Natural History (Classics) by Pliny Gaius

Author:Pliny, Gaius [Pliny, Gaius]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2004-02-04T16:00:00+00:00

The effects of over-indulgence

137. Careful investigation reveals that no activity takes up more of a man’s life than wine-making, as if Nature had not given us a perfectly healthy liquid to drink – namely, water – of which all other animals avail themselves! Yet we compel even our beasts of burden to drink wine! All this toil and effort is the price paid for something that alters men’s minds and produces madness. Because of wine thousands of crimes have been committed, and drinking occasions so much pleasure that a huge section of mankind knows no other reward in life.

138. To allow us to drink more we reduce the strength of wine by straining it through a cloth bag, and other inducements for drinking are invented – even poisons: some men take hemlock beforehand so that fear of death may compel them to drink, while others take powdered pumice and substances to which I am ashamed to allude.

139. We see the most careful of drinkers cooking themselves in hot baths and being carried out lifeless, and others who cannot wait for dinner; some – without putting on a stitch of clothing, still naked and gasping – seize hold of a huge jar on the spot and, as if to demonstrate their strength, pour down the entire contents so as to sick it up again immediately and then drink another jar. This they repeat two or three times over, as if they were born to waste wine and as if the wine could be disposed only through the agency of the human body.

140. This is the raison d’être for the exercises that have been introduced from abroad – for rolling in mud, and throwing the neck back to show off the pectoral muscles. It is said that all these exercises are intended to raise a thirst. And what about all the drinking contests and vessels engraved with scenes of adultery, as though drinking on its own were not enough to teach debauchery? So wines are drunk as a result of debauchery, and drunkenness is even promoted by the offer of a prize and – heaven help us! – is actually purchased. One man get a prize if he eats as much as he drinks. Another drinks as many cups as a throw of the dice demands.

141. Then lecherous eyes calculate their chances of seducing a married woman, while intense looks betray this to the husband. Then the secrets of the heart are revealed. Some men proclaim the content of their wills; others openly reveal facts of fatal consequence and do not keep to themselves words that will return to them through a cut throat. How many men have met their end in this manner! As the proverb says, ‘In vino veritas’.

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