Numbers have celebrated the military genius of Alexander; but Athenæus alone has given him due credit for his truly royal power of drinking. Like his father, Philip, who, in his jolly humour, ruffled the Athenian dead at Chæronea, where he could safely beard the fallen republicans, Alexander delighted to spend his evenings among drunken roysterers, whose chief ambition consisted in making a butt of their bowels. One of these worthies was Proteas, the Macedonian mentioned by Ephippos, in his work on the sepulture of Alexander and Hephæstion. He was a man of iron constitution, on which wine, whatever quantity he drank, appeared to make no impression. Alexander, knowing this, loved to pledge him in huge bowls, such as none, perhaps, but themselves could cope with. This he did even at Babylon, where the climate suffers few excesses to be indulged in with impunity. Taking a goblet more like a pail than a drinking-cup, Alexander caused it to be crowned with wine, which, having tasted, he presented the bowl to Proteas. The veteran immediately drained it off, to the great amusement of the company, and presently afterwards, desiring to pledge the king, he filled it up again, and sipping a little, according to custom, passed the bowl to Alexander, who, not to be outdone by a subject, forthwith drank the whole. But if he possessed the courage, he wanted the physical strength of Proteas: the goblet dropped from his hand, his head sank on a pillow, and a fever ensued of which the conqueror of Persia, and the rival of Proteas in drinking, died in a few days.[800] ----- Footnote 800: Athen. x. 44. ----- But to return from these barbarians: as the presence of sober persons must always be felt by hard drinkers to be a tacit reproach, it was one of the rules of good fellowship, that all such as joined not in the common potations should depart. “Drink, or begone!” said the law, and a good one in Cicero’s opinion it was, for if men experienced no disposition to join in the mirth and enjoyment of the company, what had they to do there?[801] ----- Footnote 801: Tuscul. Quæst. ii. 41. ----- From the existence of these rules, however, an inference has been drawn unfavourable to the Greek character, as if, because some were merry, the nation generally must of necessity have been wine-bibbers.[802] But this is scarcely more logical than the reasoning of a writer, who, because the comic poets speak chiefly of the mirth and lighter enjoyments of the Athenians, very gravely concludes that they busied themselves about little else. The truth is, that like all ardent and energetic people, they threw their whole souls into the affair, whether serious or otherwise, in which they happened to be engaged; and besides, while the careful and industrious applied themselves to business, there was always an abundance of light and trifling people to whom eating and drinking constituted a serious occupation. ----- Footnote 802: Potter, ii. 396. -----