Wine can bring e'en the wise to acts of folly.
And Phocylides says—
It should be a rule for all wine-bibbing people
Not to let the jug limp round the board like a cripple,
But gaily to chat while enjoying their tipple:
and to this day this custom prevails among some of the Greeks. But since they have begun to be luxurious and have got effeminate they have given up their chairs and taken to couches; and having taken indolence and laziness for their allies, they have indulged in drinking in an immoderate and disorderly manner; the very way in which the tables were laid contributing, as I imagine, to luxury.
32. And it is on this account that Hesiod, in his Eoæ, has said—
What joys and also what exceeding pains
Has Bacchus given to mortal men who drink,
Indulging in excess: for to such men
Wine is an insolent master, binding fast
Their feet and hands, their tongues and intellects,
With chains unspeakable, unnoticeable;
And tender sleep loves on their eyes to fall.
And Theognis says—
I come like wine, the sweetest drink of men,—
I am not sober, nor yet very drunk;
But he who goes to great excess in drink
Is no more master of his mind or senses;
Then he talks unintelligible nonsense.
Which seems to sober men a shameful thing;
But he, when drunk, is not ashamed of anything,
E'en though at other times a modest man
And gentle-minded. Mind you this, my friend,
And don't indulge in drinking to excess,
But rise from table ere the wine begins
To take effect; nor let your appetite
Reduce you to become its daily slave.
But Anacharsis the philosopher, wishing to exhibit the power of the vine to the king of the Scythians, and showing him some of its branches, said that if the Greeks did not prune it every year it would by this time have reached to Scythia.
DRINKING.