300 THE EVOLUTION AGAINST NARCOTICS 



are addressed to races which are now so temperate as not to need 

 exhortation. The oldest known Egyptian papyrus, which comes 

 to us from an antiquity of 7000 years, contains such an injunction, 

 which is repeated in many later writings. " The moralists reprove 

 these excesses, and cannot find words strong enough to express 

 the danger of them. Wine first loosens the tongue, even wresting 

 from him dangerous words, and afterwards it prostrates him, so 

 that he is no longer capable of defending his own interests. Do 

 not, therefore, forget thyself in the breweries ; be afraid that words 

 may come back to thee that thou hast uttered, without knowing 

 that thou hast spoken. When at last thou fallest, thy limbs failing 

 thee, no one will help thee, thy boon companions will leave thee, 

 saying, * Beware of him, he is a drunkard.' Then when thou art 

 wanted for business thou art found prone on the earth like a little 

 child." 1 " Young men especially should avoid this shameful vice, 

 for beer destroys their souls. He that abandons himself to drink 

 is like an oar broken from its fastening, which no longer obeys on 

 either side ; he is like a chapel without its god, like a house with- 

 out bread, in which the wall is wavering and the beam shaking. 

 The people he meets in the street turn away from him, for he 

 throws mud and hoots after them till the police interfere and carry 

 him away to regain his senses in prison." 2 



498. The fact that the Spartans made drunken their helots that 

 they might serve as " awful examples " to the aristocratic youth 

 is clear evidence of the danger and probably the prevalence of 

 drunkenness amongst the latter. Lycurgus amputated the legs of 

 drunkards and destroyed the vines. Solon condemned an Archon 

 to death for being drunk. The Senate of Areopagus punished 

 men for too prolonged drinking. Pittacus of Mytelene inflicted 

 double punishments for offences committed in drink. It is 

 related that thirty-six competitors perished in one of Alexander's 

 drinking matches. The festivals in honour of Dionysus " became 

 more and more dissolute both in Greece and Rome until they 

 degenerated into saturnalia of the most disgraceful character." 3 

 Drunkenness is a constant theme of Homer and Aristophanes. 



499. Apparently alcohol was not abundant in Italy when 

 Rome was founded, for " Numa, the successor of Romulus . . . 

 directed, from the great scarcity of wine that prevailed, that no 

 man should besprinkle the funeral pile with it, and when the 



1 The Maxims ofAni, XVIII. Dynasty, about 1530-1330 B.C. 



2 Maspero. Life in Ancient Egypt , translated by A. Morton, p. 31. 



3 Samuelson, History of Drink, pp. 75-9. 



