Deipnosophistae

And Eubulus introduces Bacchus as saying—

1. Let them three parts of wine all duly season
2. With nine of water, who'd preserve their reason;
3. The first gives health, the second sweet desires,
4. The third tranquillity and sleep inspires.
5. These are the wholesome draughts which wise men please,
6. Who from the banquet home return in peace.
7. From a fourth measure insolence proceeds;
8. Uproar a fifth, a sixth wild licence breeds;
9. A seventh brings black eyes and livid bruises,
10. The eighth the constable next introduces;
11. Black gall and hatred lurk the ninth beneath,
12. The tenth is madness, arms, and fearful death;
13. For too much wine pour'd in one little vessel,
14. Trips up all those who seek with it to wrestle.

And Epicharmus says—

1. A. Sacrifices feasts produce,
2. Drinking then from feasts proceeds.
3. B. Such rotation has its use.
4. A. Then the drinking riot breeds;
5. Then on riot and confusion
6. Follow law and prosecution;
7. Law brings sentence; sentence chains;
8. Chains bring wounds and ulcerous pains.

And Panyasis the epic poet allots the first cup of wine to the Graces, the Hours, and Bacchus; the second to Venus, and again to Bacchus; the third to Insolence and Destruction. And so he says—

1. O'er the first glass the Graces three preside,
2. And with the smiling Hours the palm divide;
3. Next Bacchus, parent of the sacred vine,
4. And Venus, loveliest daughter of the brine,
5. Smile on the second cup, which cheers the heart,
6. And bids the drinker home in peace depart.
7. But the third cup is waste and sad excess,
8. Parent of wrongs, denier of redress;
9. Oh, who can tell what evils may befall
10. When Strife and Insult rage throughout the hall?
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11. Content thee, then, my friend, with glasses twain;
12. Then to your home and tender wife again;
13. While your companions, with unaching heads,
14. By your example taught, will seek their beds.
15. But riot will be bred by too much wine,
16. A mournful ending for a feast divine;
17. While, then, you live, your thirst in bounds confine.

And a few lines afterwards he says of immoderate drinking—

1. For Insolence and Ruin follow it.

According to Euripides,

1. Drinking is sire of blows and violence.

From which some have said that the pedigree of Bacchus and of Insolence were the same.

And Alexis says somewhere—

1. Man's nature doth in much resemble wine:
2. For young men and new wine do both need age
3. To ripen their too warm unseason'd strength,
4. And let their violence evaporate.
5. But when the grosser portions are worked off,
6. And all the froth is skilsm'd, then both are good';
7. The wine is drinkable, the man is wise,
8. And both in future pleasant while they last.

And according to the bard of Cyrene—

1. Wine is like fire when 'tis to man applied,
2. Or like the storm that sweeps the Libyan tide;
3. The furious wind the lowest depths can reach,
4. And wine robs man of knowledge, sense, and speech.

But in some other place Alexis says the contrary to what I have just cited:—

1. A. Man in no one respect resembles wine:
2. For man by age is made intolerable;
3. But age improves all wine.
4. B. Yes; for old wines cheer us,
5. But old men only snarl, abuse, and jeer us.

And Panyasis says—

1. Wine is like fire, an aid and sweet relief,
2. Wards off all ills, and comforts every grief;
3. Wine can of every feast the joys enhance,
4. It kindles soft desire, it leads the dance.
5. Think not then, childlike, much of solid food,
6. But stick to wine, the only real good.

And again—

1. Good wine's the gift which God has given
2. To man alone beneath the heaven;
3. Of dance and song the genial sire,
4. Of friendship gay and soft desire;
5. Yet rule it with a tighten'd rein,
6. Nor moderate wisdom's rules disdain;
7. For when uncheck'd there's nought runs faster,—
8. A useful slave, but cruel master.

Timæus of Tauromenium relates that there was a certain house at Agrigentum called the Trireme, on this account:— Some young men got drunk in it, and got so mad when excited by the wine, as to think that they were sailing in a trireme, and that they were being tossed about on the sea m a violent storm; and so completely did they lose their senses, that they threw all the furniture, and all the sofas and chairs and beds, out of window, as if they were throwing them into the sea, fancying that the captain had ordered them to lighten the ship because of the storm. And though a crowd collected round the house and began to plunder what was thrown out, even that did not cure the young men of their frenzy. And the next day, when the prætors came to the house, there were the young men still lying, sea-sick as they said; and, when the magistrates questioned them, they replied that they had been in great danger from a storm, and had consequently been compelled to lighten the ship by throwing all their superfluous cargo into the sea. Arid while the magistrates marvelled at the bewilderment of the men, one of them, who seemed to be older than the rest, said,

I, O Tritons, was so frightened that I threw myself down under the benches, and lay there as low down and as much out of sight as I could.

And the magistrates forgave their folly, and dismissed them with a reproof, and a warning not to indulge in too much wine in future. And they, professing to be much obliged to them, said,

If we arrive in port after having escaped this terrible storm, we will erect in our own country statues of you as our saviours in a conspicuous place, along with those of the other gods of the sea, as having appeared to us at a seasonable time.

And from this circumstance that house was called the Trireme.