Page:The Deipnosophists (Volume 2).djvu/264

 And not injurious to the pocket either: Good, too, for deeds of love; authors of sleep, That wholesome harbour after toil and care: Good, too, for health—that best of goddesses Who mortal man befriend: and likewise good For piety's best neigbour temperance.

And presently afterwards he goes on—

For fierce, immoderate draughts of heady wine Give momentary pleasure, but engender A long-enduring pain which follows it. But men at Sparta love a mode of life Which is more equal; they but eat and drink That which is wholesome, so that they may be Fit to endure hard pains, and do great deeds. Nor have they stated days in all the year, When it is lawful to indulge too much.

42. And a man who is always ready for wine is called [Greek: philoinos]. But he is called [Greek: philopotês] who is always ready to drink anything; and he is called [Greek: philokôthônistês] who drinks to the degree of drunkenness. And of all heroes, the greatest drinker is Nestor, who lived three times as long as other men; for he evidently used to stick to his wine more closely than other people, and even than Agamemnon himself, whom Achilles upbraids as a man given to much drinking. But Nestor, even when a most important battle was impending, could not keep away from drinking. Accordingly Homer says—

But not the genial feast or flowing bowl Gould charm the cares of Nestor's watchful soul.

And he is the only hero whose drinking-cup he has described, as he has the shield of Achilles; for he went to the war with his goblet just as he did with that shield, the fame of which Hector says had reached to heaven. And a man would not be very wrong who called that cup of his the Goblet of Mars, like the Cæneus of Antiphanes, in which it is said—

The hero stood and brandish'd Mars's cup, Like great Timotheus, and his polish'd spear.

And indeed it was on account of his fondness for drinking that Nestor, in the games instituted in honour of Patroclus, received a drinking-cup as a present from Achilles; not but what Achilles also gave a cup to the competitor who was defeated: for victory does not commonly attend hard drinkers, on account of their usual inactivity; or perhaps it is owing to their thirst that boxers usually fail, from being