This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1869 Excerpt: ...even of the better sort, were in the earlier times noted for their temperance and sobriety. Their ordinary food was wheaten bread, barley cakes, and meat simply roasted or boiled, which they seasoned with salt and with bruised cress-seed, --a substitute for mustard. The sole drink in which they indulged was water. Moreover, it was their habit to take one meal only each day. The poorer kind of people were contented with even a simpler diet, supporting themselves, to a great extent, on the natural products of the soil, as dates; figs, wild pears, acorns, and the fruit of the terebinth tree. But these abstemious habits were soon laid aside, and replaced by luxury and self-indulgence, when the success of their arms had " Universal History, - vol. i., p. 300. 106. What was the condition of the ancient Persians? Give the testimony of Herodotus and Rawlinson. put it in their power to have the full and free gratification of all their desires and propensities.... "Instead of water, wine became, the usual beverage; each man prided himself on the quantity he could drink; and the natural result followed, --that most banquets terminated in general intoxication. Drunkenness even came to be a sort of institution. Once a year, at the feast of Mithras, the King of Persia, according to Duris, was bound to be drunk. A general practice arose of deliberating on all important affairs under the influence of wine, so that in every household, when a family crisis impended, intoxication was a duty." 107. The Arabs, like the Jews, were, at one time, addicted to shameful excess in drinking. Mohamed found them so besotted that they worshipped sticks and stones. Yet, from a perception of the enormous evils of strong drink, as Warnerius observes, uthe more devout pagan A...