2 3 6 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



find that, in their golden age at least, alcohol was used and not 

 abused. 



Their strongest drink, we must remember, was natural, unfor- 

 tified wine, containing no more alcohol than our present clarets 



SLEEPING DIONYSOS. (From Greek bas-relief in the Campana Collection.) 



and hocks. And yet they never drank it pure ; they always 

 added water to it, or rather, added it to water. Some of their 

 wines, the Pramnian and Maronian, for instance, were of such 

 strong flavor as to be mixed in the proportion of one to fifteen 

 or one to twenty parts of water. The average dilution was one 

 to five, or one to four. When the young bloods of Athens had a 

 supper party they would elect a " master of the feast," who sat, 

 crowned with flowers, at the head of the table, and set the pace 

 for the festivities. A very festive youth would sometimes at 

 these occasions order the wine one to three, or even two to three. 

 To drink wine unmixed well, that was iTTLo-KvOio-ai, to act like a 

 Scythian, to be a beast and a barbarian. 



It is not to be supposed from this that drunkenness was un- 

 known, but in the golden age of Greece it was both uncommon 

 and despised. Drinking with them was different from drinking 

 among other nations ; they drank for exhilaration, not for intoxi- 

 cation. This can be recognized at once from the character and 

 position of Dionysos, their god of drink, corresponding to the 

 Roman Bacchus. No drunken debauchee was he. His statues 

 represent him as a laughing, innocent child, as a beautiful, grace- 

 ful youth, as a finely developed adult, and even as a gentle, re- 

 fined, full-bearded man, the patron of literature and the drama. 



