[40] I wish also to speak of their common assemblages and the cheerfulness of their convivial meals as contrasted with those of other people. Some people when they have filled themselves with strong drink behave as though they had drunk not wine but some witch’s potion charged with frenzy and madness and anything more fatal that can be imagined to overthrow their reason. They bellow and rave like wild dogs, attack and bite each other and gnaw off noses, ears, fingers and some other parts of the body, so that they make good the story of the comrades of Odysseus and the Cyclops by eating “gobbets” of men, as the poet says, and with greater cruelty than the Cyclops.
[41] For he avenged himself on men whom he suspected to be enemies, they on their familiars and friends and sometimes even on their kin over the salt and across the board, and as they pour the libation of peace they commit deeds of war like those of the gymnastic contests, counterfeiting the genuine coin of manly exercise, no wrestlers but wretches, for that is the right name to give them.
[42] For what the athletes do in the arena while sober, in the daylight, with the eyes of all Greece upon them, in the hope of victory and the crown and in the exercise of their skill, are debased by the revellers who ply their activities in convivial gatherings by night and in darkness, drink-besotted, ignorant and skilful only for mischief to inflict dishonour, insult and grievous outrage on the objects of their assault.
[43] And if no one plays the umpire and comes forward to intervene and separate them they carry on the bout with increased licence to the finish, ready both to kill and to be killed. For they suffer no less than what they mete to others though they know it not, so infatuated are these who shrink not from drinking wine, as the comic poet says, to mar not only their neighbours but themselves.
[44] And so those who but now came to the party sound in body and friendly at heart leave soon afterwards in enmity and with bodily mutilation,—enmity in some cases calling for advocates and judges, mutilation in others requiring the apothecary and physician and the help that they can bring.
[45] Others belonging to what we may suppose is the more moderate part of the company are in a state of overflow. Draughts of strong wine act upon them like mandragora, they throw the left elbow forward, turn the neck at a right angle, belch into the cups and sink into a profound sleep, seeing nothing and hearing nothing, having apparently only one sense and that the most slavish, taste.
[46] I know of some who when they are half-seas-over and before they have completely gone under arrange donations and subscriptions in preparation for to-morrow’s bout, considering that one factor in their present exhilaration is the hope of future intoxication.
[47] In this way they spend their whole life ever hearthless and homeless, enemies to their parents, their wives and their children, enemies too to their country and at war with themselves. For a loose and a dissolute life is a menace to all.