ANCIENT INTEMPERANCE 299 



and uninterruptedly accessible in the vine-producing countries of 

 the South of Europe and the forest region of West Africa. There 

 is evidence that it was manufactured from wild fruits such as the 

 raspberry and mulberry by the lake-dwellers of Switzerland and 

 the South of France during the Stone Age. We do not know when 

 the vine was first cultivated for alcohol, but the fact that at the 

 dawn of myth and fable grape-wine was in use all round the 

 Mediterranean, argues an immense antiquity. Probably palm-wine 

 has been used in West Africa and elsewhere for almost as long. 

 Both the vine and the palm enable men to manufacture abundance 

 of alcohol without trenching on their food-supplies. Just as we 

 are able to gather little from history about the endemic diseases 

 of antiquity, so we are able to learn little about its endemic 

 drunkenness. Usually the earliest references relate to the in- 

 toxication of some prominent person on some memorable occasion, 

 and then the reference is made, not because the person was 

 intoxicated, but because the occasion was memorable. Thus Noah 

 is represented as drunk when Ham discovered his nakedness, as 

 was Lot when he became the ancestor of the Moabites and the 

 children of Ammon. So also the suitors of Penelope were 

 inflamed with wine when Ulysses slew them, and we are told that 

 Alexander died of a surfeit of drink. Clearer evidence is to be 

 gleaned from laws and injunctions against excessive drinking, 

 such as are common in the Old Testament, 1 and of which many 

 1 For example, " Who hath woe ? Who hath sorrow ? Who hath contentions ? 

 Who hath babblings ? Who hath wounds without cause ? Who hath redness of 

 eyes ? They that tarry long at the wine. They that go to seek mixed wine. 

 Look not upon the cup when it is red, when it giveth colour to the cup, when it 

 moveth itself aright. At last, it biteth like a serpent, it stingeth like an adder " 

 (Prov. xxiii. 29-32). " Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that 

 puttest the bottle to him, and makest him drunken also." " Blessed art thou, 

 O land, when thy king is the son of nobles, and thy princes eat in due season, for 

 strength, and not for drunkenness " (Eccles. x. 17). " Woe unto them that rise up 

 early in the morning that they may follow strong drink, that continue until night 

 till wine inflame them " (Isa. v. 1 1). " Woe to the crown of pride to the drunkards 

 of Ephraim ... that are overcome with wine " (Isa. xxviii. i). " But they also 

 have error through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way ; the priest 

 and the prophet have erred through strong drink, and they are swallowed up of 

 wine, and they are out of the way through strong drink : they err in vain, they 

 stumble in judgment. For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there 

 is no place clean " (Isa. xxviii. 7-8). Jews have still a feast, that of Purim, when 

 intemperance is not only permissible to them, but is absolutely encouraged- 

 Modern Jews show no disposition to avail themselves of the permission ; but 

 anciently it was different. " We need only mention the Purim, or deliverance 

 of the Jews from the rage of Hainan, which, until the reign of Theodosius, was 

 celebrated with insolent triumph and riotous intemperance " (Gibbon, The Decline 

 and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. ii. p. 85, ed. Grant Richards, 1903). 



