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Show THE STORY OF ALCOHOL i ' ! How It Has Spread Through the World How It Has Been Conquered j i ITo. 12 A E0MA5 YITTAGE FESTITAL. ' (From the Painting by Alma-Tadema) The vintage festivals oT very early periods iu ancient Rome were grave and beautiful ceremonies, like, the procession pro-cession depicted upon a Greek vase that Keats celebrates in his famous oce. But, as was noted in yesterday's article, they degenerated into drunken revels so unrestrained in debauchery and riot that they make New York's wildest welcomes to the New Year seem tame affairs by contrast. There are many evidences that wine vas too scarce in the earliest periods to allow drunkenness to become common. com-mon. King Nuna issued a law that i funeral pyres must not be sprinkled I with wine, and one of the generals of I the ohlen time vowed an offering of a ; small cup of wine to Jupiter if the god i would permit him to gain a victory i over his foes. And oftentimes milk is mentioned instead of wine as being ; offered to the gods. This was not be- cause the Romans thought that the gods would be better pleased with wholesome milk than with intoxicating intoxicat-ing wine, but merely because wine cost too much and was too difficult to procure. pro-cure. This is a great contrast to the later periods, when Rome was beginning to show unmistakable signs of degeneracy. degener-acy. By that time wine had become so common that almost the poorest slaves could get hold of enough money to buy drink enough to bring about a state of sodden drunkenness. At one time gallon of wine could be bought for 12 cents, but even this is high as contrasted con-trasted with the period when six cents bought 10 gallons. This was not of course the delicate and old wine that was served at feasts of the wealthy, but it was strong and fiery, much more alcoholic than the wines of today. In their capacities, the Romans made Socrates. Alexander and all the ether famous dnnkers of Greece seem like children. A certain Cains Piso won rapid promotion under T'beriurs for no other reason than his ability to sit for 4S hours drinking steadily without an intermission. Novclliuh Torquatus has had his name preserved for posterity because be is credited with being able to drink 10 quarts of wine at a draught, a feat that seems quite incredible to us. The Emperor Maximilian boasted that he could drink six gallons of wine without getting drunk. The hardest drinkers of our colonial days shrink to paleness when contrasted contrast-ed with Romans in the days of the decadence. de-cadence. They ate all sorts of highly seasoned dishes to stimulate an enormous enor-mous thirst Some of them even swallowed swal-lowed powdered pumice or large quantities of salt, so fearful were they that they would otherwise fail to drink all the wine they wanted But the most astounding of their habits was that of taking a dose of i hemlock before they started a drinking drink-ing bout. Hemlock is a slow poison, but- the wines of the ancient Romans were sufficient antidote to it if they were taken in excessive amounts. So guests at a prospective banquet dellb-ttaiely dellb-ttaiely poisoned themselves to make It certain that they would not shrink from drinking even when they had had more than enough. The wealthy had great cellars filled with wine, but this was of course beyond be-yond the powers of the poor. The state, however, established for their benefit places scattered through Rome 1 where great quantities of wine were kept for them. This was sold very cheaply and, although the quality was not very good, it was pure. Gibbon gives an unpleasant picture of the ragged rag-ged frequenters of the baths of Car-acalla, Car-acalla, crowds of poor men who loitered loiter-ed about to gossip and to pour down their throats the potent wine thai could be purchased so cheaply. i |