There was a tradition, which we shall pass over without comment, that Isis or Osiris was the inventor of intoxicating drink; but we have very good ground for believing that at the time of the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt wine was already in common use there. That it was drunk at court may be gathered from the dream of Pharaoh’s butler,[137] and the hieroglyphics and pictures found on the ancient monuments which were coeval with or antecedent to that period,[138] demonstrate further that it was consumed by other classes of society, and that they must have been much addicted to drunkenness. At Beni-Hassan and Thebes, representations of wine-presses have been found, of which there appear to have been two kinds. One consisted of a long bag supported horizontally in an upright frame, and capable of being twisted so that the grapes which it contained were forced to yield their juices. In the engraving two men are depicted in the operation of squeezing the bag. The other is a foot-press, upon which several men are seen stamping upon the grapes with their feet. Other representations exhibit men engaged in the vineyards, or drawing wine from the vats into jars, servants handing cups to guests, and others carrying their masters home drunk from a party. In one case, the truth compels us to add, that a maid is seen approaching her mistress with a basin, into which the drink she has taken is being regurgitated after a fashion that gallantry forbids us further to describe.[139] Although we have such trustworthy evidence that wine was consumed in Egypt in the time of Pharaoh (for some of the monuments are probably of a much older date), and that drunkenness was not an uncommon vice, yet for accuracy’s sake we must mention that Herodotus, who lived B.C. 484, distinctly states that grapes were not grown in Egypt. He says,[140] “With respect to the Egyptians themselves, ... their drink is a wine which they obtain from barley, as they have no vines in their country.” Pliny, who lived much later (A.D. 23), but whose writings refer to a period many centuries antecedent, says nothing about the absence of vines in Egypt, but he also speaks of the beer made by them from “corn steeped in water;” and he adds the quaint remark, “Alas! what wondrous skill, and yet how misplaced. Means have absolutely been discovered for getting drunk even upon water.”[141]