THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE 103 



them when it was nearing its completion. The earliest 

 beginnings of the alcoholic evolution of North 

 Europeans are also hidden from us. We do not 

 know when they first manufactured alcohol, but 

 it must have been thousands of years later than 

 the Greeks and Italians. It is probable that, when 

 the former were still in their stone age, the latter 

 were highly civilised, and were building theatres 

 and temples before the barbarians had learned to 

 make pots and jars — that is, before they had the 

 very utensils in which to manufacture alcohol. 

 Brewing requires considerable skill ; the manu- 

 facture of alcohol of intoxicating strength from 

 grapes and other saccharine fruits requires very 

 little. Even after the Northern barbarians dis- 

 covered alcohol, the supply of it must have been 

 very scanty, and its habitual use restricted in great 

 measure to the chief men. They drank mead and 

 ale, which they brewed from honey and grain, 

 articles of food, and food is generally scanty and 

 precarious amongst savages dwelling in cold and 

 temperate climates. At the dawn of history, there- 

 fore, the North Europeans, for several reasons, had 

 undergone far less alcoholic evolution than the 

 Southerners. 



Long before the barbarians conquered Rome 

 they were noted, even in the Rome of that day, 

 for their intemperate habits. As Tacitus put it. 



