———— “Mediis videat discumbere in astris,
Cum Jove, et Iliacâ porrectum sumere dextrâ
Immortale merum[11].”
Far from the earth remov’d in realms above,
I seem amongst the stars to sit with Jove:
Lolling in ease celestial, lie supine,
And taste from Ganymede immortal wine.
And without doubt Asclepiades had all this in his head, when he maintained that the gods produced nothing that equalled wine in goodness. Philostratus is much of the same sentiment, who after having taken notice of the edict of the Emperor Domitian, who forbad men to be castrated, and vines to be planted, he adds, that this admirable emperor did not reflect that he made the earth in some sort an eunuch, at the same time that he spared men.
Varro sounded the praise of drunkenness in terms no less pathetic.
“Vino nil quicquam jucundius eluet,