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Alcohol production.
First, one may ask if alcohol was more harmful than water during Greco-Roman An-
tiquity? Indeed, the answer depends of the sanitary control of drinking water, life
expectancy at birth, social activities, etc. Maybe was it better, in such period, to die
of an alcoholic cirrhosis at an advanced age rather than of an acute infectious illness
at a young age2? The high frequency of viral, bacterial, fungal, and parasitic diseases
related to stagnant water made its consummation at high-risk of developing acute
and/or chronic infection, potentially mortal and especially for fragile individuals
(neonates, infants, children, pregnant women, elders). Large cisterns conserving
great quantities of cold water, were diffusely constructed in the ground of houses
and important buildings (theatres, basilicas, etc.); frequently contaminated by plants,
animal dejections, worms, they were very uneasy to clean3. The same with water
from wells, also infected by all kinds of rubbishes (cadavers of animals, babies and,
sometimes, when not recuperated by their families, adults), alimentary wastes, ce-
ramics, tissues, wood fragments, as shown by archaeological excavations of such
structures (Athens, Rome, Pompeii, etc.). In order to purify water, vinegar was fre-
quently added to it, associated to a kind of filtration threw pieces of textiles; others
simply avoided water consummation, preferring drinking wine ( mixed with wa-
ter!).
Currently, wine was not taken pure, but mixed with water, on the opposite way of
Barbarians (i.e. non-Greek citizens such as Scythes and Thracian people, who where
considered as drunkard individuals). The fact of drinking pure wine may have
caused acute or progressive madness, as for the Spartan king Cleomene, according
to Herodotus (6, 84), of for the Macedonian king and conqueror Alexander the
Great4. Wine in Antiquity was probably much more alcoholized than today, with an
approximation of 25 to 30, associated with much more tannin. In order to avoid its
*
The authors would like to thank warmly Danielle Gourevitch (EPHE, IVth Section, Paris, France)
and Marie-Hlne Marganne (CEDOPAL, Lige, Belgium), for their precious comments on this
paper.
1
Hasin Hatzenbuehler Keyes Ogburn 2006.
2
Grmek 1991.
3
Corvisier 1985.
4
Liappas Lascaratos Fafouti Christodoulou 2003.
Philippe Charlier Clarisse Prtre
acid transformation, wine was sometimes mixed with honey (hydromel), resin of
pine (leading to modern retsina), spices (leading to medieval hippocras), and even
seawater (turriculae of Roman amateurs)! Most appreciated origins were, in Italy,
the regions of Calabria (Falerna) and Latium (especially Albanum, Fondi, Formies,
and Velletri) and, in Greece, the island of Chios and Thasos. As of today, three
kinds of wine existed: red, white and ros.
Did liquor and distilled alcohol were produced in Greco-Roman Antiquity? Yes,
but not very frequently, distillation being mostly used by perfume makers, or physi-
cists such as Alexander of Aphrodisias (3rd century B.C.) when preparing distilled
drinking water from seawater, following Aristotles Meteorologica (II.3, 358b16).
But distillated wines for gastronomic purposes did not really existed in Antiquity,
only concentration of some of them by evaporation or by double ebullition5.
5
Forbes 1970, 15 s.; Bguin Villard Jouanna 2002.
6
Plu. Quest. Nat. 919d.
7
Leibowitz 1967, 102.
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Alcoholism in Antiquity
drome, and severe vitamin deficiency that can all be related to (but not only) chronic
alcohol consummation.
Physicians sometimes prescribed complete stop of any alcohol consummation for
their patients, for example P. Aelius Then, according to his votive therapeutic in-
scription (iama) discovered in Pergamon (actual Turkey) dating from the 2nd c. A.D.
Some other chronic alcoholic patients became famous in Antiquity: one of them is
Anacreon, the canonical Greek lyric poet from the 6th to 5th c. B.C., known for his
important consummation of wine, who died at 85. Another one could be the tragedi-
an Aeschylus (6th-5th c. B.C.), who was able to compose only when drunk, the only
way for him to get inspiration (according to Plutarch8) something relatively logi-
cal, according to the traditional consecration of theater to the god of wine, Dionysus.
Prescription against excessive drinking were given both by physicians and phi-
losophers, but also forwarded by poets, such as the elegiac Theognis of Megara
(during the 6th c. B.C.): It is bad to abuse of wine. To be used with measure, wine
makes good, not bad.
If isolated limitation is recommended, collective ones also existed. This fragment
of an archaic inscription (Figure 1) written in boustrophedon script records a decree
against excessive drinking dated between 600 and 450 B.C. from the old city of
Eleftherna (Crete, Greece / conserved in the Archaeological Museum of Rethymnon,
N Inv. E 125):
8
Plu. Symp. 612c.
9
Lissarague 2001, 242 s.
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Philippe Charlier Clarisse Prtre
scription to modern legal protection for alcoholic subjects and the rest of the com-
munity.
A parallel could be given with the 5th c. B.C. inscription from the Delphi stadium
(N Inv. 3709) avoiding the introduction of wine within the limits of the sanctuary10;
indeed, alcohol is dietetically considered prejudicial for athletes, but sacrifices and
receptions were also , i.e. alcohol free11.
10
Rougemont 1977, 11-5.
11
Sokolowski 1969, 151 s.
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Alcoholism in Antiquity
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Philippe Charlier Clarisse Prtre
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
Bguin Villard Jouanna 2002 = D. Bguin L. Villard J. Jouanna, Vin et sant en Grce an-
cienne, Paris 2002.
Corvisier 1985 = J.N. Corvisier, Sant et socit en Grce ancienne, Paris 1985.
Forbes 1970 = R.J. Forbes, A Short History of the Distillation from the Beginnings up to the Death of
Cellier Blumenthal, Leiden 1970.
Grmek 1991 = M.D. Grmek, Diseases in the Ancient Greek World, Baltimore-London 1991.
Hasin Hatzenbuehler Keyes Ogburn 2006 = D. Hasin M.L. Hatzenbuehler K. Keyes E.
Ogburn, Substance Use Disorders: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth
Edition (DSM-IV) and International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Edition (ICD-10), Addiction
101, 2006, Suppl. 1, 59-75.
Liappas Lascaratos Fafouti Christodoulou 2003 = J.A. Liappas J. Lascaratos S. Fafouti
G.N. Christodoulou, Alexander the Greats Relationship with Alcohol, Addiction 98, 2003, 561-7.
Leibowitz 1967 = J.O. Leibowitz, Acute Alcoholism in Ancient Greek and Roman Medicine, Brit J
Addiction 62, 1967, 83-6.
Lissarague 2001 = F. Lissarague, Lcriture des vases grecs, in A.M Christin (ed.), Histoire de
lcriture. De lidogramme au multimedia, Paris 2001, 241-3.
Meillier 1980 = C. Meillier, Un cas mdical dans une inscription funraire, ZPE 38, 1980, 98.
Prtre Charlier, 2009 = C. Prtre P. Charlier, Maladies humaines, thrapies divines, Villeneuve
dAscq 2009.
Rougemont 1977 = G. Rougemont, Corpus des inscriptions de Delphes. Tome I (lois sacres et
rglements religieux), Paris 1977.
Sokolowski 1969 = F. Sokolowski, Lois sacres des cites grecques, Paris 1969.
Abstract: This study sought to describe objectively all paradoxes of alcohol consummation during classical An-
tiquity. Based on texts from Greco-Roman physicians and an unpublished inscription from the archaic period
recently discovered in Eleftherna, Crete (Greece), it is possible to know all kinds of alcohol consummation (from
wine to liquors), and its precise administrative and law limitation. Diverse patients from Antiquity are described,
some of them consuming pure undiluted wine periodically, with strong health consequences. Others used wine
mixed with other substances as a pharmaceutical beverage, with positive results. Existing data is available de-
scribing acute and chronic complications of alcohol consummation (or arrest), such as acute gastritis and deliri-
um tremens. Lastly, a juridical interdiction of public collective drinking session seems to have existed almost
from the archaic period (600 to 450 B.C.).
Keywords: Drug consumption, public health, retrospective diagnosis, forensic medicine, history of alcoholism.
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