Having now gone rapidly through the materials of which Grecian repasts consisted, it will next be necessary to describe the manner in which all these good things were disposed of, first to maintain the energy of the frame, and secondly, for mere pleasure and pastime. Locke, with many other modern philosophers, erroneously supposes the Greeks of remote antiquity to have been so abstemious as to content themselves with one meal per diem. But experience appears to have led all mankind on this point to much the same conclusion; viz., that health and comfort require men to eat at least thrice in the day,[720] which accordingly was the practice of the ancient Greeks, though Philemon and others enumerate four repasts. Our own ancestors, before the introduction of tea and coffee, appear to have been very well content with beer or ale for their morning’s meal, so that we could not pity the Greeks even though it should be found that they had nothing better[721] than hot rolls, muffins, or crumpets, with strawberries, grapes, pears, and a flask of Chian or Falernian. But they soon found the necessity of some warm beverage; and though it does not appear how it was prepared, they had a substitute for tea,[722] in use at Athens, in Eubœa, in Crete, and, no doubt, in all other parts of Greece. This meal, of whatever it consisted, was called _acratisma_, or _ariston_, and eaten at break of day.[723] Homer’s heroes, whose business was fighting, just snatched a hasty meal, and hurried to the field; but at Athens, where people had other employments, they breakfasted early, to allow themselves ample time for despatching their affairs in the city, if they had any, and afterwards at their neighbouring farms or villas.[724] The second repast, _deipnon_, or dinner, seems to have been eaten about eleven or twelve o’clock: the _hesperisma_,[725] equivalent to our tea, late in the afternoon, and the _dorpon_, or supper, the last thing in the evening. But of these meals two only were serious affairs, and the _hesperisma_ was often dispensed with altogether. In fact, Athenæus, a great authority on this subject, considers it perfectly absurd to suppose, that the frugal ancients could have thought of eating so often as three times in one day.[726] ----- Footnote 720: Æschyl. Palamed. fr. 168. Klausen. Comm. in Agamemnon. p. 136. Footnote 721: In modern times a breakfast in the Troad often consists of grapes, figs, white honey in the comb, and coffee.—Chandler, i. p. 37. Footnote 722: Athen. xi. 26, 50. Pollux, ix. 67, sqq. Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 643. Cf. Bœckh. Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 140. Footnote 723: