It is wine that wounds you, honey-sweet wine, which works harm to others also, whoever takes it in great gulps, and drinks beyond due measure. — Homer, Odyssey, XXI: 293-295.
Robert Graves recounts a Greek myth which says that when wine making was first discovered by Icários, the inventor gave some to his friends to try. Unfortunately, as the alcohol began to take effect, the guests at this first “wine tasting” panicked, and, concluding that they had been poisoned, turned on Icários and killed him. Since we know that alcohol is indeed toxic, we can’t really say that their thinking was wrong. However, modern public opinion would be against you if you go gunning after your liquor dealer, deserve it though he may.1
One of the earliest examples preserved of Greek alphabetic writing consists of three lines scratched onto a drinking cup — “Whoever drinks from this cup will be swiftly seized by the desire of fair-crowned Aphrodite,” doubtless the first reference ever to the loss of sexual inhibition caused by alcohol.2
But what is possibly our earliest literary information on drinking in the ancient world occurs in Homer and in Hesiod (both Eighth Century BCE). According to Homer, Odýsseus plied the Kýklops Polýphemos with wine until he passed out, then blinded his one eye with a sharpened stake.3 (A certain wit has pointed out that this made Polýphemos a real ‘blind drunk’ in every sense of the word.)
Alcohol is responsible for another tragedy in the Odyssey. While on Kírke’s island, the youngest of Odýsseus’ sailors, Élpenor “not over valiant in war nor sound of understanding” got drunk and decided to sleep on the roof. Being wakened suddenly by some commotion, he jumped up, forgot where he was, missed the ladder and “fell headlong from the roof, and his neck was broken away from his spine, and his ghost went down to the house of Hádes.”4
Later, when Odýsseus makes a little detour of his own through Hádes to consult the ghost of Tirésias, he encounters Élpenor’s apparition, who confesses that “an evil doom of some god was my undoing, as well as wine beyond measure.”5 (As for the cause of his undoing, I’ll put my money on “wine beyond measure.”)
Another early reference to wine is found in Hesiod6 where he is instructing his brother about chores to be accomplished in September, “When Orion and Sirius are come into mid-heaven, and rosy-fingered Dawn sees Arcturus, then cut the grape clusters, Pérses, and bring them home. Show them to the sun for ten days and ten nights: then cover them over for five, and on the sixth day draw off into vessels the gifts of joyful Diónysus.”
The effects of alcohol are so remarkable that early on the Greeks assigned a specific god, Diónysos, to be the lord of intoxication. He was always found in the company of satyrs (half human, half goat), centaurs (half human, half horse), maénads (frenzied women) and other social misfits. Apóllo, lord of moderation in all things, was the principal deity honored at Delphí, but in the dead of winter he went on vacation, so to speak, and his place was taken by Diónysos and his merry crew. It was party time. More specifically, it was a time for catharsis. A time to “get it out of one’s system.” So, significantly, all the Dionysian festivals took place in winter. After all, the year’s work was done, so why not kick off your sandals and knock back a few?
But devotion to the god in this life would pay big dividends in the next. The French classical scholar Franz Cumont tells us that “The shade went down into the bowels of the earth, never again to leave them. If judged worthy, it took part in an eternal banquet (συμποσιον), of which the initiate received a foretaste on earth, in the feasts of the Dionysian mysteries. Sacred drunkenness, a divine exaltation, was the pledge of the joyous intoxication which the god of wine would grant in Hádes to the faithful who had united themselves to him on earth.”7
Cumont adds that “the heady liquid not only gave vigor of body and wisdom of mind, but also strength to fight the evil spirits and to triumph over death.”8 I think the alcoholic of today might translate these terms as follows—vigor of body (“I can stomp the lard out of any son-of-a-bitch in this bar!”); wisdom of mind (“I’m such a witty and clever conversationalist at cocktail parties”); strength to fight the evil spirits (“I’m bullet-proof!”); and the ability to triumph over death (“I’ve driven ninety miles an hour many times when I’ve been drinking. and I’ve never had any problem with it, officer.”)
Curiously, a sort of Dionysian worship continues today apart from that at the local watering hole. John Cuthbert Lawson, writing in the first years of the twentieth century, relates that the men of Skýros would garb themselves in goatskins, hang goat bells of various sizes from their bodies and dance about the town. Anyone meeting them would treat them to a drink. When questioned, the dancers said that the performance was “for the Callicantzári”. That is, for the beautiful (καλος) centaurs (κενταυρι).9
Evidently, by Lawson’s time the dancers had forgotten that the dance was really in honor of Diónysos, not the centaurs, and that they themselves represented those same centaurs.
Interestingly, a contemporary travel videotape shows the same horse dance still performed in northern Greece, goat bells and all, and says flat-out that it is a remnant of Dionysian worship. (I suspect because somebody in the meantime had read Lawson’s book.) In another village near Thessaloníki the men also dress in goatskins and bells, get thoroughly drunk and, making lewd remarks, chase the women of the town through the streets. All in a spirit of good, clean, Christian fun, I suppose. Wine is appreciated by these modern centaurs, but oúzo or metáxa is preferred.10
That the centaurs of myth had problems with alcohol was well known. Whenever a sculptor had a large area to fill, such as the western pediment of the temple of Zeús at Olympia, he often chose the battle of the centaurs and the lapíthai for his subject. This commemorates a regrettable misunderstanding that occurred at the wedding of the hero Périthoös, king of the lapíthai. The centaurs were invited but got drunk and went after the lapith ladies, with predictable results.11
The Greeks, and the Romans after them, were wine drinkers, first and last. Beer was known, but was thought fit only for “swinish barbarians,” such as the Celts, Germans, Egyptians and Babylonians. Athenáeus12 says that the Celts also drank wine, but flavored it with cumin. The Greeks flavored wine with various things such as honey or myrrh, and wine flavored with pine resin (ρετσινα), is still popular. They also produced a kind of ersatz gin by flavoring wine with juniper berries. But real gin, as well as all other hard spirits, had to wait until the distillation of alcohol was developed in the Middle Ages.
Greece in springtime is alive with wild poppies, and opium was certainly known in classical times. Opium was doubtless the drug Homer had in mind when he wrote about the Lotus Eaters zonking out Odýsseus’ crew,13 and the Iliad appears to describe the ability of the drug to induce forgetfulness of pain and debase the ability to tell good from evil. Pedánios Dioscorídes, writing in the first century C.E., describes the manufacture of opium in accurate detail.14 But in spite of this general knowledge of the drug and its effects, opium had no real users in either Greece or Rome. Cánnabis (κανναβις) too, was used by the Skythians of the Caucasus, who, according to Herodotos, would throw it on the red-hot rocks in the steam baths in order to breathe the smoke. He also tells us that the Skythians “howl in joy for the vapor bath.”15 (Nothing surprising there.) But if the neighboring Greeks knew anything about “smoking” pot, they were apparently unimpressed.
Due to a hot growing season plus low yield per plant, Greek wines had an alcohol content of up to 16 per cent. Modern wines, unless fortified, have a content of only about 12.5 per cent.16
Wine was customarily drunk watered, sometimes heavily so. For example, the host at the somewhat aristocratic all-male drinking party—the sympósion, would decide on the proportion of water to wine — at least one to one, but up to four to one for a more slowly paced evening. The wine was mixed with the water in a wide-mouthed vessel called a kráter. (Perhaps the most famous of these stag parties is the one described by Plato in which Socrates drank everybody else under the table. The party starts sedately enough, but when Alkibiádes arrives, raving drunk, they switch to “unkratered” wine in order to catch up with him.)17
Guests at such a function were supposed to participate in intelligent conversation. A lyre would be furnished for anyone who wished to accompany themselves in song. This was an exclusively male gathering, although at some get-togethers females were hired as entertainers in several capacities—both musical and sexual. In later Roman times, a similar gathering, the convivium, regularly allowed the presence of “respectable” women, a practice that the Greeks deplored as being indecent. Yet the Greeks thought nothing amiss about fucking the hired help on the spot. (Ah, the good old days.)
The aristocratic sympóseon was not the only Greek drinking place. If you weren’t invited to the party, you could ease your hurt feelings at a kapeléion, and we have evidence that some patrons of these taverns were as problematic then as now. We have a surviving “hex” tablet left by a disgruntled Athenian drinker. These tablets, written on lead, were messages to the gods of the underworld, asking for a curse on one’s enemy. In this case, it looks as if the writer had been 86’ed from several establishments in Athens as well as one in Eleúsis...
“I curse Callías the taverner and his wife Thraítta, and the tavern of the bald headed man (I guess he didn’t catch the name), and Anthémion’s tavern… and Phílo the taverner. Of all these I bind their souls, their trade, their hands and feet, their taverns… and also the taverner Ágathon, servant of Sosímion… I bind Manía the bar-girl at the spring and the tavern of Aristánder of Eleúsis.”18
About that “barmaid at the spring” — in hot weather, enterprising publicans would set up shop near a spring to utilize the icy cold water for mixing.
Again, only barbarians, such as the Skythians, drank wine neat as did the Macedonians, though the latter would probably have slaughtered anyone who suggested that they were less than civilized. (And the Skythians would have slaughtered you without even waiting to hear your opinion.)
However, among the Greeks, unwatered wine did find use as a reliever of pain. Diogénes Laértios tells us that Epíkouros, when dying from uremia resulting from kidney stones, entered a hot bath, then called for unwatered wine to relieve the excruciating pain. This inspired Diogénes to give us yet another piece of the notoriously wretched doggerel with which his book is peppered:
Farewell, my friends; to the truths I taught hold fast:
Thus Epíkouros spake, and breathed his last.
He sat in a warm bath and neat wine quaff’d,
And straightway found chill death in that same draught.19
In fact, the Epikoureans ordinarily drank water, and any wine taken was heavily diluted. (The idea that Epíkouros and his followers were drunkards, gluttons and sexual debauchees is a malicious calumny circulated by their enemies, most notably the Stoics, Jews and Christians.)
Speaking of water, Athenáeus devotes much space to its benefits compared to wine. Among other things, water is easy to digest, is moderately cooling and does not “oppress the head” with hangovers. Moreover, water produces activity of mind and body and does not make you fart.20
The historian Cúrtius shows that Alexander the Great could certainly qualify as a binge drinker, and a “heavy hitter” at the very least. Referring to his good qualities, Cúrtius says that “all these were marred by his inexcusable fondness for drink.”21 The incident is well known about how he flew into a drunken rage when criticized by Kleítos, the head of the Macedonian cavalry. Alexander grabbed a spear and ran the man through, then was restrained by others when, in instant remorse, he tried to turn the spear on himself — a good example of the “Oh my god, what have I done?” syndrome, familiar to alcoholics of any century.
The burning of the Persian palace at Persépolis presents another problem for the historians, in that it’s unclear how it started. But all accounts agree that the fire was the result of Alexander’s drunken victory bash. Cúrtius again — “They were all flushed with wine, and they got up, drunk, to set fire to the city which they had spared while under arms.”22 Certainly not the last bun fight to get out of hand and literally bring down the house.
When drinking, Alexander would become suspicious, unpredictable, megalomaniacal and ultimately, completely isolated. His premature death was doubtless hastened by alcohol, acting with malaria on a body already ravaged by overwork and battle fatigue.
While the Greeks and Romans were unaware of modern scientific concepts of alcoholism, they were very much aware of its pernicious effects. Early on, in the mid Sixth Century BCE, Pythágoras noted that heavy drinking was a prelude to mental disorder, and advises the drunkard to take a long hard look at his conduct if he hopes to save himself.23 Sort of a “fearless moral inventory,” I suppose.
Plutarch, a priest at Delphí in the early First Century BCE, notes that alcohol in the morning will help a hangover, thus setting off another day’s drinking.24
Lucrétius, a Roman follower of Epíkouros, writing in the First Century BCE tells us that alcohol causes heaviness of the limbs, staggering, slurred speech, a soggy mind, blurred vision, noisy bowels, and hiccups, accompanied by brawls and suchlike.25
The two Roman writers whose analyses most clearly resonate with modern thought are Séneca and Plíny the Elder. Séneca noted in one of his letters that the overuse of alcohol will destroy the mind, with the tragic results apparent even after one quits — what we would now call Korsakov Syndrome.26 He also notes that alcohol magnifies “character defects.”27 (His words, not mine.) He goes into some detail about how drinking destroyed Marc Antony — “What else was it but drinking to excess, together with a passion for Cleopátra (in itself as potent as drink) that ruined that great and gifted man… dragging him down into foreign ways of living and un-Roman vices? It was this that made him an enemy of the state, no match for his enemies, and cruel, displaying the (decapitated) heads of his country’s leading men at his dinner table… still thirsting for blood when he was filled to the full with wine.”28
Both Plíny and Séneca anticipate modern observations about the physical and mental effect of alcohol abuse — loss of memory, identity confusion, self-indulgence, antisocial behavior, impaired speech, blurry vision, swollen liver, bad breath, the “shakes,” vertigo, inability to sleep and early death.29
Moreover, Plíny comments on the fact that in vino veritas, but points out that much of the veritas revealed would be better left unspoken.30
Characters, which is a marvelously witty book by Theophrástos (late Fourth Century BCE), describes the man who, having “dined unwisely,” gets up in the middle of the night to piss, and on his return from the privy, becomes confused in the dark, enters the wrong house and gets bitten by the dog. Or the tactless man who gets too drunk too soon at a festival and tries to dance with the other men who are themselves not drunk enough to see the humor of it all.31
Athenáeus in his gossipy but informative book Deipnosophistái (The Dining Sophists) tells an amusing story explaining why a certain house in Agrigéntum is called the “trireme.” It appears that some young men living there at one time got drunk and thought they were at sea, sailing in a trireme. Encountering a bad storm and fearing that the “trireme” might sink, they began to lighten the load by throwing furniture out the window, which the neighbors were happily carting away. The magistrates came to investigate the uproar, and the drunks immediately hailed them as oceanic gods (tritons) come to save them from the tempest. These authorities reprimanded the young men and told them not to drink so much in the future. The young men gratefully promised to obey, and promised as well that if the “ship” should ever make landfall, they would raise an altar on the shore to these gods, claiming them to be “saviors visibly present,” gods who “appeared to us so opportunely.”32
Perhaps the story is amusing because the drunks are young. Had they been old men, the story would have been merely grotesque. Young people are often thought to be “cute” when drunk, but I think that I can speak with a certain amount of experience when I say that there is nothing whatever “cute” about an old drunk.
In conclusion we see that the Greeks and Romans were well aware of the damage that alcohol does. Nearly two thousand years ago, Plíny pointed out the great irony that a man will spend money that he worked so very hard to earn, in order to buy a product that will most certainly bring madness and death. This was true then. It is true now. Sadly, at least as far as alcohol or drugs are concerned, it appears that the only thing we learn from history is the fact that we learn little or nothing from history.
Be sober, and always remember to disbelieve: for these are the sinews of the mind.
Epícharmos of Cos (fl. c. 486 BCE)
1 Graves, Robert, The Greek Myths, Penguin Books, London 1955, 79-a.
2 Diamond, Jared, Guns, Germs, and Steel, W.W. Norton, New York, 1999, p 236
3 Homer, Odyssey, translated by A.T. Murray, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1995, IX:347-39
4 ibid. X:552-559
5 ibid. XI:61, 609-614
6 Hesiod, Works and Days, translated by H.G. Evelyn-White, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1914, 609-614
7 Cumont, Franz, Afterlife in Roman Paganism, Yale University Press, 1922, p 35
8 ibid. p 120
9 Lawson, John Cuthbert, Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion, Cambridge University Press, reprinted by University Books, New Hyde Park, NY, 1964, p 228ff
10 Bacchus, the God of Wine, in Volume 2 of Ancient Greece, the Traditions of Greek Culture, Kultur Videotapes, VHS #343
11 Graves, Robert, op.cit. 102a-g
12 Athenaeus, Deipnosophistai (The Dining Sophists) translated by G.P. Gould, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University, 1927, IV:a-150
13 Homer, op. cit. IX:83-104
14 Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1957, Volume 16, article “opium”
15 Herodotos, The History of the Persian Wars, translated by A.D. Godley, Loeb Classical Library, Heinemann, London and G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1921, IV:74
16 Davidson, James, Courtesans and Fishcakes, St. Martin’s Press, New York, p 40
17 Plato, Symposion, translated by W.R.M. Lamb, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1925, passim
18 Quoted in Davidson, James, op. cit., p 55. (Davidson does not give his source.)
19 Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, translated by R.D. Hicks, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1980, X:15. Diogenes mentions that he had published elsewhere a collection of his poetry, leaving one modern scholar to comments that we can “thank Apollo and the Muses” for allowing it to disappear somewhere along the way.
20 Athenais, op. cit. II:43f—46f
21 Curtius (Quintus Curtius Rufus), The History of Alexander, translated by John Yardley, Penguin Classics, London, 1984, V:7-1
22 Curtius, op. cit. V:7-3
23 The Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD), edited by Hornblower and Spawforth, article alcoholism, p 56, quote from Stobaeus, Flor. 3, 18, 23, 33
24 OCD, loc. cit.
25 Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus) De Rerum Natura, translated by W.H.D. Rouse and M.F. Smith, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1975, 3:476-485
26 Seneca (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) Letters From a Stoic, selected and translated by Robin Campbell, Penguin Books, London, 83:26
27 Seneca, op. cit. 83:19, 20
28 Seneca, op. cit. 83: 26
29 OCD, loc. cit.
30 Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus) Natural History, Loeb Classical Library, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 14:137
31 Theophrastos, Characters, translated by Jeffrey Rusten, I.C. Cunningham and A. D. Knox, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1993, 14:8, 12:14
32 Athenaeus, op. cit. II:b-e
(c) 2004 by Sam M.
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