Quot themison ægros autumno occiderat uno[4].”
———— Whose names, if you require,
With greater expedition could I tell,
To Hippia’s lust how many prostrate fell;
How many only in one autumn died,
By doctors, and their slip-slops ill applied.
I shall content myself, therefore, to instance some of the most illustrious, as they come into my mind, without observing any certain order.
Alexander the Great first offers himself to my imagination. It will be sufficient to mention his name, without saying any more. Nomen non amplius addam.
Cæsar, to make use of Balzac’s words, was not always the sober destroyer of the commonwealth, and he did not at all times hate the pleasure of drinking.
Cambyses was also very much given to wine, as may be judged by what I am going to say. This prince, having been told by one of his courtiers, That the people took notice he got drunk too often, taking, some time after, his bow and arrow, shot the son of that courtier through the heart, saying no more than this to the father, Is this the act of a drunkard?