TRANSCENDENT DRINKING: THE SYMPOSIUM AT SEA RECONSIDERED

摘要

In the historian Timaeus, we hear of a curious incident: ‘… in Acragas there is na house referred to as the Τrireme because of the following circumstance. Some nyoung men were getting drunk there and became so crazed and fevered with intoxi-ncation that they thought they were sailing on a trireme and overtaken at sea by a nterrible storm. They were so out of their minds that they threw all the furniture nand bedding out of the house, as if into the sea, thinking that their captain had nordered them to unload the ship because of the storm. Although a crowd gathered nand started snatching up the things they had thrown out, the young men did not nquit their madness. And when the Generals came to the house on the following day nand arrested the youths, they were still seasick; when the magistrates questioned nthem, they said that they had jettisoned their excess cargo into the sea because nthey were worried by the storm. The Generals were astonished at their derange-nment. One of the youths, even though he seemed older than the others, said, “O nTritons, I was so afraid that I threw myself under the rowing benches since lying nthere I was in the lowest possible place.” Seeing their disturbed state of mind, nthe officers admonished them not to fill up on more wine and sent them off. The nyoung men all professed their gratitude … “If we are delivered,” he said, “from nsuch a storm and reach safe harbour, we will erect altars to you in our homeland, ntogether with the gods of the sea, as our manifest Saviours, since you appeared to nus at just the right time.” Thus the house came to be called Trireme.’n1