Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists
C. D. Yonge, B.A., Ed.

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It is in consequence of wine that both comedy and tragedy were discovered in Icarium, a village of Attica; and it was at the time of the grape harvest that these inventions were first introduced, from which comedy was at first called τρυγῳδία.

Euripides, in the Bacchæ, says that Bacchus

Gave men the wine which every grief dispels;
Where wine is not, there Venus never dwells,
Nor any other thing which men hold dear.

And Astydamas says that Bacchus

Gave men the vine which cures all mortal grief,
Parent of genial wine.

“For,” says Antiphanes, “a man who continually fills [p. 66] himself with wine becomes indifferent and careless; but he who drinks but little is very meditative.” And Alexis says—

I'm not beside myself with drink; nor have I so much taken
As not to be quite understood by those to whom I'm speaking.

But Seleucus says that it was not an ancient custom to indulge in wine or any other luxury to excess, except, indeed, on the occasion of some sacred festival; which is the origin of the names θοῖναι, and θάλιαι, and μέθαι.—θοῖναι meaning that men thought it right διὰ θεοὺς οἰνοῦσθαι, to drink wine ###on account of the gods; θάλιαι meaning that χάριν θεῶν ἡλίζοντο, they assembled and met together in honour of the gods. And this comes to the same as the Homeric expression δαῖτα θάλειαν. And Aristotle says that the word μεθύειν is derived from the fact that men used wine μετὰ τὸ θύειν, after sacrificing.