Deipnosophistae

But the ancients did also at times use very cold water in their draughts before dinner. But I will not tell you, unless you first teach me, whether the ancients were in the habit of drinking warm water at their banquets. For if their cups got their name[*](κρατὴρ, from κεράννυμι, to mix.) from what took place in reference to them, and if they were set before the guests full of mixed liquors, then they certainly did not contain warm drink, ad were not put on the fire like kettles. For that they were in the habit of drinking warm water Eupolis proves, in his Demi—

1. Warm for us now the brazen ewer quick,
2. And bid the slaves prepare the victims new,
3. That we may feast upon the entrails.

And Antiphanes says, in his Omphale—

1. May I ne'er see a man
2. 'Boiling me water in a bubbling pail;
3. For I have no disease, and wish for none.
4. But if I feel a pain within my stomach,
5. Or round about my navel, why I have
6. A ring I lately gave a drachma for
7. To a most skilful doctor.

And, in his Anointing Woman, (but this play is attributed to Alexis also,) he says—

1. But if you make our shop notorious,
2. I swear by Ceres, best of goddesses,
3. That I will empt the biggest ladle o'er you,
4. Filling it with hot water from the kettle;
5. And if I fail, may I ne'er drink free water more.

And Plato, in the fourth book of his Polity, says—

Desire in the mind must be much the same as thirst is in the body. Now, a man feels thirst for hot water or for cold; or for much water or for a little; or perhaps, in a word, for some particular drink. And if there be any heat combined with the thirst, then that will give a desire for cold water; but if a sensation of cold be united with it, that will engender a wish for warm water. And if by reason of the violence of the cause the thirst be great, that will give a desire for an abundant draught; but if the thirst be small, then the man will wish for but a small draught. But the thirst itself is not a desire of anything except of the thing itself, namely, drinking. And hunger, again, is not a desire of anything else except food.

And Semus the Delian, in the second book of is Nesias. or treatise on Islands, says that in the island of Cimolus, cold

places are prepared by being dug out against the summer, where people may put down vessels full of warm water, and then draw them up again in no respect different from snow. But warm water is called by the Athenians metaceras, a word used by Sophilus, in his Androcles. And Alexis says, in his Locrians—

1. But the maid-servants pour'd forth water,
2. One pouring boiling water, and the other warm.

And Philemon, in his Corinthian Women, uses the same word. And Amphis says, in his Bath—

1. One called out to the slaves to bring hot water,
2. Another shouted for metaceras.

And as the Cynic was proceeding to heap other proofs on these, Pontianus said,—The ancients, my friends, were in the habit also of drinking very cold water. At all events Alexis says, in his Parasite—

1. I wish to make you taste this icy water,
2. For I am proud of my well, whose limpid spring
3. Is colder than the Ararus.

And Hermippus, in his Cercopes, calls water drawn from wells φρεατιαῖον ὕδωρ. Moreover, that men used to drink melted snow too, is shown by Alexis, in his Woman eating Mandragora—

1. Sure is not man a most superfluous plant,
2. Constantly using wondrous contradictions.
3. Strangers we love, and our own kin neglect;
4. Though having nothing, still we give to strangers.
5. We bear our share in picnics, though we grudge it,
6. And show our grudging by our sordidness.
7. And as to what concerns our daily food,
8. We wish our barley-cakes should white appear,
9. And yet we make for them a dark black sauce,
10. And stain pure colour with a deeper dye.
11. Then we prepare to drink down melted snow;
12. Yet if our fish be cold, we storm and rave.
13. Sour or acid wine we scorn and loathe,
14. Yet are delighted with sharp caper sauce.
15. And so, as many wiser men have said,
16. Not to be born at all is best for man;
17. The next best thing, to die as soon as possible.

And Dexicrates, in the play entitled The Men deceived by Themselves, says—

1. But when I'm drunk I take a draught of snow,
2. And Egypt gives me ointment for my head.

And Euthycles, in his Prodigal Men, or The Letter, says—

1. He first perceived that snow was worth a price;
2. He ought to be the first to eat the honeycombs.

And that excellent writer Xenophon, in his Memorablia, shows that he was acquainted with the fashion of drinking snow. But Chares of Mitylene, in his History of Alexander, has told us how we are to proceed in order to keep snow when he is relating the siege of the Indian city Petra. For he says that Alexander dug thirty large trenches close to one anther, and filled them with snow, and then he heaped on the snow branches of oak; for that in that way snow would last a long time.