Mind you this, my friend,
10. And don't indulge in drinking to excess,
11. But rise from table ere the wine begins
12. To take effect; nor let your appetite
13. Reduce you to become its daily slave.

But Anacharsis the philosopher, wishing to exhibit the power of the vine to the king of the Scythians, and showing him some of its branches, said that if the Greeks did not prune it every year it would by this time have reached to Scythia.

But those men do not act wisely who represent and describe Bacchus in their statues or pictures, and who also lead him through the middle of the market-place on a waggon, as if he were drunk; for, by so doing, they show the beholders that wine is stronger than the god. And I do not think that even a good and wise man could stand this. And if they have represented him in this state because he first showed us the use of wine, it is plain that for the same reason they should always represent Ceres as reaping corn or eating bread. And I should say that Aeschylus himself erred in this particular; for he was the first person (and not Euripides, as some people say,) who introduced the appearance of drunken people into a tragedy. For in his Cabiri he introduces Jason drunk. But the fact is, that the practices which the tragedian himself used to indulge in, he attributed to his heroes: at all events he used to write his tragedies when he was drunk; on which account Sophocles used to reproach him, and say to him,

O Aeschylus,[*](Schlegel gives a very different interpretation to this story. He says—In Aeschylus the tragic style is as yet imperfect, and not unfrequently runs into either unmixed epic or lyric. It is often abrupt, irregular, and harsh. To compose more regular and skilful tragedies than those of Aeschylus was by no means difficult; but in the more than mortal grandeur which he displayed, it was impossible that he should ever be surpassed, and even Sophocles, his younger and more fortunate rival, did not in this respect equal him. The latter, in speaking of Aeschylus, gave a proof that he was himself a thoughtful artist;— Aeschylus does what is right, without knowing it.' These few simple words, exhaust the whole of what we understand by the phrase, powerful genius working unconsciously. This is the comment of a man of real sense, learning, taste, and judgment.—Dramatic Literature, p. 95. (Bohn's Standard Library.))

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even if you do what you ought, at all events you do so without knowing it;

as Chamæleon tells us, in his treatise on Aeschylus. And they are ignorant people who say that Epiharmus was the first person who introduced a drunken man on the stage, and after him Crates, in his Neighbours. And Alcæus the lyric poet, and Aristophanes the comic poet, used o write their poems when they were drunk. And many other men have fought with great gallantry in war when they were drunk. But among the Epizephyrian Locrians, if any one drank untempered wine, except by the express command of his physician for the sake of his health, he was liable to be punished with death, in accordance with a law to that effect passed by Zalericus.

And among the people of Massilia there was a law that the women should drink water only. And Theophrastus says, that to this day that is the law at Miletus. And among the Romans no slave ever drank wine, nor any free woman, nor any youth born of free parents till he was thirty years of age. And Anacreon is very ridiculous for having referred all his poems to the subject of drunkenness; for, owing to this, he is found fault with as having in his poems wholly abandoned himself to effeminacy and luxury, as the multitude are not aware that while he wrote he was a sober and virtuous man, who pretended to be a drunkard, when there was no necessity at all for his doing so.

And men who are ignorant of the power of wine, say that Bacchus is the cause of madness to men; in saying which they abuse wine in a very senseless manner. On which account Melanippides says—

1. All men have detested water
2. Who did not before have wine;
3. And though some have enjoy'd their cups,
4. Others have turn'd to ravings wild.

And Aristotle, in his treatise on Drinking, says,

If the wine be moderately boiled, then when it is drunk, it is less pt to intoxicate; for, as some of its power has been boiled away, it has become weaker.

And he also says, "Old men become drunk more quickly on account of the small quantity of natural warmth which there is in them, and also of the weak ness of what there is. And again, those who are very young get drunk very quickly, on account of the great quantity of natural warmth that there is in them; for, in consequence, they are easily subdued by the warmth proceeding from the wine which is added to their natural warmth. And some of the brute beasts are also capable of becoming intoxicated; such as pigs when they are filled with the husks of pressed grapes; and the whole race of crows, and of dogs, when they have eaten of the herb called cenussa: and the monkey and the elephant get intoxicated if they drink wine; on which account they hunt monkeys and crows when the former have been made drunk with wine, and the latter with œnussa.

1. But to drink unceasingly—

as Crobylus says, in his Woman who deserted her Husband—

1. Can have
2. No pleasure in it, surely; how should it,
3. When it deprives a living man of power
4. To think as he should think? and yet is thought
5. The greatest blessing that is given to man.

And Alexis, in the revised edition of his Phrygian, says—

1. If now men only did their headaches get
2. Before they get so drunk, I'm sure that no one
3. Would ever drink more than a moderate quantity:
4. But now we hope t' escape the penalty
5. Of our intemperance, and so discard
6. Restraint, and drink unmixed cups of wine.

And Aristotle says, that the wine called the Samagorean wine was so strong that more than forty men were made drunk with a pint and a half of it after it had been mixed with water.

Democritus having said this, and having drunk, said,— Now if any one can gainsay any of these statements let him come forward: and then he shall be told, as Evenus says—

1. That may be your opinion; this is mine.

But I, since I have now made this digression about the mix- tures of the ancients, will resume the thread of my original discourse where I let it drop; considering what was said by Alcæus the lyric poet. For he speaks, somewhere or other, in this way—

1. Pour out, in just proportion, one and two.

For in these words some people do not think that he is alluding to the mixture of wine and water at all; but that, being a moderate and temperate man, he would not drink more than one cyathus of pure wine, or perhaps, at the most, two. And this is the interpretation given to the passage by Chameleon of Pontus, who was ignorant how fond of wine Alcæus had been. For this poet will be found to have been in the habit of drinking at every season and in every imaginable condition of affairs. In winter he speaks thus—

1. Now the storm begins to lower,
2. And Jove descends in heavy snow,
3. And streams of water stand congeal'd
4. In cruel ice: let's drive away
5. The wintry cold, and heap up fire,
6. And mingle with unsparing hand
7. The honied cup, and wreathe our brows
8. With fragrant garlands of the season.

And in summer, he writes—

1. Now it behoves a man to soak his lungs
2. In most cool wine; for the fierce dogstar rages,
3. And all things thirst with the excessive heat.

And in spring he says—

1. Now does the flowery spring return,
2. And shed its gifts all o'er the land;

and he continues—

1. Come then, my boy, and quickly pour
2. A cup of luscious Lesbian wine.

And in his misfortunes he sings—

1. One must not give one's thoughts up wholly
2. To evil fortune; for by grieving
3. We shall not do ourselves much good.
4. Come to me, Bacchus; you are ever
5. The best of remedies, who bring
6. Us wine and joyous drunkenness.

And in his hours of joy he says—

1. Now is the time to get well drunk,
2. Now e'en in spite of self to drink,
3. Since Myrsilus is dead at last.

And, giving some general advice, he says—

1. Never plant any tree before the vine.

How, then, could a man who was so very devoted to drinking be a sober man, and be content with one or two cups of wine? At all events, his very poem, says Seleucus, testifies against those people who receive the line in this sense. For he says, in the whole passage—

1. Let us now drink,—why put we out the light?
2. Our day is but a finger: bring large cups,
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3. Fili'd with the purple juice of various grapes;
4. For the great son of Semele and Jove
5. Gave wine to men to drive away their cares.
6. Pour on, in just proportion, one and two,
7. And let one goblet chase another quickly
8. Out of my head.

In which words he plainly enough intimates that his meaning is, that one cup of wine is to be mixed with two of water.

But Anacreon likes his liquors stronger still; as is shown by the verses in which he says—

1. Let the cup well be clean'd, then let it hold
2. Five measures water, three of rosy wine.

And Philetærus, in his Tereus, speaks of two measures of water to three of wine. And he speaks thus,—

1. I seem to have drunk two measures now of water,
2. And only three of wine.

And Pherecrates, in his Corianno, speaks even of two measures of water to four of wine, and says—

1. A. Throw that away, my dear; the fellow has
2. Given you such a watery mixture.
3. B. Nay rather, 'tis mere water and nought else.
4. A. What have you done?—in what proportions,
5. You cursed man, have you this goblet mix'd?
6. B. I've put two waters only in, my mother.
7. A. And how much wine?
8. B. Four parts of wine, I swear.
9. A. You're fit to serve as cupbearer to the frogs.

And Ephippus, in his Circe, says—

1. A. You will find it a much more prudent mixture,
2. To take three parts of one, and four of th' other.
3. B. That's but a watery mixture, three to four.
4. A. Would you, then, quite unmix'd your wine prefer?
5. B. How say you?

And Timocles speaks of half and half in his Conisalus,—

1. And I'll attack you straight with half and half,
2. And make you tell me all the truth at once.

And Alexis, in his Dorcis, or the Caressing Woman, says—

1. I drink now cups brimming with love to you,
2. Mixed in fair proportions, half and half.

And Xenarchus, or Timocles, in his Purple, says—

1. By Bacchus, how you drink down half and half!

And Sophilus, in his Dagger, says,—

1. And wine was given in unceasing flow,
2. Mix'd half and half; and yet, unsatisfied,
3. They ask'd for larger and for stronger cups.

And Alexis, in his play entitled The Usurer, or Liar, says—

1. A. Don't give him wine quite drown'd in water, now;—
2. Dost understand me? Half and half, or nearly:
3. That's well.
4. B. A noble drink: where was the land
5. That raised this noble Bacchus by its flavour,
6. I think he came from Thasos.
7. A. Sure 'tis just
8. That foreigners should foreign wines enjoy,
9. And that the natives should drink native produce.

And again, in his Supposititious Son, he says—

1. He drank and never drew his breath, as one
2. Would quaff rich wine, mix'd half and half with care.

And Menander, in his Brethren—

1. Some one cried out to mingle eight and twelve,
2. Till he with rivalry subdued the other (κατέσεισε).

And the verb κατασείω was especially used of those who fell down from drinking, taking its metaphor from the shaking down fruit from the tree.

And Alexis, in his Man cut off, says—

1. He was no master of the feast at all,
2. But a mere hangman, Chæreas his name;
3. And when he'd drunk full twenty cups of wine,
4. Mix'd half and half, he ask'd for more, and stronger.

And Diodorus of Sinope, in his Female Flute-player, says—

1. When any one, O Crito, drinks ten cups,
2. Consider, I do beg you, whether he
3. Who never once allows the wine to pass
4. Is in a fit state for discussion.

And it was not without some wit that Lysander the Spartan, as Hegesander relates in his Commentaries, when some vintners sold wine which had been much watered in hi camp, ordered some one to supply it properly tempered, that his men might buy it with less water in it. And Alexis has said something which comes to nearly the same thing, in his Aesop; thus—

1. A. That is a good idea of yours, O Solon,
2. And cleverly imagined, which you have
3. Adopted in your city.
4. S. What is that?
5. A. You don't let men drink neat wine at their feasts.
6. S. Why, if I did, 'twould not be very easy
7. For men to get it, when the innkeepers
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8. Water it ere it comes out of the waggon.
9. No doubt they do not do so to make money,
10. But only out of prudent care for those
11. Who buy the liquor; so that they may have
12. Their heads from every pang of headache free.
13. This now is, as you see, a Grecian drink;
14. So that men, drinking cups of moderate strength,
15. May chat and gossip cheerfully with each other:
16. For too much water is more like a bath
17. Than like a wine-cup; and the wine-cooler
18. Mix'd with the cask, my friend, is death itself.

But to drink to the degree of drunkenness,

says Plato, in his sixth book of the Laws, is neither becoming any- Where—except perhaps in the days of festival of the god who gave men wine for their banquets,—nor is it wholesome: and, above all, a man ought to guard against such a thing who has any thoughts of marriage; for at such a time, above all other times, both bride and bridegroom ought to be in full possession of their faculties; when they are entering upon what is no small change in the circumstances of their life; and also they ought to be influenced by anxiety that their offspring shall be the offspring of parents in the fullest possible possession of all their faculties; for it is very uncertain what day or what night will be the originating cause of it.

And in the first book of his Laws he says—

But respecting drunkenness it may be a question, whether we ought to give way to it as the Lydians do, and the Persians, and the Carthaginians, and the Celtæ, and the Spaniards, and the Thracians, and other nations like them; or whether like you, O Lacedæmonians, one ought wholly to abstain from it. But the Scythians and the Thracians, who indulge altogether in drinking unmixed wine, both the women and all the men, and who spill it all over their clothes, think that they are maintaining a very honourable practice, and one that tends to their happiness. And the Persians indulge to a great extent in other modes of luxury which you reject; but still they practise them with more moderation than the Scythians and Thracians.

And a great many of the guests were drinking, and putting lumps of meal into their wine, a custom which Hegesander of Delphi mentions. Accordingly Epinicus, when Mnesiptolemus had given a recitation of his history, in which it was written how Seleucus had used meal in his

wine, having written a drama entitled Mnesiptolemus, and having turned him into ridicule, as the comic poets do, and using his own words about that sort of drink, represents him as saying:—

1. Once I beheld the noble king Seleucus,
2. One summer's day, drinking with mighty pleasure
3. Some wine with meal steep'd in it. (So I took
4. A note of it, and show'd it to a crowd,
5. Although it was an unimportant thing,
6. Yet still my genius could make it serious.)
7. He took some fine old Thasian wine, and eke
8. Some of the liquor which the Attic bee
9. Distils who culls the sweets from every flower;
10. And that he mingled in a marble cup,
11. And mix'd the liquor with fair Ceres' corn,
12. And took the draught, a respite from the heat.

And the same writer tells us that in the Therades islands men mash lentils and pease into meal, instead of ordinary corn, and put that into the wine, and that this drink is said to be better than that in which the meal is mixed.

Now it was not the fashion among the Lacedæmonians to practise the system of pledging healths at their banquets, nor to salute one another with mutual greetings and caresses at their feasts. And Critias shows us this in his Elegies:—

1. And this is an old fashion, well establish'd,
2. And sanction'd by the laws of noble Sparta,
3. That all should drink from one well-fill'd cup;
4. And that no healths should then be drunk to anyone,
5. Naming the tender object: also that
6. The cup should not go round towards the right.
7. The Lydian goblets . . . .
8. * * * *
9. And to drink healths with skill and well-turn'd phrase,
10. Naming the person whom one means to pledge.
11. For, after draughts like this, the tongue gets loose,
12. And turns to most unseemly conversation;
13. They make the body weak; they throw a mist
14. Over the eyes; and make forgetfulness
15. Eat recollection out of the full heart.
16. The mind no longer stands on solid ground;
17. The slaves are all corrupted by licentiousness,
18. And sad extravagance eats up the house.
19. But those wise youths whom Lacedæmon breeds
20. Drink only what may stimulate their souls
21. To deeds of daring in th' adventurous war,
22. And rouse the tongue to wit and moderate mirth.
23. Such draughts are wholesome both for mind and body,
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24. And not injurious to the pocket either:
25. Good, too, for deeds of love; authors of sleep,
26. That wholesome harbour after toil and care:
27. Good, too, for health-that best of goddesses
28. Who mortal man befriend: and likewise good
29. For piety's best neigbour temperance.

And presently afterwards he goes on—

1. For fierce, immoderate draughts of heady wine
2. Give momentary pleasure, but engender
3. A long-enduring pain which follows it.
4. But men at Sparta love a mode of life
5. Which is more equal; they but eat and drink
6. That which is wholesome, so that they may be
7. Fit to endure hard pains, and do great deeds.
8. Nor have they stated days in all the year
9. When it is lawful to indulge too much.

And a man who is always ready for wine is called φίλοινος.. But he is called φιλοπότης who is always ready to drink anything; and he is called φιλοκωθωνιστὴς who drinks to the degree of drunkenness. And of all heroes, the greatest drinker is Nestor, who lived three times as long as other men; for he evidently used to stick to his wine more closely than other people, and even than Agamemnon himself, whom Achilles upbraids as a man given to much drinking. But Nestor, even when a most important battle was impending, could not keep away from drinking. Accordingly Homer says—

1. But not the genial feast or flowing bowl
2. Could charm the cares of Nestor's watchful soul.

And he is the only hero whose drinking-cup he has described, as he has the shield of Achilles; for he went to the war with his goblet just as he did with that shield, the fame of which Hector says had reached to heaven. And a man would not be very wrong who called that cup of his the Goblet of Mars, like the Cæneus of Antiphanes, in which it is said—

1. The hero stood and brandish'd Mars's cup,
2. Like great Timotheus, and his polish'd spear.

And indeed it was on account of his fondness for drinking that Nestor, in the games instituted in honour of Patroclus, received a drinking-cup as a present from Achilles; not but what Achilles also gave a cup to the competitor who was defeated: for victory does not commonly attend hard drinkers, on account of their usual inactivity; or perhaps it is owing to their thirst that boxers usually fail, from being fatigued with holding out their hands too long. But Eumelus receives a breastplate after having run a course with great danger, and having been torn, the breastplate being a serviceable piece of defensive armour.

But there is nothing more covetous than thirst; on which account the poet has called Argos thirsty, or rather causing great thirst, as having been much desired on account of the length of time the person of whom he is speaking had been absent from it. For thirst engenders in all men a violent desire for abundant enjoyment; on which account Sophocles says—

1. Though you were to unfold unnumber'd treasures
2. Of wisdom to a thirsty man, you'd find
3. You pleased him less than if you gave him drink.

And Archilochus says—

1. I wish to fight with you, as much as e'er
2. A thirsty man desired to quench his thirst.

And one of the tragic poets has said—

1. I bid you check your hand which thirsts for blood.

And Anacreon says—

1. For you are kind to every stranger,
2. So let me drink and quench my thirst.

And Xenophon, in the third book of his Cyropædia, represents Cyrus as speaking in this manner:—

I thirst to gratify you.

And Plato, in his Polity, says—

But if, as I imagine, any city which is governed by a democracy, thirsting for its liberty, should have evil-disposed cupbearers to wait upon it, and should be intoxicated to an improper degree with unmixed wine . . . .

Proteas the Macedonian was also a very great drinker, as Ephippus tells us in his treatise on the Funeral of Alexander and Hephæstion: and he had an admirable constitution, and he had practised drinking to a great degree. Accordingly, Alexander, having once asked for a cup containing two choes, and having drank from it, pledged Proteas; and he, having taken it, and having sung the praises of the king a great deal, drank it in such a manner as to be applauded by every one. And presently Proteas asked for the same cup again, and again he drank and pledged the king. And Alexander, having taken the cup, drank it off in a princely manner, but he could not stand it, but leaned back on the

pillow, letting the cup fall from his hands; and after this he fell sick and died, Bacchus, as it is said, being angry with him because he had besieged his native city of Thebes. And Alexander drank a great deal too, so that he once, after a drunken bout, slept without interruption two days and two nights. And this is shown in his Journals, which were compiled by Eumenes the Cardian, and Diodotus the Erythræan. But Menander, in his Flatterer, says—

1. A. My good friend, Struthias, I thrice have drunk
2. A golden cup in Cappadocia,
3. Containing ten full cotylæ of wine.
4. St. Why, then you drank more than king Alexander.
5. A. At all events not less, I swear by Pallas.
6. St. A wondrous feat.

But Nicobule, or whoever it was who wrote the books attributed to her, says that

Alexander, once supping with Medeus the Thessalian, when there were twenty people present at the party, pledged every one of the guests, receiving a similar pledge from all of them, and then, rising up from the party, he presently went off to sleep.

And Callisthenes the Sophist, as Lynceus the Samian says in his Commentaries, and Aristobulus and Chares in their Histories, when in a banquet given by Alexander, a cup of unmixed wine came to him, rejected it; and when some one said to him, Why do you not drink? I do not wish, said he, after having drunk the cup of Alexander, to stand in need of the cup of Aesculapius."

But Darius, who destroyed the Magi, had an inscription written on his tomb,—

I was able to drink a great deal of wine, and to bear it well.

And Ctesias says, that among the Indians it is not lawful for the king to get drunk; but among the Persians it is permitted to the king to get drunk one day in the year,—the day, namely, on which they sacrifice to Mithras. And Duris writes thus, with respect to this circumstance, in the seventh book of his Histories:—"The king gets drunk and dances the Persian dance on that festival only which is celebrated by the Persians in honour of Mithras; but no one else does so in all Asia; but all abstain during this day from dancing at all. For the Persians learn to dance as they learn to ride; and they think that the motion originated by this sort of exercise contains in it a good kind of practice tending to the strength of the body. But Alexander used to get so drunk, as Carystius of Pergamus relates in his Historic Commentaries, that he used even to celebrate banquets in a chariot drawn by asses; and the Persian kings too, says he, did the same thing. And perhaps it was owing to this that he had so little inclination for amatory pleasures; for Aristotle, in his Problems of Natural History, says, that the powers of men who drink to any great excess are much weakened. And Hieronymus, in his Letters, says, that Theophrastus says, that Alexander was not much of a man for women; and accordingly, when Olympias had given him Callixene, a Thessalian courtesan, for a mistress, who was a most beautiful woman, (and all this was done with the consent of Philip, for they were afraid that he was quite impotent,) she was constantly obliged to ask him herself to do his duty by her.

And Philip, the father of Alexander, was a man very fond of drinking, as Theopompus relates in the twenty-sixth book of his History. And in another part of his History he writes,

Philip was a man of violent temper and fond of courting dangers, partly by nature, and partly too from drinking; for he was a very hard drinker, and very often he would attack the enemy while he was drunk.

And in his fifty-third book, speaking of the things that took place at Chæronea, and relating how he invited to supper the ambassadors of the Athenians who were present there, he says, "But Philip, when they had gone away, immediately sent for some of his companions, and bade the slaves summon the female flute-players, and Aristonicus the harp-player, and Durion the flute-player, and all the rest who were accustomed to drink with him; for Philip always took people of that sort about with him, and he had also invented for himself many instruments for banquets and drinking parties; for being very fond of drinking and a man intemperate in his manners, he used to keep a good many buffoons an musicians and professed jesters about him. And when he had spent the whole night in drinking, and had got very drunk and violent, he then dismissed all the rest, and when it was day-break proceeded in a riotous manner to the ambssadors of the Athenians. And Carystius in his Historical Commentaries says, that Philip, when he intended to get drunk, spoke in this way:

Now we may drink; for it is quite sufficient if Antipater is sober.

And once, when he was playing at dice, and some one told him that Antipater was coming, he hesitated a moment, and then thrust the board under the couch.

And Theopompus gives a regular catalogue of men fond of drinking and addicted to drunkenness; and among them he mentions the younger Dionysius, the tyrant of Sicily, whose eyes were a good deal injured by wine. And Aristotle, in his Polity of the Syracusans, says that he sometimes was drunk for three months at a time together, owing to which he had got somewhat weak in the eyes. And Theophrastus says that his companions also, who were flatterers of the supreme power, pretended not to see well, and to be led by the hand by Dionysius, and not to be able to see the meat that was served up before them, nor the cups of wine, on which account they got the name of Dionysiocolaces, or flatterers of Dionysius Nysæus also, who was tyrant of Syracuse, drank a great deal, and so did Apollocrates; and these men were the sons of the former Dionysius, as Theopompus tells us in the fortieth and forty-first books of his History; and he writes thus about Nysæus:

Nysæus, who was afterwards tyrant of Syracuse, when he was taken for the purpose of being put to death, and knew that he had only a few months to live, spent them wholly in eating and drinking.

And in his thirty-ninth book he says:

Apollocrates, the son of Dionysius the tyrant, was an intemperate man, and addicted to drinking; and some of his flatterers worked upon him so as to alienate him as much as possible from his father.

And he says that Hipparinus, the son of Dionysius, who behaved like a tyrant when drunk, was put to death. And about Nyssus he writes as follows:

Nysæus, the son of the elder Dionysius, having made himself master of Syracuse, got a four-horse chariot, and put on an embroidered robe, and devoted himself to gluttony and hard drinking, and to insulting boys and ravishing women, and to all other acts which are consistent with such conduct. And he passed his life in this manner.

And in his forty-fifth book the same historian, speaking of Timolaus the Theban, says:

For though there have been a great many men who have been intemperate in their daily life, and in their drinking, I do not believe that there has ever been any one who was concerned in state affairs, more intemperate, or a greater glutton, or a more complete slave to his pleasures than Timolaus, whom I

v.2.p.689

have mentioned.

And in his twenty-third book, speaking of Charidemus of Oreum, whom the Athenians made a citizen, he says:

For it was notorious that he spent every day in the greatest intemperance, and in such a manner that he was always drinking and getting drunk, and endeavoring to seduce free-born women; and he carried his intemperance to such a height that he ventured to beg a young boy, who was very beautiful and elegant, from the senate of the Olynthians, who had happened to be taken prisoner in the company of Derdas the Macedonian.

A man of the name of Arcadion, too, was a very great drinker, (but it is uncertain whether this is the same man who was at enmity with Philip,) as the epigram shows which Polemo has preserved in his treatise on the Inscriptions existing in different Cities—

1. This is the monument of that great drinker,
2. Arcadion; and his two loving sons,
3. Dorcon and Charmylus, have placed it here,
4. At this the entrance of his native city:
5. And know, traveller, the man did die
6. From drinking strong wine in too large a cup.

And the inscription over some man of the name of Erasixenus says that he also drank a great deal.

1. Twice was this cup, full of the strongest wine,
2. Drain'd by the thirsty Erasixenus,
3. And then in turn it carried him away.

Alcetas the Macedonian also used to drink a great deal, as Aristos the Salaminian relates; and so did Diotimus the Athenian: and he was the man who was surnamed the Funnel. For he put a funnel into his mouth, and would then drink without ceasing while the wine was being poured into it, according to the account of Polemo. And it has been already mentioned that Cleomenes the Lacedæmonian was a great drinker of unmixed wine; and that in consequence of his drunkenness he cut himself to pieces with a sword, is related by Herodotus. And Alcæus the poet also was very fond of drinking, as I have already mentioned. And Baton of Sinope, in his essay on Ion the poet, says that Ion was a man fond of drinking and amorous to excess; and he himself, too, in his Elegies, confesses that he loved Chrysilla the Corinthian, the daughter of Teleas, with whom Teleclides, in his Hesiods, says that the Olympian[*](This was a name given to Pericles by Aristophanes, Acharn. 531.) Pericles also was in love. And Xenarchus the Rhodian, on account of the excessive way in which he used to drink, was surnamed

The Nine-gallon Cask;

and Euphorion the Epic poet mentions him in his Chiliades.