33. But those men do not act wisely who represent and describe Bacchus in their statues or pictures, and who also lead him through the middle of the market-place on a waggon, as if he were drunk; for, by so doing, they show the beholders that wine is stronger than the god. And I do not think that even a good and wise man could stand this. And if they have represented him in this state because he first showed us the use of wine, it is plain that for the same reason they should always represent Ceres as reaping corn or eating bread. And I should say that Æschylus himself erred in this particular; for he was the first person (and not Euripides, as some people say,) who introduced the appearance of drunken people into a tragedy. For in his Cabiri he introduces Jason drunk. But the fact is, that the practices which the tragedian himself used to indulge in, he attributed to his heroes: at all events he used to write his tragedies when he was drunk; on which account Sophocles used to reproach him, and say to him, "O Æschylus,[46] even if you do what you ought, at all events you do so without knowing it;" as Chamæleon tells us, in his treatise on Æschylus. And they are ignorant people who say that Epicharmus was the first person who introduced a drunken man on the stage, and after him Crates, in his Neighbours. And Alcæus the lyric poet, and Aristophanes the comic poet, used to write their poems when they were drunk. And many other men have fought with great gallantry in war when they were drunk. But among the Epizephyrian Locrians, if any one drank untempered wine, except by the express command of his physician for the sake of his health, he was liable to be punished with death, in accordance with a law to that effect passed by Zaleucus.
And among the people of Massilia there was a law that the women should drink water only. And Theophrastus says, that to this day that is the law at Miletus. And among the Romans no slave ever drank wine, nor any free woman, nor any youth born of free parents till he was thirty years of age. And Anacreon is very ridiculous for having referred all his poems to the subject of drunkenness; for, owing to this, he is found fault with as having in his poems wholly abandoned himself to effeminacy and luxury, as the multitude are not aware that while he wrote he was a sober and virtuous man, who pretended to be a drunkard, when there was no necessity at all for his doing so.
34. And men who are ignorant of the power of wine, say that Bacchus is the cause of madness to men; in saying which they abuse wine in a very senseless manner. On which account Melanippides says—
All men have detested water
Who did not before have wine;
And though some have enjoy'd their cups,
Others have turn'd to ravings wild.
And Aristotle, in his treatise on Drinking, says, "If the wine be moderately boiled, then when it is drunk, it is less apt to intoxicate; for, as some of its power has been boiled away, it has become weaker." And he also says, "Old men become drunk more quickly on account of the small quantity of natural warmth which there is in them, and also of the weak-genius get drunk very quickly, on account of the great quantity of natural warmth that there is in them; for, in consequence, they are easily subdued by the warmth proceeding from the wine which is added to their natural warmth. And some of the brute beasts are also capable of becoming intoxicated; such as pigs when they are filled with the husks of pressed grapes; and the whole race of crows, and of dogs, when they have eaten of the herb called œnussa: and the monkey and the elephant get intoxicated if they drink wine; on which account they hunt monkeys and crows when the former have been made drunk with wine, and the latter with œnussa.
But to drink unceasingly—
as Crobylus says, in his Woman who deserted her Husband—
Can have
No pleasure in it, surely; how should it,
When it deprives a living man of power
To think as he should think? and yet is thought
The greatest blessing that is given to man.
And Alexis, in the revised edition of his Phrygian, says—
If now men only did their headaches get
Before they get so drunk, I'm sure that no one
Would ever drink more than a moderate quantity:
But now we hope t' escape the penalty
Of our intemperance, and so discard
Restraint, and drink unmixed cups of wine.