Kitap 7
9.1
Therefore Greece, having a great many excellent institutions, and zealously following the customs of the ancients, hath laid the foundations of her polities in wine. For the assemblies in Crete called Andria, those in Sparta called Phiditia, were secret consultations and aristocratical assemblies; such, I suppose, as the Prytaneum and Thesmothesium here at Athens. And not different from these is that night-meeting, which Plato mentions, of the best and most politic men, to which the greatest, the most considerable and puzzling matters are assigned. And those Who, when they do design to seek their rest, To Mercury their just libations pour, Odyss. VII. 138. do they not join reason and wine together, since, when they are about to retire, they make their vows to the wisest God, as if he was present and particularly president over their actions? But the ancients indeed call Bacchus the good counsellor, as if he had no need of Mercury; and for his sake they named the night εὐφρόνη, as it were, wellminded.
Question X. WHETHER THEY DID WELL WHO DELIBERATED MIDST THEIR CUPS. GLAUCIAS, NICOSTRATUS.
