522 PEOSB HALIEUTICS. 



sex cyathis, septem Justina Mbatur) ; so that if a lover 

 chanced to have a betrothed with a very long onomasia, 

 as some had, he could scarcely escape intoxication : — 



One pint, perhaps, lie might have ta'en, 



Nor been much out of sorts ; 



The rock, in geologic phrase. 



He split upon was — quartz ! — Hood. 



When the taste for deep drinking had become still 

 more confirmed^ men found not 'seven' onlyj but seventy, 

 good reasons why their license should not be taken away: 

 the casual mention of a friend's name at table (and this 

 became one way of never forgetting one's friends) al- 

 ways led to a cup ; and when the name of a god, god- 

 dess, or the king* turned up, the same ceremonial was 

 repeated: the three Graces were still drank, but the 

 niue Muses were no longer forgotten ; and when once 

 the wine-measure had been thus squared, the rate of in- 

 crement became geometric; it was speedily cubed, and 

 then carried on to the «*' / 



The Tapyri used wine endermically, rubbing Bacchus 

 into their system as we rub iu Mercury jf and the Scy- 

 thians, who never kept sober tiU the second course, used 

 to saturate their garments after soaking their insides, 

 and then roU and revel in the fumes like cats in a cup- 

 board of valerian ; ' synagogues' in Menander's day 

 meant ' tippling' clubs ; and Rome in the time of the 

 Caesars was the wine-shop of the world. Accounts are 

 on record of Greek, Roman, and Barbarian drinking 

 matches (all equally barbarian) which might pass belief 

 were there any known limits to human vileness, con- 



* Two cyathi, to the health of the king, is a toast recorded by 

 Antiphanes. The cyathus was a ladle for taking wine or liquid 

 from a bowl ; it- was of as uncertain dimensions as our modem 

 wine-glass, which is the medical cyathus, and a fair equivalent. 



■(■ XpiV/ioTa eVrlv avTots 6 olvos &(mfp SKkois to eKmov. 



