To return to the symposium. We have already mentioned that, in spite of the custom of mixing the wine with water, the great quantities consumed, since drinking went on far into the night, did often conduce to drunkenness. The scenes which were sometimes enacted by the light of the quivering oil lamps were not always very attractive or indicative of the grace and moderation which we are apt to regard as the special qualities of Greeks. The vase painting depicted in Fig. 106 shows us the immediate consequences of excessive drinking: we see a youth vomiting his wine, while a pretty girl is smiling and holding his head. The official termination of the symposium was a libation to Hermes, but even then they did not always set out on their homeward journey in company with the slaves who were waiting for their masters with torches or lanterns, but sometimes their excitement led them to wander noisily through the streets with the flute girls and torch bearers in a Comus (κῶμος), and they thus entered the houses of friends who were still sitting at their wine, or carried on all manner of jokes and absurdities. This naturally led to other scenes, such as fighting, etc., especially if one of the participants tried to obtain entrance to an hetaera, when a quarrel often ensued between the rivals. The vase painting depicted in Fig. 107 represents a scene from the Comus, the chief person in which is the drunken Hercules, accompanied by satyrs, but in reality it is only a scene from real life transported to the heroic domain. The hero, who is lying dead drunk on the [Illustration: FIG. 107.] ground, appears to have demanded admittance at a door which remained closed to him, and some old woman has poured water upon him from a window over the doorway. Two young satyrs, adorned with fillets and wreaths, of whom one bears a thyrsus and a basket of fruit and cakes, the other a mixing-bowl and fillets, and a harp girl with a thyrsus wand, and a flute player with a torch, are the attendants of this night wanderer. These scenes furnish an unpleasant contrast to the conclusion of the Platonic Symposium, when Socrates, who has been drinking hard all night, but at the same time carrying on serious conversation with some friends as staunch as himself, gets up at daybreak, while the rest of the participants have fallen fast asleep, walks with steady step to the well in the Lyceum, and then, as usual, proceeds to his day’s occupations. CHAPTER VII. SICKNESS AND PHYSICIANS, DEATH AND BURIAL. The Great Plague--Homer’s References to Physicians--_Asklepiadae_--The Oath of Hippocrates--General Practitioners and Specialists--_Plutus_ of Aristophanes--Customs connected with Death, Burial, and Burning--Tombs and their Ornaments.