But though musical, the Greeks would not imitate the grasshoppers,[847] who are said to sing till they starve; but, having accomplished the circle above-mentioned, proceeded to other amusements which, though too numerous to be described at length, must not be altogether passed over. In the heroic ages the discovery had not been made that rest after meals is necessary to digestion, which in later times was a received maxim, and accordingly we find from the practice of the Phæacians,[848] who, if an after-dinner nap had been customary, would certainly have taken it, that the men of those times, instead of indulging in indolent repose out of compliment to their stomachs, sallied forth to leap, to run, to wrestle, and engage in other athletic sports, which by no means appear to have impaired their health or their prowess. As civilisation advances, however, excuses are found for laying aside the habits of violent exercise. Science, in too many cases, fosters indolence and pronounces what is fashionable to be wise. But to the race-course and the wrestling-ring, sedentary, or at least indoor, pastimes succeed, and, instead of overthrowing their antagonists on the palæstra-floor or the greensward, men seek to subdue them at Kottabos, or on the chess-board, or to ruin them at the card-table or in the billiard-room. ----- Footnote 847: Plato Phædr. t. i. p. 65. Footnote 848: Homer. Odyss. θ. 97, sqq. Eustath. p. 295, 43. ----- The play of Kottabos,[849] invented in Sicily, soon propagated itself, as such inventions do, throughout the whole of Greece, and got into great vogue at Athens, where the lively temperament of the people inclined them to indulge immoderately in whatever was convivial and gay. The most usual form of the game was this,—a piece of wood like the upright of a balance having been fixed in the floor or upon a stable basis, a small cross-beam was placed on the top of it with a shallow vessel like the basin of a pair of scales, at either end. ----- Footnote 849: Athen. xv. 2, sqq. xi. 22, 58, 75.—Suidas, v. κοταβίζειν. t. i. p. 1504, b. seq. Etym. Mag. 538. 13, sqq. -----