BOOK XIV. XXVIII. 146-148 



evcn this science has its own code of riiles — of never 

 having stammered in his speech or reUeved himself 

 by vomiting or otherwise while he was drinking, but of 

 having always turned up for duty with the morning 

 guard without anything going wrong, and of having 

 drunk thc largest quantity on record at one draught 

 and also added to the record by some more smaller 

 draughts, of not having taken breath or spat while 

 drinking (this on the best evidence), and of not 

 having left any heel-taps to make a splash in the paved 

 floor — under the elaborate code of rules to prevent 

 cheating in drinking. Tergilla brings it up against 

 Marcus Cicero that his son Cicero was in the habit 

 of tossing ofF a gallon and a half at one draught, 

 and that when tipsy he threw a goblet at Marcus 

 Agrippa : these in fact are the usual results of intoxi- 

 cation. But no doubt young Cicero wanted to deprive 

 his father's murderer, Mark Antony, of his fame in 

 this department; for Antony had strained evcry 

 effort to win the championship in this field before 

 him, by actually publishing a book on the subject of 

 his own drunken habits ; and by venturing to cham- 

 pion his claims in this volume, to my mind he clearly 

 proves the magnitude of the evils that he had inflicted 

 on the world through his tippHng. It was shortly 

 before the battle of Actium that he vomited up this 

 vohime, so proving clearly that he was already drunk 

 Mith the blood of his compatriots, and that that made 

 him only the more thirsty for it. For in fact the 

 inevitable result of this vice is that the habit of 

 drinking increases the appetite for it, and it was a 

 shrewd observation of the Scythian ambassador that 

 the more the Parthians drank the thirstier they 

 became. 



283 



