ed Venus and the
Muses. Seneca is of opinion, that he was suspected to be as much given
to wine as Arcesilaus. And M. Chevreau[1] observes very well, that "The
wisdom of Solon was not of such an austerity as to frighten people, when
he said, That the ladies, wine, and the Muses, were the pleasures of
human life."

Zeno, whose philosophy was so severe, got, notwithstanding, drunk
sometimes. Being one day at an entertainment, he was asked how he came
to be so joyful, he answered, that he was like lupins, which were bitter
naturally, but grew sweet after they were moistened.

Socrates, whom the oracle declared the wisest man of Greece, was, in
like manner, a very great drinker. M. Charpentier, in his Life, tells
us, That though he did not love to drink, yet when he was forced to it,
no one could come up to him; and that he had this wonderful happiness,
as not afterwards to find himself incommoded by it.

Cato, that hero of stoicism, got drunk sometimes, in order to relax his
mind, fatigued with the cares of public employment. These are the very
words of Seneca, Cato _vino laxabat animum curis publicis fatigatum_.
And the same author says elsewhere, that "People reproached Cato with
drunkenness, but that reproach was rather an honour to him than
otherwise." _Catoni ebrietas objecta est, et facilius efficiet quisquis
objecerit honestum quam turpem Catonem._ Horace gives us the same idea
of the great Cato, in these words:--

"Narratur et prisci Catonis
Saepe mero caluisse virtus."[1a]

Tradition tells, that oftentimes with wine,
Ev'n Cato's virtue moisten'd, shone divine.

If one knew the Scythian philosopher Anacharsis no otherwise than by his
apophthegms against wine and drunkenness, one would take him for the
soberest man in the world, but we know very well that his theory varied
very much upon this point, and no way agreed with his practice. One day
above the rest, having got drunk at an entertainment given by Lybis,
brother to Pittacus, he demanded the prize that was to be given to the
greatest drinker. With which action, when he was afterwards reproached,
he replied, "Can a man better signalize himself in battle than by
glorious wounds? and at table, than with that gaiety you call
drunkenness? Did not Homer, the wisest of your poets, make not only
Agamemnon drunk, but Jupiter too, and made nectar flow in full goblets
at the table of the Gods[2]?" AElian[3] also tells us, that this
philosopher drank l