1892 The flowing bowl when and what to drink (1892, c1891)

OUR ANCESTORS.

76"

the first was fish and meat, with the vegetables and other hors-d'oeuvres, and the second the dessert of pastry, cakes, and fruit. While the meal proper continued, there was no drinking, nor was it the custom to converse while eat- Conversation began with the second part of the entertainment, the symposion or carousal, for which the tables were removed, and the floor cleansed of all fragments. Other tables were then brought in by the servants, covered with salted cakes a kind of bretzels cheese and other viands provocative of thirst. The great mixing bowls were brought in, also pitchers of water cooled in snow, and jugs of unmixed wines, ladle-shaped dippers, beakers, and cups deep and shallow, of graceful forms, and the queer horn- shaped vessels, called rhyta. The youngest and hand- somest slaves were chosen to wait on the guests, who crowned their heads and garlanded their breasts with myrtle and violets, ivy and roses, not merely as a sign of festivity, but to cool their glowing temples, and, as they thought, to counteract the heady qualities of the wine. Music was then brought in, song and dance de- lighted ear and eye, and Bacchos, attended by the Muses and the Graces, ruled the hour, often until all were sunk in intoxication. The Greek loved wine, and hanored it in art and He loved it not merely as a means of sensual enjoyment: he used it as the care-dispeller, the bring- ing. song.