THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE loi 



in drink. Nowadays the Greek drinker is not held responsible, 

 and the vice of drunkenness is at present very rare in Greece. 

 ... If the wine was not so strong as some of our modern drinks, 

 the ancients made up for that in quantity. It was considered 

 something of an honour to be able to imbibe largely, without 

 injury. Wagers and contests were indulged in, and prizes were 

 given to the competitors who could drink most. At one match, 

 Alexander the Great gave a talent as the first prize to one 

 Promachus, who at one of these matches was declared the 

 winner after drinking four congii (eight quarts) of unmixed 

 wine. The results of the contests were disastrous. Thirty of 

 the competitors died on the spot, and six succumbed in their 

 tents shortly afterwards (' Athenaeus,' bk. x. chap. lo). It is said 

 also that Alexander the Great, headstrong and contemptuous of 

 the advice of his physicians, a victim of ague, is the most dread- 

 ful example in history of the fatal results of the sudden results of 

 the distention of the stomach by large draughts of strong drinks. 

 Alexander dropped dead in Babylon at the early age of thirty-two 

 (b.c. 323); while engaged in a drinking bout with his 'drouthy' 

 but better-seasoned friend Proteus ('Athenaeus,' bk. x. chap. 9). 

 If the great ones of the ancient world were so honoured for 

 their prowess in drinking, the imagination can well supply the 

 features of the habits and aspirations of the lower classes."' 



In the pages of Petronius, Pliny, Gibbon, and 

 other authors we may learn that ancient Italy 

 sinned as much against temperance as ancient 

 Greece. Of the alcoholic history of the ancient 

 Spaniards and Portuguese — to-day as temperate 

 as the Greeks and Italians — the writer has been 

 able to gather little. There is, however, this 

 interesting and significant fact. The Teutons of 



' " Inebriety among the Ancients," pp. 19, 20, W. L. Brown, 

 Medical Magazine Company. 



