The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus, Vol. 2 (of 3)Athenaeus, of Naucratis
Philosophy
The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus, Vol. 2 (of 3)
Athenaeus, of Naucratis
Civilization, Greco-Roman; Dinners and dining -- Greece; Greece -- Social life and customs; Homosexuality -- Greece
in the war, he fled to Ephesus, with his newly-married bride. And
in the second book, the same Polybius relates that Agron, the king
of the Illyrians, being delighted at having gained a victory over
the haughty Ætolians, being a man much addicted to drinking, and to
drunkenness, and banqueting, fell ill of a pleurisy, and died. And the
same historian says, in his twenty-ninth book, that Genthion, the king
of the Illyrians, on account of his great fondness for drinking, did a
great many intemperate things during his life, being incessantly drunk,
both night and day; and having murdered Pleuratus, his brother, who was
about to marry the daughter of Menunius, he married the damsel himself,
and treated his subjects with great cruelty. And he says, in the
thirty-third book of his History, that Demetrius, when he fled after
having been a hostage at Rome, and became king of the Syrians, became a
great drinker, and was drunk the greater part of the day. And he also,
in his thirty-second book, says that Orophernes, who was for a short
time king of Cappadocia, disregarded all the customs of his country,
and introduced the artificial luxury of the Ionians.
55. On which account, that divinest of writers, Plato, lays down
admirable laws in his second book—"That boys, till they are eighteen
years of age, should absolutely never taste wine at all; for that it is
not well to heap fire on fire: that men up to thirty years of age may
drink wine in moderation; and that the young man should wholly abstain
from much wine and from drunkenness. But that a man, when he arrives at
forty years of age, may feast in large banquets, and invoke the other
gods, and especially Bacchus, to the feasts and amusements of the older
men; since he it is who has given men this means of indulgence, as an
ally against the austerity of old age, for which wine was the best
medicine; so that, owing to it, we grow young again, and forget our
moroseness." And then he proceeds to say—"But there is a report and
story told that this god was once deprived of his mind and senses by
his mother-in-law, Juno; on which account he sent Bacchic frenzy, and
all sorts of frantic rage, among men, out of revenge for the treatment
which he had experienced; on which account also he gave wine to men."
56. But Phalæus, in his Epigrams, makes mention of a woman, whose name
was Cleo, as having been a very hard drinker—
Cleo bestow'd this splendid gift on Bacchus,
The tunic, fringed with gold and saffron hues,
Which long she wore herself; so great she was
At feasts and revelry: there was no man
Who could at all contend with her in drinking.
And it is a well-known fact that all the race of women is fond of
drinking. And it was not without some wit that Xenarchus introduces, in
his Pentathlum, a woman swearing this most horrible oath:—
May it be granted me to pass from life
Drinking abundant draughts of wine, while you,
My darling daughter, live and prosper here.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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