Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 10, 440c
“This is the reason why the most divine Plato rightly legislated in his second book of Laws that boys should not taste wine at all until they are 18 years old. For it is not right to heat fire with fire! It is permissible to taste a limited amount of wine up to thirty, but a young man should completely refrain from being drunk or drinking a lot. When a man is forty years old he can pray to the rest of gods in the common mess and then may appeal to Dionysus and the rites of the elders and the games they have. Wine is the drug which Dionysus granted to humans as a companion for harsher old age, so we might recover ourselves and forget our despair.”
Διόπερ ὁ θειότατος Πλάτων καλῶς νομοθετεῖ ἐν τῷ δευτέρῳ τοὺς παῖδας μέχρι ἐτῶν ὀκτωκαίδεκα τὸ παράπαν οἴνου μὴ γεύεσθαι· οὐ γὰρ χρὴ πῦρ ἐπὶ πῦρ cὀχετεύειν. οἴνου δὲ μετρίου γεύεσθαι. μέχρι τριάκοντα ἐτῶν, μέθης δὲ καὶ πολυοινίας τὸ παράπαν τὸν νέον ἀπέχεσθαι. τετταράκοντα δὲ ἐπιβαίνοντα ἐτῶν ἐν τοῖς συσσιτίοις εὐωχηθέντα καλεῖν τούς τε ἄλλους θεοὺς καὶ δὴ <καὶ> Διόνυσον παρακαλεῖν εἰς τὴν τῶν πρεσβυτῶν τελετὴν ἅμα καὶ παιδιάν, ἣν τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ἐπίκουρον τῆς τοῦ γήρως αὐστηρότητος ἐδωρήσατο τὸν οἶνον φάρμακον, ὥστε ἀνηβᾶν ἡμᾶς καὶ δυσθυμίας λήθην γίγνεσθαι.
And, if we believe the news, it just might help us live a little longer…
Io, Dionysus!