O learned Maecenas, if you believe old Gratinus, no verses which are written by water- drinkers can please, or be long- lived. Ever since Bacchus enlisted the brain- sick poets among the Satyrs and the Fauns, the sweet muses have usually smelt of wine in the morning. Homer, by his excessive praises of wine, is convicted as a booser: father Ennius himself never sallied forth to sing of arms, unless in drink. "I will condemn the sober to the bar and the prater 's bench, and deprive the abstemious of the power of singing." 