Dionysus (in Roman mythology known as Bacchus) was a more complex and subtle character than the commonly held view suggests. According to Greek mythology, Semele was the human mother of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine (his father was Zeus). The title of this play is traditionally given as Semele or Dionysus. The play is not necessarily to be taken seriously but it does betray the assumptions and world views of the society in which it was written. The relation between alcohol consumption and alcohol related problems is described in a play attributed to Eubulus, a Greek comic poet of the 4th century BC. Drinking in the tavern was not in the ordered manner of the symposium.

Moderate drinking was understood as facilitating conversation, which was supposed to predominate over drinking, but that is not to say that drinking did not take pre-eminence sometimes.įor the lower echelons of society wine was sold in the tavern in larger quantities for consumption at home, or else in smaller and diluted quantities for consumption on the premises. Three kraters seem to have been deemed a reasonable quantity for the evening. Guests were expected to consume equal amounts of wine during the evening, the amount being determined both by discussion beforehand and by the pace set by the symposiarch as the evening progressed. A cup of wine was initially passed around as a libation to the divinity, but subsequently the wine was diluted with 50% to 75% water, 3 4 mixed in a large bowl or krater.Ī slave ladled the diluted wine into a jug and then poured the wine into the guests’ cups alternatively, a cup of the diluted wine was passed around. After dinner, groups of between about 14 and 22 men, but sometimes as many as 30, reclined on couches around a room to engage in drinking, conversation, and song. 2 The symposium provided men in the higher echelons of society with a formal social context for drinking. Drinking in classical Greek society (about the 5th and 4th centuries BC) took place in various contexts.

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