Ancient wine wisdom

Those Greek dudes were pretty wise (the women were, too, but didn’t get to write). Ditto the Babylonians. To wit:

• “At the head of all medicine am I, wine;  only when there is no wine are drugs required.” — Babylonian Talmud: Baba Bathra

• “There is no gladness without wine.” — Babylonian Talmud: Baba Bathra

• “Plant no tree sooner than the vine.” — Alcaeus (left), Greek poet

• “The wine urges me on, the bewitching wine, which sets even a wise man to singing and laughing gently and rouses him up to dance and brings forth words which were better unspoken.”  — Homer, “The Odyssey”

• “Boys should abstain from all use of wine until after their eighteenth year, for it is wrong to add fire to fire.” — Plato