THE DRINKING CUSTOMS OF ANCIENT GREECE AND ROME.
Thus far we have considered, although superficially, the habits of
those primitive races whose origin is lost in the obscurity of myths
and legends; but we have been able to gather, even from the imperfect
records that have been handed down to us, certain trustworthy information
relating to the subject.
We have ascertained that it is impossible to retrace the history of any
of the nations of antiquity to a period when strong drink was unknown
and intoxication was not practised. We know beyond a doubt that various
productions of the soil, the palm tree, the hemp plant, several shrubs,
herbs, and fruits, especially the grape, and also certain cereals, were
employed from the earliest times in the preparation of intoxicating
beverages. We know, too, that it was considered quite legitimate for
all classes, with very few exceptions, to drink these beverages in
moderation, and that amongst the early races of mankind some of them
were deemed worthy of being offered to their gods, and were supposed to
be acceptable to them. Neither can it be doubted that from the beginning
of the world, so far at least as our records of its history extend,
intemperance existed, and that it was a concomitant of most of the vices
and crimes which it impels men to commit even in our day.
But the imperfection of those records which we have consulted has
prevented us from travelling over the whole life-history of a nation as
we shall be able to do hereafter, for as we follow the migrations of the
great Aryan family from East to West, from Asia into Europe, travelling
downwards on the stream of history, we shall obtain a clearer insight
into the social customs of the time, and be better able to judge of their
relations with its political history. The great empires of Greece and
Rome constitute a connecting link between the ancient and modern world,
and we shall find it profitable to study the history of drink in those
countries, not only on account of its intrinsic interest, but because of
the lessons which it conveys in regard to the present and probable future
of our race.
In Greece the origin of wine and wine-bibbing belongs to the mythical
age. The discovery of wine was attributed to Dionysus, better known to
modern readers as Bacchus, the son of Jupiter and Semele, the daughter
of Cadmus of Thebes.[144] He is said to have travelled in Egypt, Syria,
and parts of Asia, and there to have introduced the manufacture of wine
along with the other arts of civilisation, and on his return to Greece
he was at length acknowledged as a deity through the miracles which he
is said to have performed. After his death he was worshipped as the god
of wine, and the festivals in his honour became more and more riotous
and dissolute, both in Greece and Rome, until they degenerated into
saturnalia of the most disgraceful character. In the latter city they
were entirely suppressed by a consular edict B.C. 186 and a more innocent
festival was substituted. This celebration known as the Liberalia was
held annually on the 16th March, and was made the occasion of investing
all the Roman youths who had attained their sixteenth year with the _toga
virilis_ or vestment of manhood.[145]
We shall have occasion hereafter to refer to the ancient god of wine, but
for the present we must leave him for the purpose of considering another
narrative of the heroic age. Homer, who is variously placed in the
world’s history between 1184 and 684 B.C., also carries us back into the
realm of fiction, and in his pages we find mention made on more than one
occasion of wine and its injurious effects upon those who partook of it
to excess. He tells us, for example, that when Ulysses and his companions
came to the land of the fabled Cyclops, they found it rich in natural
productions which required no human aid to cultivate them. “Trusting to
the gods,” the natives neither plant a plant with their hands nor plough,
but all things unsown, untilled, spring up, wheat, and barley, and vines,
which bear wine from large clusters, and the shower from Jove nourishes
them.[146] In this paradise Ulysses and his companions disembarked, and
finding goats, they killed them and prepared a banquet. They are then
described as feasting on flesh and sweet wine during the whole day until
the setting sun, “for the ruby wine was not yet expended from the ships,
but was in them,” says the chronicler, “for each of us had drawn much
wine in kegs when we captured the sacred citadel of the Ciconians.” After
thus indulging, Ulysses and his companions had the misfortune to fall
into the hands of the Cyclops Polyphemus, who confined them in a cave and
devoured six of them. The monster was, however, unacquainted with the
intoxicating effects of the juice of the grape, and Ulysses succeeded in
making him drunk “with an ivy-wreathed cup of black wine,” and by that
means he effected his escape with his remaining companions.
Thus it would appear that the manufacture of wine from the grape and
its transport from place to place in barrels must have been common in
the days of Homer; and that its intoxicating effects were well known is
obvious, not only from the foregoing extracts, but from various other
portions of the “Odyssey.” Thus, Antinous says to Ulysses, “Sweet wine
hurts thee, which harms others also, whoever takes it too abundantly nor
drinks properly. Wine also inspired the illustrious Centaur Eurytion in
the palace of the magnanimous Pirithous when he came to the Lapithæ, but
he, when he had injured his mind with wine, in madness did wicked deeds
in the house of Pirithous.”[147]
The information which we have thus derived from the ancient poets is
confirmed by the results of modern archæologists. Many of our readers
have no doubt inspected the interesting relics of ancient Troy which
have been brought home by Dr. Schliemann, and are now deposited in South
Kensington Museum. They consist, amongst other articles, of drinking
vessels of various shapes and materials, cast and wrought gold, silver
and earthenware, and of every size, form, and colour. Their precise age
has been disputed, but it is quite unnecessary for our purpose to enter
minutely into this question. The race which used them were evidently
highly convivial in their habits; and in the matter of drinking, at
least, they would seem to have been the originators of many of the
customs of civilised society.
Crossing over once more from Troy into Greece, we find that, at a later
period of its history, the dangers which threatened the nation from
drunkenness became so apparent that in some of the states stringent
measures were taken to enforce abstinence.
The Lacedæmonians were at one time total abstainers,[148] and some
writers go so far as to say that they compelled their helots or slaves to
intoxicate themselves, and to dance indecent dances, and that whilst they
were in that condition they brought their youth to look at them, so that
they might be repelled by the sight, and eschew similar practices.[149]
Be that as it may, temperance and simplicity of life did not long hold
sway in Greece, and all its states, including Sparta, succumbed to habits
of luxury.[150] Of this we have ample proof in the works of the Greek
comedy writers. One of them, Panyasis, a relation of Herodotus, who lived
about 480 B.C., sings in praise of wine as follows:—
“Good wine’s the gift which God has given
To man alone beneath the heaven,
Of dance and song the genial sire,
Of friendship gay, and soft desire;
Yet rule it with a tightened rein,
Nor moderate wisdom’s rules disdain;
For when unchecked there’s nought runs faster—
A useful slave, but cruel master.”
Of immoderate drinking the same writer says, “For insolence and ruin
follow it;” and in that view he was supported by many other writers of
his day. Eubulus, for example, who flourished about a century later,
has left some verses which are applicable to other nations and to times
different from that in which he lived and sang. He puts the following
verses upon the lips of Bacchus:—
“Let them three parts of wine all duly season
With nine of water who’d preserve their reason.
The first gives health, the second sweet desires,
The third tranquillity and sleep inspires.
These are the wholesome draughts which wise men please,
Who from the banquet-house return in peace.
From a fourth measure insolence proceeds;
Uproar a fifth; a sixth wild license breeds;
A seventh brings black eyes and livid bruises;
The eighth the constable introduces;
Black gall and hatred lurk the ninth beneath;
The tenth is madness, arms, and fearful death.
For too much wine poured in one little vessel
Trips up all those who seek with it to wrestle.”[151]
Another quotation illustrative of the habits of the times must suffice.
Epicharmus, a Greek by birth, who lived in Sicily even at an earlier
period than either of the preceding, and of whose writings we have many
remains, has left a few lines on the subject of drunkenness which
supplement the above account of its ill effects, and which, alas! apply
to the nineteenth century of our Christian era equally with the period at
which Epicharmus flourished, namely, about 540 B.C.:—
“Then the drinking riot breeds;
Then on riot and confusion
Follow law and prosecution;
Law brings sentence, sentence chains;
Chains bring wounds and ulcerous pains.”[152]
But it is unnecessary that we should follow the history of the drinking
habits of Greece any further, for we find the same excesses to have
prevailed there as we meet with in the relations on the same subject in
Rome, and to that empire, therefore, we must now direct our attention.
* * * * *
The earliest mention made anywhere of wine in Italy is probably that
found in the writings of Varro, the historian, who says that Mezentius,
king of Etruria (contemporary with Æneas of Troy), succoured the Rutuli
against the Latini on condition that he should receive as compensation
all the wine that was in Latium. But although many other writers have
left us information on the subject, it is to Pliny the Elder that we owe
most of the interesting particulars concerning drink and drinking customs
in Rome.[153] From his pages we learn that wine was well known to the
people of that city from its very foundation[154] (about 650 B.C.); for
an anecdote is related that the wife of Egnatius Mecenius was slain by
her husband with a stick because she had drunk wine from a vat (women
being at that time forbidden to drink wine in Rome), and that he was
absolved from the murder by Romulus. The interdiction of wine to women
was in force at a much later period; for Fabius Pictor,[155] in his book
of “Annals,” states that a certain lady, for having opened a purse in
which the keys of the wine-cellar were kept, was starved to death by
her family; and Cato tells us that it was the usage of the men to give
their female relatives a kiss in order to ascertain whether they smelt of
_temetum_, for it was by that name that wine was known; “whence,” says
Pliny, “our word _temulentia_, signifying drunkenness.” Another case is
quoted, which shows that wine was subsequently allowed to women as a
medicine or a tonic. Cn. Domitius, a judge, gave it as his opinion that a
certain woman appeared to him to have drunk more wine than was requisite
for her health, and without her husband’s knowledge, for which reason
he condemned her to lose her dowry. Later on, however, men and women
caroused together freely.
But we must return to the earliest period of Roman history. Wine appears
then to have been very scarce, for King Numa promulgated a decree known
as the Posthumian law, which contained the injunction, “Sprinkle not
the funeral pyre with wine;” and the same edict forbade the employment
of wine as a libation to the gods which was the product of an unpruned
vine. For it appears that the vines were attached to high trees, which
the husbandman was obliged to climb in order to prune them, and as many
accidents, sometimes fatal ones, resulted from this custom, vines were
neglected, and their produce diminished in consequence. But there are
many other proofs of the scarcity of wine in the earlier days of Rome.
Thus L. Papirius, a general, who on one occasion commanded against the
Samnites, when about to engage, vowed an offering to Jupiter of a small
cup of wine if he should gain the victory; and for a considerable time
milk is often mentioned amongst offerings to the gods, but never wine.
Even at that early period, therefore, we know that, however scarce
intoxicating liquor may have been, it was already employed in a variety
of ways. That it was used in religious ceremonies; as a medicine; as an
article of diet, openly by men and secretly by women; and, if we were to
follow closely the course of Roman history, we should find that for those
purposes, and as a luxury, its consumption must have been always on the
increase. Our space will not, however, allow us to do more than refer to
a few illustrative cases, extracted from the pages of Pliny and other
Roman writers, in order to show how drinking increased, and the extent to
which it prevailed at a later period. We have seen that on one occasion
a Roman general offered as a rare gift to the gods a small cup of wine.
That was about the beginning of the fourth century B.C. (333-272). About
a hundred years later, Cato, another Roman general, who did his utmost to
discountenance the growing luxury of his time, whilst on an expedition to
Spain from which he afterwards returned in triumph, would drink no other
wine than such as was served out to his rowers, “very different indeed,”
says the historian, “to the conduct of those who are in the habit of
giving to their guests even inferior wine to that which they drink
themselves, or else contrive to substitute inferior in the course of
their repast.”[156] Still another century later, M. Varro, the historian
(born 116 B.C.), makes the following statement concerning the wines which
were held in high esteem in his day:—“L. Lucullus, when a boy, never saw
an entertainment at his father’s house, however sumptuous it might be,
at which Greek wine was handed round more than once during the repast,
whereas he himself, when he returned from Asia, distributed as a largess
among the people more than a hundred thousand congiaria[157] of the same
wine. C. Sentius, the prætor, used to say that Chian wine never entered
his house unless his physician prescribed it to him for the cardiac
disease; but, on the other hand, Hortensius (50 B.C.) left 10,000 casks
of it to his heir.” About the same period, Pliny tells us[158] that Cæsar
at a banquet given during his third consulship (B.C. 46), gave Falernian,
Chian, Lesbian, and Mamertine wines; “indeed, it is generally agreed that
this was the first occasion on which four different kinds of wine were
served at table. It was after this that all the other sorts came into
such very high repute, somewhere about the year of the city 700.” And
speaking of his own time (A.D. 23-79), he tells us that the luxurious
ways of his countrymen were fully matured. “Wealth, and not merit, had
become the passport to the highest offices, the motives and hopes of
all, therefore, tending to the one great object, the acquisition of
wealth.... We may therefore conclude, by Hercules, that pleasure has now
begun to live, and that life, so called, has ceased to be.”[159] What
would Pliny have said, had he lived in our time?
To the state of Roman society in Pliny’s day we shall return presently,
but although this is not a technical treatise on intoxicating liquors,
it is probable that some of our readers might desire to know something
of the character of the wines to which reference has been made in the
preceding observations, and we will therefore describe as concisely as
circumstances admit the method of their manufacture, and will add one or
two matters of interest bearing upon their use.
The manufacture of wine in Italy and Greece had been brought to great
perfection about the commencement of the Christian era, and from that
time to the fall of the Roman Empire its quality and varieties occupied
the attention of some of the most learned critics and historians. Three
distinct descriptions or qualities of wine were usually pressed from the
same grapes. The first may be compared to “virgin honey,” for it was
merely the juice or “must” which flowed from the fruit through the simple
pressure of the mass of grapes when they were put into the wine-press.
It was called _protrupum_, and was reserved for the manufacture of
a peculiarly fine description of wine. The second quality, _mustum
lixivium_, was the product of the first pressure; and after the grapes
had been completely pressed, the solid mass was taken out and once more
submitted to the same operation. The liquor from the second pressing
was known as _mustum tortivum_, and was used for the manufacture of
inferior wines, or for mixing with the better qualities. The “must” or
sweet juice was transferred to “_dolia_,” long bell-mouthed earthenware
vases, partially sunk in the earth, in an apartment on the ground floor
called the _cella vinaria_, and in these vessels the fermentation took
place, usually lasting nine days. After this, the upper part of the
inside of the _dolia_ having been previously smeared with a composition
of saffron, pitch, mastic, and fir cones, those vessels were closed with
lids, which were taken off from time to time to give air to the contents,
to remove impurities, and to add any substances which were deemed
necessary to give soundness to the wine. From the _dolia_ the finer
kinds of wine were transferred to other vessels called _amphoræ_, made
of earthenware or glass, and closed with a plug of wood or cork, which
was rendered impervious to air by being coated with clay or gypsum. These
_amphoræ_ bore the name of the wine they held, just as do our bottles,
and they were usually deposited in the upper floor of the house, it being
supposed that the smoke or warmth from the floors below, in passing
upwards, improved the quality of the wine. This effect was heightened by
constructing the bath furnaces below the apartments (_apothecæ_) in which
the wine was stored.[160] The commoner kinds were drawn direct from the
_dolia_, the original vessels in which fermentation had taken place; and
for the sale of wine in the streets and markets, or for its transport,
the wine-holders were usually made of the skins of animals.
The culture of the vine was a most important industry in Greece and
Italy, and the plant itself is said to have attained proportions which
are rarely if at all equalled in our day. We are told, for example, that
in the city of Populonium there was a statue formed of the trunk of a
single vine, which for ages remained proof against all decay;[161] and
again that at Metapontum the temple of Juno stood supported by pillars
formed of the same material. Pliny says that there were in his day
ninety-one varieties of vine, of which he describes several, giving many
details concerning their cultivation.[162] He mentions one hundred and
sixteen different sorts of wine, whereof fifty are called “generous;” and
he (as well as other writers of his day) speaks of the wines of Latium
in Italy, chiefly those growing near the sea, and of certain islands in
the Grecian Archipelago (Chios, Lesbos, &c.), as the most highly prized
and commended. Various substances were used to improve and give flavour
to the wines of those days, and amongst them we find named sea-water,
turpentine, resin, gypsum, almonds, parched salt, goats’ milk, cedar
cones, salts of lead, and a variety of others which would seem hardly
suited to the purpose. Many were adulterants used for doctoring inferior
wines, and severe enactments were passed to prevent such practices. We
are not, however, led to believe that artificial wines were manufactured
and adulteration practised to the same extent as in our day. A German
newspaper[163] recently gave an account of a prosecution in Berlin,
in which it was stated that one large store which had been inspected
contained only artificial wines, into the manufacture of which the juice
of the grape never entered, although the names borne by the labels of the
bottles were those of well-known wines.
But to return to Rome. Drinks more or less intoxicating were made from
honey (_hydromeli_), and from a great variety of fruits, shrubs, and
herbs; but our space will not allow us even to enumerate them. The views
which were entertained at that time concerning the use and abuse of
wine seem to be somewhat similar to those which are held in the present
day. Pliny, for example, describes its effects as follows:—“It causes a
feeling of warmth in the interior of the viscera, and when poured upon
the body is cool and refreshing;” and he adds, that there is nothing more
useful than wine for strengthening the body, while at the same time there
is nothing more pernicious as a luxury if we are not on our guard against
excess.[164] Some wines, we are told, had the virtue of prolonging life;
thus Livia Augusta, who lived to her eighty-second year, attributed her
longevity to the wine of Pucinum, as she never drank any other. The fact
is hardly conclusive, for we do not know how long she would have lived
if she had drunk no wine at all. The author knows an old gentleman who
has attained nearly the same age, and he never drinks anything but brown
brandy, yet he has never heard him attribute his longevity to that cause.
Wine was believed to possess distinctly medicinal properties. Pliny
says, “It acts as an antidote to cantharides and stings inflicted by
serpents,” and that “it is good for the kidneys, liver, and inner coat
of the bladder, and is an antidote for various poisons, especially
hemlock;”[165] whilst Mnesitheus, an Athenian physician, although
he admitted that people who drink a great quantity of unmixed wine
at banquets often receive great injury from so doing, recommended
“occasional hard drinking,” which appeared to him to produce “a certain
purging of the body and a certain relaxation of the mind.”[166] We have
heard opinions expressed almost as irrational as the last named, even in
our time.
The price of wine appears to have been marvellously low. It is said
to have varied from sixpence per gallon down to threepence for ten
gallons;[167] but, of course, it is difficult to form a correct estimate
in this respect without comparing its price with that of bread or some
other article of regular consumption, and ascertaining what were the
rates of remuneration in trades and handicrafts. The strongest proof of
the large consumption of wine is, however, to be found in the number and
variety of the drinking vessels which were employed in Greece and Rome.
The most common were the _calix_, a flat vase-shaped cup with one handle,
and the _rhyton_, a horn-shaped vessel. Originally the latter was the
horn of an animal, which appears to have been the first drinking vessel
of most nations, but gradually the _rhyton_ assumed various ornamental
shapes, such as the head of a bull or greyhound, either made altogether
of earthenware, or surmounted with an open receptacle of chased gold or
silver, and provided with a handle. But besides these, the names of the
drinking vessels were legion. Athenæus describes a vast number with great
minuteness.[168] Some were of precious metal, others of crystal, wood,
horn, or earthenware; some of ordinary dimensions, and others again were
enormous as, for example, the elephant:—
“’Tis a mighty cup,
Pregnant with double springs of rosy wine,
And able to contain three ample measures,
The work of Alcon. When I was at Cypseli,
Adæus pledged me in this self-same cup.”[169]
Dionysius of Sinope, we are told, published a catalogue of cups, which,
if we may judge from the space occupied by little more than the bare
mention of some of them in Athenæus, must have been pretty compendious.
But these drinking vessels had a significance beyond that which attached
either to their size, material, or variety. Whilst some were works of
art, testifying only the skill, the love of the beautiful, and the
cultivated taste of their makers and owners, many, through the indecent
scenes which were portrayed upon them, revealed an age of dissoluteness
which had probably never been surpassed nor even equalled. To descend to
an account of the debauchery practised in the ancient empires of Greece
and Rome would be impossible in this or any other work of a popular
character, but our duty would remain unfulfilled did we not attempt
to convey some idea of the state of society in that day. There were
then, as now, banquets, dinner-parties, and wine-parties (_symposia_),
some of which were conducted with moderation, and were accompanied
by rational entertainments, such as conversation amongst the guests,
musical and dramatic performances, but at others drunkenness and every
species of debauchery were openly practised, and those often terminated
in confusion, riot, and bloodshed. It would be the easiest task possible
to degrade two of the greatest nations that have ruled the earth in the
reader’s eyes by laying bare the private character and doings of some
of those whom we have been in the habit of regarding as the heroes of a
bygone age, but that would be less fair, as it certainly would be less
satisfactory, than to take even the most grossly exaggerated descriptions
of society itself as they have been handed down to us by the satirists
of the day. Many of our readers have doubtless laughed or sighed over
the pages of Aristophanes, Petronius, and Athenæus, and to them the
account of an ancient Roman or Greek feast and drinking bout will be
no novelty; but there are others whose studies and researches have led
them in a different direction, and for these a brief sketch of a Roman
entertainment of the grosser, but by no means of the grossest kind, may
prove of interest. Let it be added that, remembering the practical aim of
this work, we have considerably softened down the farcical or exaggerated
tone of the authors whose writings have served as our guide in the
description.[170]
The scene opens at the entrance gate of a Roman mansion, on which there
are inscribed the following significant words: “Any slave who shall go
out of doors without his master’s leave shall receive a hundred lashes.”
Here the guests may be seen descending from their chariots in banqueting
dress, and within, the _ostium_ or entrance is alive with visitors,
playing various games, engaged in conversation, or already receiving
draughts of wine from the hands of obedient slaves.
The next scene is the banqueting hall itself, where the guests recline on
couches around the tables:—
“For now the floor and all men’s hands are clean,
And all the cups, and since the feasters’ brows
Are wreathed with garlands, while the slaves around
Bring fragrant perfume in well-suited dishes:
And in the middle stands the joyful bowl;
And wine’s at hand, which ne’er deserts the guests
Who know its worth, in earthen jars well kept,
Well-flavoured, fragrant with the sweet fresh flowers;
And in the midst the frankincense sends forth
Its holy perfume, and the water’s cold
And sweet and pure.”[171]
The host, a rich and vulgar _parvenu_, is surrounded by sycophants, who
are as ready to parade his wealth and his imaginary virtues as he is to
listen to and believe their flatteries; and the conversation, carried
on in a loud voice during the banquet, mainly runs upon his munificence
towards his slaves and freedmen, and his great possessions. After the
first course, wine is poured over the hands of the guests, for no one
offers them water;[172] and glass jars are carried round bearing labels,
“Opimian, Falernian, a hundred years old!” A human skeleton made of
silver is then produced, and the host incites his guests to partake of
the good things before them by crying out in a loud voice:—
“Vain as vanity are we,
Swift life’s transient flames decay;
What this is we soon shall be,
Then be merry whilst you may.”[173]
The course which follows deserves special attention. It is placed in a
circular tray divided into twelve sections, marked with the signs of
the zodiac, and each contains an appropriate dish. Thus in Aries there
are rams’-head pies; in Sagittarius, a hare; in Pisces, two mullets;
and so on. The entertainment is here diversified by the entrance of an
Egyptian slave, who sings a song in praise of some celebrated wine. The
host’s lady drinks but little (as yet), but she has an ugly tongue and
chatters eternally. The old story; the parvenu husband does sometimes
manage to conform himself to his new sphere of life—his wife never! But
we must not say too much even for him in this instance. He leads the
conversation, and is listened to with rapt attention. After the fashion
of a dinner-giver who instructed his servant to let a tongue fall from a
dish to enable him to make his pun about a _lapsus linguæ_, so the Roman
host had provided the zodiacal dishes as a theme for wise dissertation.
He spoke learnedly of the signs under which men of various trades are
born. Under Libra, for example, it appears that all retail dealers,
butchers, druggists, &c., are brought into the world! Then he turned
the conversation to some contemptible feast that had been given by one
of his wealthy rivals. “Call that a feast!” he said. “Why, there was a
trumpery show of gladiators; such decrepit wretches, one might have blown
them down.” He had seen better men thrown to the beasts by torchlight!
Other courses follow, and betwixt or during each there is some
entertainment or some surprise. Now a slave boy is freed, then an orator
enters and recounts the munificent deeds of the host. Then again the
cook is dragged in and threatened with condign punishment for having
forgotten to remove the intestines from a hog. At first he is handed over
to the tormentors; but the guests intercede, when the cook is directed
to slash open the intestines with a knife, and out falls a mass of
sausages. Thereupon follows immense applause; the cook is crowned with
honours and dismissed. Poor poets and literary men who are present are
vulgarly patronised by the host, and are “drawn out” into conversation,
whilst compliment after compliment is showered on the host. Towards the
close of the banquet, the ceiling over the heads of the guests cracks and
opens, and a great ring descends, hung all round with golden crowns and
alabaster pots filled with perfume, as presents to the guests; and this
is but one amongst similar surprises.
But how is it about our special department all this time? Are the guests
all as sober as when they assembled? Hardly, for each new course has
brought with it a fresh supply of wine, which is carried round from right
to left as with us; and although at first it is taken mixed with water,
it is soon drunk alone, until all the guests have arrived at that third
stage which “tranquillity and sleep inspires.” But soon one of them,
who never once allowed the wine to pass, and “is not in a fit state
for discussion,” naïvely acquaints his host with the interesting fact
that he is “completely fuddled;” an announcement which is received with
laughter and applause. His example is soon followed by others, until all
arrive at the fourth or fifth stages, from which “insolence” and “uproar”
proceed. The guests begin to vie with one another in drinking, brag, and
bluster. But there is method in this dipsomania; for the slaves, too,
are ordered to drink freely, that they may not see their masters at a
disadvantage; and when, at one particular phase of the entertainment,
the wine is brought round, the host threatens to have it poured over the
head of any of his guests who fails to drain his bumper.[174] During
the entertainment other friends arrive, and one party comes tipsy from
a funeral, until at length host and guests, men and women, are all
drunk together. Some of them retire, if reeling out of the hall can
be so called, and proceed to take a bath, with a view of returning to
the charge and renewing the bout; and finally the spectacle becomes
indescribable, and the curtain falls on the last scene of all amidst
“riot and confusion.”
This is by no means an exaggerated picture of the drunkenness and
debauchery which prevailed in Rome under the Empire. Amusements, if the
practice of the lowest vices can be so called, were introduced into the
entertainments of the rich which are quite unfit to be mentioned, and a
number of unnatural devices were resorted to for the purpose of enabling
the guests to protract their debauches. Accounts of these are to be found
not only in the pages of the satirists, but in the sober philosophical
writings of Pliny and other historians. Pliny says,[175] that on no
object was so much ingenuity expended as upon the manufacture of wine,
and that so common was its use, it was given even to beasts of burden. He
speaks of it as a liquid which deprives man of his reason and “drives him
to frenzy and the commission of a thousand crimes.” One of his statements
seems almost incredible, but it is made by other writers as well, and
that is, that men actually drank hemlock (to which, as already stated,
wine was considered an antidote), before commencing a carouse, “that they
may have the fear of death before them, to make them take their wine.”
“The more prudent,” he says, “have themselves parboiled in hot baths,
from whence they are carried away half dead,” and emetics were commonly
resorted to after a large quantity of wine had been swallowed, so that
the drinking might be renewed. Premiums upon the exercise of the drinking
capacity were offered to such as liked to make exhibitions of themselves
at banquets, and the result of these and similar practices is said to
have been the rupture of all ties of decency and modest bearing on the
part of the guests of both sexes.
“Then it is,” says Pliny, “that the secrets of the mind are revealed:
one man is heard to disclose the provisions of his will; another lets
fall some expression of fatal import, and so fails to keep to himself
words which will be sure to come home to him with a cut throat: and how
many a man has met his death in this fashion! Indeed, it has become a
common proverb that ‘in wine there is truth.’” He goes on to describe the
appearance of the drunkard, which agrees with the picture of him that
was drawn by the satirists, and which may be viewed at the present day:
the blotched and purple skin, the crimson nose, the bleared and watery
eyes! _Delirium tremens_, or, as the historian calls it, “sleep agitated
by furies,” was also common, and was accompanied by loss of memory; “and
this,” he adds, “this is what they call seizing the moments of life!
Whereas, in reality, whilst other men lose the day that has gone before,
the drinker has already lost the day that is to come!” He censures the
fashionable physicians of his day who prescribed alcoholic drinks to
their patients for the purpose of pleasing them, and so securing their
custom; and he does not hesitate to expose the habits of those who were
great topers as well as eminent citizens. Alcibiades comes in for severe
reproof; so, too, an eminent Roman, Novellius Torquatus, of Mediolanum,
a man who held all the honours of the state from the prefecture to the
proconsulate, of whom he says that he could drink off three congii at a
single draught,[176] from which he obtained the name of Tricongius. This
he is said to have done before the eyes of Tiberius, and to the extreme
surprise of the Emperor, who was himself a renowned toper. Another hero,
we are told, kept up a drinking bout at the residence of the same Emperor
for two days and two nights; and these little dissipations do not seem to
have interfered in the least with the exercise of the civil or military
duties of those who indulged in them.
But drunkenness and debauchery were not confined to the higher classes
in the days of Roman decadence. In describing the baths of Caracalla,
Gibbon says, on good authority, that there issued from those stately
palaces crowds of dirty and ragged plebeians, without shoes and without a
mantle, who loitered away whole days in the street or Forum to hear news
and to hold disputes; who dissipated in extravagant gaming the miserable
pittance of their wives and children, and spent the hours of the night
in obscene taverns and brothels in the indulgence of gross and vulgar
sensuality.[177]
Such, then, was the condition of society in the latter days of Rome,
with her proud and debauched patricians and her ragged and dependent
plebeians, shortly before the conquering barbarians of the North swept
down like an avalanche and completed her overthrow; and thus do we find
the curse of drunkenness associated with her downfall. May the story of
her vices and the lesson of her fate not have been learned in vain by
succeeding nations, and above all by the people of our own land; for
they teach us that the upper ranks of society cannot yield themselves
to over-indulgence without the commission of a twofold wrong—without
injuring themselves by their vicious practices, as well as their poorer
fellow-citizens by their evil example. Neither does the inconvenience
cease with the discontinuance of the evil habit; the excesses of the poor
react upon the rich, and it is as idle to attempt to reform the lower
orders by criminal legislation and police restrictions alone, as it is
unwise to content ourselves with denouncing their vices, and leaving
them to work out their own reformation. In order to secure continued
prosperity to a nation, all classes, high and low, rich and poor, must
be alike free, contented, and virtuous. We cannot expect to progress
satisfactorily as a nation amongst our neighbours whilst we have even a
residuum of drunkards in our midst; for as long as there are amongst us
such as those who issued from the baths of Caracalla (but who in our day
neither enter nor issue from any baths at all), as easy would it be for a
rich _bon vivant_ whose head is but little affected by the irregularities
of his appetite but whose nether members the gout has made her own,
to expect to compete successfully in a race with a band of young, and
healthy, and vigorous athletes. This is the first grave lesson to be
learned from a consideration of the history of drink.