uncarnetmaisvirtuel:

whydoiloveyouanyway:

uncarnetmaisvirtuel:

My mom have been to Germany recently, and she told me she did the “internal screaming dead face” whenever people offered her a drink  because Germans drink their wine mixed with sparkling water and 

Germans did it, they did better than the Greeks and the Romans with their wine mixed with still water

JUST IMAGINE SOME ANCIENT GREEK DUDE TASTING A GERMAN MIXED WINE

but … one of the things that fascinates Romans about Germans (and would probably similarly shock and confuse any given Greek city-state if they had also conquered Germany) is that they don’t drink wine

this is a little bit in historians (Caesar BG vi.22 remarks as strange that Germans don’t have agriculture at all – they just eat meat and cheese) but as ever the source most salient to me is Lucretius, proem to book v, when he explains that if various gods count as gods bc they gave us such gifts, Epicurus is clearly a god as well

[from memory: Hercules just slew a bunch of beasts and monsters no one cares about and that, honestly, would probably be dead by now anyway

Ceres gave us grain and Liber gave us wine but not everyone even plants grain or drinks wine, so it’s obviously not necessary for life. (that this is probably about Germans, I take from Leonard & Smith’s commentary)

but everyone needs truth and happiness, which Epicurus first gave us the possibility of, so you know. way more than a mere cult hero. a true divinity]

….. but anyway the idea that if not for our knowledge of the Germans, we would naturally have thought it obvious that everyone needed wine to live … is just so very Roman

Ancient greek/roman : but I thought you Germans did not drink wine

German from the 21th century, drunk : We do and we’re better at it than you are

Ancient greek/roman : finally, they understand :’)