LIBATIONS. some demanding the Cup of the Good Deity, others that of Health, and different people invoking different deities; and so they all fell to quoting the words of those poets who had mentioned libations to these different deities; and I will now recapitulate what they said, for they quoted Antiphanes, who, in his Clowns, says—
Harmodius was invoked, the pæan sung,
Each drank a mighty cup to Jove the Saviour.
And Alexis, in his Usurer, or The Liar, says—
A. Fill now the cup with the libation due
To Jove the Saviour; for he surely is
Of all the gods most useful to mankind.
B. Your Jove the Saviour, if I were to burst,
Would nothing do for me.
A. Just drink, and trust him.
And Nicostratus, in his Pandrosos, says—
And so I will, my dear;
But fill him now a parting cup to Health;
Here, pour a due libation out to Health.
Another to Good Fortune. Fortune manages
All the affairs of men; but as for Prudence,—
That is a blind irregular deity.
And in the same play he mentions mixing a cup in honour of the Good Deity, as do nearly all the poets of the old comedy; but Nicostratus speaks thus—
Fill a cup quickly now to the Good Deity,
And take away this table from before me;
For I have eaten quite enough;—I pledge
This cup to the Good Deity;—here, quick, I say,
And take away this table from before me.
Xenarchus, too, in his Twins, says—
And now when I begin to nod my head,
The cup to the Good Deity * *
That cup, when I had drain'd it, near upset me;
And then the next libation duly quaff'd
To Jove the Saviour, wholly wreck'd my boat,
And overwhelm'd me as you see.
And Eriphus, in his Melibœa, says—
Before he'd drunk a cup to the Good Deity,
Or to great Jove the Saviour.
48. And Theophrastus, in his essay on Drunkenness, says—"The unmixed wine which is given at a banquet, which they call the pledge-cup in honour of the Good Deity, they offer in small quantities, as if reminding the guests of its strength,
