For Dionysos was one of the greatest gods of Greece. At the vintage in the autumn all was fun and jollity, and in his honor rude, humorous plays were acted by the country people. Hence developed the "comedy," so named from κῷμος, the country cart from which the actors at first held forth. In the spring, at the opening of the new wine, occurred the great Dionysiac festival. Every one flocked to Athens, from the countryside, from all Greece, from the whole civilized world; and there, in the great Theater of Dionysos, the marble seats of which are still standing under the walls of the Acropolis, were acted the glorious tragedies of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the noblest masterpieces of ancient literature.
But after Athens and Sparta, and later Thebes, had wasted their resources and exhausted their energies against each other, a new and fierce and semibarbarous race came down from the mountains and conquered the whole of Greece. Under the famous King Philip of Macedon the weak and scattered clans united, learned the art of war, and rapidly overthrew the more civilized and cultivated lowlanders. This marked the end of Grecian temperance. The Macedonian nobles were always heavy drinkers, and toward the end of his career they were encouraged in their habits by the king himself.
Many stories have been handed down to us about the royal drinking bouts. One, which has passed almost into a byword,
Dionysos, from the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates.
(From The Antiquities of Athens, Stuart and Revett. 1762.)
relates to a famous philosopher, who brought a lawsuit, in which he was a party, up before the highest court, the king himself. The case was heard and the judgment given against him. "I appeal," shouted the old man. "Whom do you appeal to?" said Philip, "I am the king!" "I appeal," said the other, "from Philip drunk to Philip sober." And the next day
