Chap. XXIV An Answer to the Objection, That Drunkenness Makes One Incapable of Performing the Duties of Civil Life
I deny this absolutely, and to prove the contrary, I say, the Persians had a custom to deliberate on things the most serious, and of the greatest importance, after hard drinking. Tacitus reports the same thing of the Germans. Dampier assures us, that the same custom is practised with the inhabitants of the Isthmus Darien. And to go higher, one finds in Homer, that during the siege of Troy, the Greeks, in council, did eat and drink heartily. An evident proof, that this objection is contrary to experience. But to go farther, this same experience made the ancients look on those who could carry a great deal of wine, as persons of a genius very much superior to those who could not drink at all. On this account it was, that Cyrus, in writing to the Lacedemonians the reasons which rendered him more capable of government than his brother, amongst other things, takes notice, that he could drink more wine than he. And so many fine productions, for which we are obliged to the drunkenness of the poets, make it evidently appear, that wine, far from rendering us incapable of doing any thing that is good, rather helps and incites us to it. This important truth we shall confirm by several examples.
Plutarch relates, that Philip king of Macedon, after having conquered the Athenians, made a feast, at which he got drunk; and that all proud with that happy success, he nevertheless did a great many things entirely ridiculous; but being informed that the ambassadors that the Athenians sent to him to desire peace, wished to see him, he changed his countenance all of a sudden, and having heard their proposals with all possible attention, answered them with a great deal of justice.
The emperor Bonosus, who Amelian said was born not to live, but to drink, acted always with greater prudence after drinking, says Flavius Vopiscus, after Onesimus1.
We have taken notice, in the foregoing chapter, that L. Piso, governor of Rome, though he was often drunk, acquitted himself, notwithstanding, punctually of his duty.
Christiern2, the fourth king of Denmark, drank like a templer, and never king was more laborious, a greater lover of his subjects, or more beloved by them.
Scaliger3 says, that a German has as much reason when he is drunk, as when he has drank nothing. Non minus sapit Germanus ebrius quam sobrius.
Montaigne4 speaks in his Essays, of a great lord of his time, who, though he drank every day a prodigious quantity of wine, was, nevertheless, equally careful in his affairs. According to which, that which Cicero says is not generally true, viz. “That one must never expect prudence from a man that is always drunk.” Nec enim ab homine nunquam sobrio postulanda prudentia5.
Another proof that drunkenness does not render us incapable of doing any thing that is good, is, that it inspires people with courage, and even makes the coward valiant. Ad prelia trudit inertem. Experience confirms this truth. “We see,” says Montaigne6, “that our Germans, though drowned in wine, remember their post, the word, and their rank.”
We read in Spartien, that a certain general having been vanquished by the Saracens, his soldiers laid all the blame of their defeat on their want of wine.
The soldiers of the army of Pescennius Niger pressed earnestly for wine, undoubtedly to make them fight the better; but he refused them in these words, “You have the Nile,” said he, “and do you ask for wine?” In imitation, I suppose, of the emperor Augustus7, who, when the people complained of the dearness and scarcity of wine, said to them, “My son-in-law, Agrippa, has preserved you from thirst, by the canals he has made for you.”
By what has been said it plainly appears, that wine is so far from hindering a man from performing the duties of life, that it rather forwards him, and is an admirable ingredient in all states and conditions, both of peace and war, which made Horace8 thus bespeak the god of wine.
“Quanquam choreis aptior et jocis
Ludoque dictus, non sat idoneus
Pugnis ferebaris, sed idem
Pacis eras mediusque belli.”
Tho’ thou more apt for love than furious war,
And gay desires to move, thy chiefest care,
Yet war, and sweetest pleasures, you can join,
Both Mars and Venus are devotes to wine.
1. Flav. Vopisc. in vita Bonos.
2. Amel. de la Houssai sur Tacit. Ann. liv. xi. ch. 35.
3. Scaligeriana, p. 169.
4. L. ii. ch. 2.
5. Orat. ii. Philip.
6. Essais, l. ii. ch. 2.
7. Sueton. in Vit. August.
8. Lib. ii. Od. 19.