You will undo me with your questions . .
(as the excellent Agatho says)—
. . . . and your new fashion,
Always talking at an unseasonable time.
But since it is decided that we are to be responsible to you for every word, Antiphanes, in his Lydian, has said—
A Colchian man drunken and quarrelsome (πάροινος).
But you are not yet satisfied about your πάροινοι, and drunkards; nor do you consider that Eumenes the king of Pergamus, the nephew of Philetærus, who had formerly been king of Pergamus, died of drunkenness, as Ctesicles relates, in the third book of his Times. But, however, Perseus, whose power was put down by the Romans, did not die in that way; for he did not imitate his father Philip in anything; for he was not eager about women, nor was he fond of wine; but when at a feast he was not only moderate himself, but all his friends who were with him were so too, as Polybius relates, in his twenty-sixth book. But you, O Ulpian, are a most immoderate drinker yourself (ἀῤῥυθμοπότης), as Timon the Phliasian calls it. For so he called those men who drink a great quantity of unmixed wine, in the second book of his Silli—
Or that great ox-goad, harder than Lycurgus's,
Who smote the ἀῤῥυθμόποται of Bacchus,
And threw their cups and brimming ladles down.
For I do not call you simply ποτικὸς, or fond of drinking; and this last is a word which Alcæus has used, in his Ganymede. And that a habit of getting drunk deceives our eyesight, Anacharsis has shown plainly enough, in what he says where he shows that mistaken opinions are taken up by drunken men. For a fellow-drinker of his once, seeing his wife at a banquet, said, "O Anacharsis, you have married an ugly woman." And he replied, "Indeed I think so too, but however now, give me, O boy, a cup of stronger wine, that I may make her out beautiful."
65. After this Ulpian, pledging one of his companions, said,—But, my dear friend, according to Antiphanes, who says, in his Countryman—
A. Shut now your eyes, and drink it all at once.
B. 'Tis a great undertaking.
A. Not for one
Who has experience in mighty draughts.