A man is not fond of wine who has been used from his earliest years to drink water. But— 'Tis sweet, at a banquet or festival meeting,To chat o'er one's wine, when the guests have done eating, says Hesiod in his Melampodia.

It has not occurred to any one of you to say a word about water, though wine is made of it, and though Pindar, the most grandiloquent of poets, has said that water is the best of all things. And Homer, too, the most divine of all poets, recognised it as a most nutritious thing, when he spoke of a grove of poplars nourished by the water. He also praises its transparent nature— Four fountains flow'd with clearest water white;Odyss. v. 70. and the water which is of a lighter nature, and of greater value, he calls lovely: at all events he calls the Titaresius lovely which falls into the Peneus. And he mentions also some water as especially good for washing; and Praxagoras of Cos, following his example, speaks of a water as beauteous— Beauteous it flows, to wash all dirt away. And he distinguishes also between sweet water and brackish (πλατὺς) water; though when he calls the Hellespont πλατὺς, he uses the word in the sense of broad. But with respect to sweet water, he says— Near the sweet waters then our ships we stay'd.Ib. xii. 360.