society by the pulpit and the press. During the best days of Hellas the
frequent rehearsal upon the stage of the chief incidents in the lives of
the gods and the heroes served to deepen and strengthen the religious
faith of the people; and later, in the Macedonian period, the theatre was
one of the chief agents in the diffusion of Greek literary culture over
the world.

BANQUETS AND SYMPOSIA.--Banquets and drinking-parties among the Greeks
possessed some features which set them apart from similar entertainments
among other peoples.

The banquet proper was partaken, in later times, by the guest in a
reclining position, upon couches or divans, arranged about the table in
the Oriental manner. After the usual courses, a libation was poured out
and a hymn sung in honor of the gods, and then followed that
characteristic part of the entertainment known as the _symposium_.

The symposium was "the intellectual side of the feast." It consisted of
general conversation, riddles, and convivial songs rendered to the
accompaniment of the lyre passed from hand to hand. Generally,
professional singers and musicians, dancing-girls, jugglers, and jesters
were called in to contribute to the merrymaking. All the while the wine-
bowl circulated freely, the rule being that a man might drink "as much as
he could carry home without a guide,--unless he were far gone in years."
Here also the Greeks applied their maxim, "Never too much."

The banqueters usually consumed the night in merry-making, sometimes being
broken in upon from the street by other bands of revellers, who made
themselves self-invited guests.