Note 44 — Chapter XXVI · PHÆDRUS — SYMPOSION.

In Sympos. p. 176 B, Sokrates is recognised as δυνατώτατος πίνειν, above all the rest: no one can be compared with him. In the two first books of the Treatise De Legibus, we shall find much to illustrate what is here said (in the Symposion) about the power ascribed to him of drinking more wine than any one else, without being at all affected by it. Plato discusses the subject of strong potations (μέθη) at great length; indeed he seems to fear that his readers will think he says too much upon it (i. 642 A). He considers it of great advantage to have a test to apply, such as wine, for the purpose of measuring the reason and self-command of different men, and of determining how much wine is sufficient to overthrow it, in each different case (i. 649 C-E). You can make this trial (he argues) in each case, without any danger or harm; and you can thus escape the necessity of making the trial in a real case of emergency. Plato insists upon the χρεία τῆς μέθης, as a genuine test, to be seriously employed for the purpose of testing men’s reason and force of character (ii. p. 673). In the Republic, too (iii. p. 413 E), the φύλακες are required to be tested, in regard to their capacity of resisting pleasurable temptation, as well as pain and danger.

Among the titles of the lost treatises of Theophrastus, we find one Περὶ Μέθης (Diog. L. v. 44). It is one of the compliments that the Emperor Marcus Antoninus (i. 16) pays to his father — That he was, like Sokrates, equally competent both to partake of, and to abstain from, the most seductive enjoyments, without ever losing his calmness and self-mastery.