How Wine Created Democracy

If you could wander around the Aegean coast around 700 B.C. you would find an abundance of alcohol; wine specifically. The libation was a mainstay of Hellenistic society and it was used to honor the gods, as currency, as medicine, as a thirst-quencher (and to get drunk). In fact, using alcohol was considered a civic duty in Athens. At great gatherings and feasts officials, known as oinoptai made sure that the good stuff was distributed fairly. By showing the citizens that government could be trusted with something as important as wine, the Greeks ushered in demokratia or “people power” and entered a classical age marked by an unparalleled creativity unmatched in the history of mankind.

It can fairly be said that wine invented democracy.