It is here that Plato invokes the aid of wine-drinking and intoxication. The stimulus of wine, drunk by the old men at the Dionysiac banquets, will revive in them a temporary fit of something like juvenile activity, and will supply an antidote to inconvenient diffidence.[77] Under such partial excitement, they will stand forward freely to discharge their parts in the choric exhibitions; which, as performed by them, will be always in full conformity with the canon of musical rectitude, and will prevent it from becoming corrupted or relaxed by the younger choristers. To ensure however that the excitement shall not overpass due limits, Plato prescribes that the president of the banquet shall be a grave person drinking no wine at all. The commendation or reproof of such a president will sustain the reason and self-command of the guests, at the pitch compatible with full execution of their choric duty.[78] Plato interdicts wine altogether to youths, until 18 years of age — allows it only in small quantities until the age of 40 — but permits and even encourages elders above 40 to partake of the full inspiration of the Dionysiac banquets.[79]
[77] Plato, Legg. ii. p. 666 B-C. ἐπίκουρον τῆς τοῦ γήρως αὐστηρότητος ἐδωρήσατο (Διόνυσος) τὸν οἶνον, φάρμακον, ὥστε ἀνηβᾷν ἡμᾶς … πρῶτον μὲν δὴ διατεθεὶς οὕτως ἕκαστος ἆρ’ οὐκ ἂν ἔθελοι προθυμότερόν γε, ἧττον αἰσχυνόμενος … ᾄδειν.
[78] Plato, Legg. ii. p. 671.
[79] Plato, Legg. ii. p. 666 A.
Peculiar views of Plato about intoxication.
This manner of regarding intoxication must probably have occurred to Plato at a time later than the composition of the Republic, wherein we find it differently handled.[80] It deserves attention as an illustration, both of his boldness in following out his own ethical views, in spite of the consciousness[81] that they would appear strange to others — and of the prominent function which he assigns to old men in this dialogue De Legibus. He condemns intoxication decidedly, when considered simply as a mode of enjoyment, and left to the taste of the company without any president or regulation. But with most moralists such condemnation is an unreflecting and undistinguishing sentiment. Against this Plato enters his protest. He considers that intoxication, if properly regulated, may be made conducive to valuable ends, ethical and social. Without it the old men cannot be wound up to the pitch of choric activity; without such activity, constant and unfaltering, the rectitude of the choric system has no adequate security against corruption: without such security, the emotional training of the citizens generally will degenerate. Farthermore, Plato takes occasion from drunkenness to lay down a general doctrine respecting pleasures. Men must be trained to self-command against pleasures, as they are against pains, not by keeping out of the way of temptation, but by regulated exposure to temptations, with motives at hand to help them in the task of resistance. Both these views are original and suggestive, like so many others in the Platonic writings: tending to rescue Ethics from that tissue of rhetorical and emotional commonplace in which it so frequently appears; — and to keep present before those who handle it, those ideas of an end to be attained, and of discrimination as to means — which are essential to its pretensions as a science.
[80] In the Republic (iii. p. 398 E) Plato pronounced intoxication (μέθη) to be most unbecoming for his Guardians. He places it in the same class of defects as indolence and effeminacy. He also repudiates those varieties of musical harmony called Ionic and Lydian, because they were languid, effeminate, symposiac, or suitable for a drinking society (μαλακαί τε καὶ συμποτικαί, χαλαραί). Various musical critics of the day (τῶν περὶ τὴν μουσικήν τινες — we learn this curious fact from Aristotle, Polit. viii. 7, near the end) impugned this opinion of Plato. They affirmed that drunkenness was exciting and stimulating, — not relaxing nor favourable to languor and heaviness: that the effeminate musical modes were not congenial to drunkenness. When we read the Treatise De Legibus, we observe that Plato altered his opinion respecting μέθη, and had come round to agree with these musical critics. He treats μέθη as exciting and stimulating, not relaxing and indolent; he even applies it as a positive stimulus to wind up the Elders. Moreover, instead of repudiating it absolutely, he defends its usefulness under proper regulations. Perhaps the change of his opinion may have been partly owing to these very criticisms.
[81] Plato, Legg. ii. p. 665 B. Old Philokleon, in the Vespæ of Aristophanes (1320 seq.), under the influence of wine and jovial excitement, is a pregnant subject for comic humour.
General ethical doctrine held by Plato in Leges.
But the general ethical discussion — which Plato tells us[82] that he introduces to establish premisses for his enactment respecting drunkenness — is of greater importance than the enactment itself. He prescribes imperatively the doctrine and matter which alone is to be tolerated in his choric hymns or heard in his city. I have given an abstract ([p. 292-297]) of the doctrine here laid down and the reasonings connected therewith, because they admit of being placed in instructive comparison with his manner of treating the same subject in other dialogues.