Athenian
Ath. And did we not say that when this takes place, the souls of the drinkers turn softer, like iron, through being heated, and younger too; whence they become ductile, just as when they were young, in the hands of the man who has the skill and the ability to train and mould them. And now, even as then, the man who is to mould them is the good legislator; he must lay down banqueting laws, able to control that banqueter who becomes confident and bold and unduly shameless, and unwilling to submit to the proper limits of silence and speech, of drinking and of music, making him consent to do in all ways the opposite,— laws able also, with the aid of justice, to fight against the entrance of such ignoble audacity, by bringing in that most noble fear which we have named modesty and shame.
5
Athenian
Ath. And as law-wardens of these laws and cooperators therewith, there must be sober and sedate men to act as commanders over the un-sober; for to fight drunkenness without these would be a more formidable task than to fight enemies without sedate leaders. Any man who refuses willingly to obey these men and the officers of Dionysus (who are over sixty years of age) shall incur as much disgrace as the man who disobeys the officers of Ares, and even more.