Damon, this bottle is your due,
And more I have in store for you
Under the sun the faithfullest friend;
I’ve kept them for no other end.
Drink then a bumper, ’tis a folly,
Dear Damon, to be melancholy.
However rigorous the Roman laws were against drunkenness, they permitted it nevertheless on their festivals; witness what a young man said to his father in presence of the people. “[2]No father,” says he, “I have no reason to be ashamed for having taken a little more wine than ordinary at a feast with my companions.” Non est res qua embescam, Pater, si die festo inter æquales largiore vino fui usus.
The Persian soldiers, who otherwise lived very soberly, were permitted to get drunk once a year[3].
In Georgia, he who did not get quite drunk at their principal holidays, as at Easter and Christmas, was not looked upon to be a christian, and ought to be excommunicated. [4]So that, according to this, getting drunk at certain convenient times amongst these christians, was so far from being unlawful, that a man was not looked upon to be orthodox, without he did so. Getting drunk is therefore very orthodox.
[a.] Horace, Odes II.x.19-20.