Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists
C. D. Yonge, B.A., Ed.

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And men who are ignorant of the power of wine, say that Bacchus is the cause of madness to men; in saying which they abuse wine in a very senseless manner. On which account Melanippides says—

All men have detested water
Who did not before have wine;
And though some have enjoy'd their cups,
Others have turn'd to ravings wild.

And Aristotle, in his treatise on Drinking, says, “If the wine be moderately boiled, then when it is drunk, it is less pt to intoxicate; for, as some of its power has been boiled away, it has become weaker.” And he also says, "Old men become drunk more quickly on account of the small quantity of natural warmth which there is in them, and also of the weak [p. 678] ness of what there is. And again, those who are very young get drunk very quickly, on account of the great quantity of natural warmth that there is in them; for, in consequence, they are easily subdued by the warmth proceeding from the wine which is added to their natural warmth. And some of the brute beasts are also capable of becoming intoxicated; such as pigs when they are filled with the husks of pressed grapes; and the whole race of crows, and of dogs, when they have eaten of the herb called cenussa: and the monkey and the elephant get intoxicated if they drink wine; on which account they hunt monkeys and crows when the former have been made drunk with wine, and the latter with œnussa.

But to drink unceasingly—

as Crobylus says, in his Woman who deserted her Husband—

Can have
No pleasure in it, surely; how should it,
When it deprives a living man of power
To think as he should think? and yet is thought
The greatest blessing that is given to man.

And Alexis, in the revised edition of his Phrygian, says—

If now men only did their headaches get
Before they get so drunk, I'm sure that no one
Would ever drink more than a moderate quantity:
But now we hope t' escape the penalty
Of our intemperance, and so discard
Restraint, and drink unmixed cups of wine.

And Aristotle says, that the wine called the Samagorean wine was so strong that more than forty men were made drunk with a pint and a half of it after it had been mixed with water.