Athenaeus - Deipnosophists Book X
Book X. 423 c
When, then, a large cup had been given Ulpian said: “Fill your ladle, slave, with stronger wine and pour it into my cup; not as the comic poet Antiphanes has it, who says in The Twins*: ‘He took and brought the big cup to me, and I made him pour in unmixed wine: “Pour, slave, ten thousand ladles-full in honour of gods and goddesses; then, to top them all, pour in a double portion to the august goddess and our sweetest king.” ‘
* Kock ii. 33; the august goddess and king may be Olympias and Alexander.
Book X. 432 b – c
Many used to drink with barley-meal sprinkled upon their wine, as Hegesander of Delphi says. Mnesiptolemus, at any rate, once gave a reading of his Histories, in which it was recorded that Seleucus sprinkled barley-meal on wine, and Epinicus wrote a play called Mnesiptolemus in which he ridiculed him and employing the terms used by Mnesiptolemus concerning drinking, represented him as saying: ‘One summer I saw King Seleucus eagerly drinking his wine with barley; so I have recorded it and have shown the public that, however ordinary or trivial a little deed may be, this power of mine can make it important. Said the king: “Thasian wine, well aged, and the sweet cell of the irascible bee from Attic land, have I turbinated in a bowl of fused stone, bridging o’er the whole wavy surface with Demeter’s grain; thus did I consume the drink, a relief from the heat.”’
Book X. 434 a – 435 d
Proteas of Macedon, also, drank a very great deal, as Ephippus says in his work On the Funeral of Alexander and Hephaestion, and enjoyed a sturdy physique throughout his life, although he was completely devoted to the practice of drinking. Alexander, for example, once called for a six-quart cup and after a drink proposed the health of Proteas. He took the cup, and when he had sung the king’s praises he drank, to the applause of everybody. A little while afterwards Proteas demanded the same cup, and again drinking, pledged the king. Alexander took it and pulled at it bravely, but could not hold out; on the contrary, he sank back on his cushion and let the cup drop from his hands. As a result, he fell ill and died, because, as Ephippus says, Dionysus was angry at him for besieging his native city, Thebes. Alexander also drank a very great deal, so that after the spree he would sleep continuously for two days and two nights. This is revealed in his Journals, written by Eumenes of Cardia and Diodotus of Erythrae. Menander says in The Flatterer: ‘ BIAS. In Cappadocia , Struthias, I drank up three times a golden beaker holding ten half-pints. STRUTHIAS. Then you have drunk more than King Alexander. B. Not less, that’s certain, by Athena? S. It’s a good deal, to be sure.” And Nicobule, or whoever ascribed to her the compilations, says that when Alexander was dining with Medeius of Thessaly he pledged the health of everyone at the dinner, there being twenty in all, and accepted the same number of toasts from all; he then left the party and soon after went to sleep. But the sophist Callisthenes, according to Lynceus of Samos in his Reminiscences and Aristobulus and Chares in their Histories, pushed aside the cup of unmixed wine when it came to him at Alexander’s symposium, and when somebody said to him, ‘Why don’t you drink?’ he replied, ‘I don’t want to be in need of one of Asclepius’s cups after drinking from one of Alexander’s.’
Darius, the destroyer of the Magi, had an inscription written on his tomb: ‘I could drink much wine and yet carry it well.’ Ctesias says that in India it is not permitted the king to get drunk. But among the Persians the king is allowed to get drunk on one day, that on which they sacrifice to Mithra. On this point Duris, in the seventh book of his Histories, writes as follows: ‘In only one of the festivals celebrated by the Persians, that to Mithra, the king gets drunk and dances “the Persian”; no one else throughout Asia does this, but everyone abstains on this day from the dance. For Persians learn how to dance just as they learn to ride horse-back; and they think the motion incident to this practice is very suitable for getting exercise to develop bodily strength.’ Alexander carried his carousing to such a point, according to Carystius of Pergamum in Historical Notes, that he even went reveling in a chariot drawn by asses; the Persian kings did this too, Carystius says; perhaps, therefore, it was for this reason that he had no appetite for sexual indulgence; for Aristotle, in his Physical Problems, says that the semen of such persons becomes watery; so Hieronymus, in his Epistles, quotes Theophrastus as saying that Alexander was not in good condition for sexual commerce. Olympias, at any rate, and Philip were aware of this, and actually caused the Thessalian courtesan Callixeina, who was a very beautiful woman, to lie with him; for they feared he might prove to be a womanish man, and Olympias often begged him to have intercourse with Callixeina.
Philip, Alexander’s father, was another drink-lover, as Theopompus records in the twenty-sixth book of his Histories. And in another part of the story he writes; ‘Philip was a madcap and inclined to rush headlong into danger, partly by nature and partly because of drink; for he was a deep drinker, and was often drunk when he sallied into battle.’ And in the fifty-third book, after relating the events at Chaeroneia and telling how Philip had invited to dinner the Athenian ambassadors who had arrived, Theopompus continues: ‘When they had withdrawn, Philip immediately sent for some of his boon companions, and told them to summon the flute-girls, Aristonicus the harp-singer, Dorion the flute-player, and all the rest of the crowd accustomed to drink with him; for Philip took such persons with him everywhere, and he was always equipped with many tools for a drinking-bout and a party. Being, in fact, a drink-lover and quite dissolute in character, he also had many coarse fellows in his train, as well as many who were versed in music or who could say funny things. And so, after drinking the whole night through, and getting very drunk and committing every folly, he dismissed all the rest of the company and made them withdraw, while he, as dawn was coming on, went to revel with the Athenian ambassadors.’ So Carystius in his Historical Notes says: ‘When Philip made up his mind to get drunk, he used to say, “Now we must drink; for it is enough that Antipater is sober.” And once when he was throwing dice, and someone announced that Antipater had arrived, he debated for a while and then pushed the gaming-board under the couch.
Book X. 436 f – 437 b
Chares of Mitylene, in his Tales of Alexander, describes how the Indian philosopher Calanus threw himself on a funeral pyre which he had built, and so died, and he says that at his tomb Alexander got up a contest in athletic games and in a musical recital of his praises. ‘He.’ Chares says, ‘because of the love of drinking on the part of the Indians, also instituted a contest in the drinking of unmixed wine, and the prize for the winner was a talent, for the second-best thirty minas, for the third ten minas. Of those who drank the wine, thirty-five died immediately of a chill, and six others shortly after in their tents. The man who drank the most and came off victor drank twelve quarts and received the talent, but he lived only four days more; he was called Champion.’
Book X. 442 a - b
Entire nations, also, have been deemed worthy of mention for their devotion to hard drinking. Baeton, for example, Alexander’s road-commissioner, in the work entitled Stages in Alexander’s Journey, and Amyntas* in his Stages, declare that the nation of the Tapyri are so addicted to wine that even in anointing themselves they use nothing else but wine. Ctesias also records the same in his work On Tributes paid throughout Asia. But he says that they are also very honest.
* Amyntas, surveyor in Alexander’s army and writer on Persian geography.
Book X. 443 a – b
And Theopompus, in the second book of his History of Philip, says that the Illyrians dine and drink seated, and even bring their wives to parties; and it is good form for the women to pledge any of the guests, no matter who they may be. They conduct their husbands home from drinking-bouts. The men all live a hard life, and when they drink they gird their bellies with wide belts. This they do, at first, with tolerable looseness; but as the drinking becomes more intense, they pull their belts more and more tightly together.
Book X. 455 d - e
There is a large store of other riddles as well: ‘I was born in the open, and the salt waters hold my country in embrace; my mother is the daughter of number.’ Now, ‘in the open’ means ‘in Delos,’ which is surrounded by the sea; the mother is Leto, who is the daughter of Koios, and the Macedonians call number koios.