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In Greece and Italy: Saturn

Porphyry alludes to intoxicating honey in his "Cave of the Nymphs," where he tells us : - "In Orpheus, likewise, Saturn is ensnared by Jupiter through honey. For Saturn, being filled with honey, is intoxicated, his senses are darkened, as if from the effects of wine, and he sleeps. The goddess Night, too, in Orpheus, advises Jupiter to make use of honey as an artifice. For she says to him: - ""When stretch'd beneath the lofty oak's good view, Saturn, with honey by the bees produced, Sunk in ebriety, fast bind the god. " و And Horace, in his "Ode to Bacchus," says : - "Give me to sing, by thee inspir'd, Thy priestesses to madness fir'd :

Fountains of wine shall pour along, And, melting from the hollow tree, The golden treasures of the bee, And streams of milk shall fill the song."

In Greece and Italy The intoxication induced by honey was in many instances considered a divine frenzy, and it was through eating honey that the powers of prophecy were obtained by the Fates, as Homer, in his "Hymn to Mercury," tells us.

Apollo is addressing Mercury and telling him of the three Fates: - "From these I have learned true Vaticinations of remotest things.

My father cared not. Whilst they search out dooms, They sit apart and feed on honey-combs."

They, having eaten the fresh honey, grow "Drunk with divine enthusiasm, and utter With earnest willingness the truth they know, But, if deprived of that sweet food, they mutter All plausible delusions; - these to you I give; - if you inquire, they will not stutter; Delight your own soul with them; - any man You would instruct may profit if he can."

This divine madness seizing the fates through the honey of the bee recalls to mind the Hebrew prophetess Deborah. In this connection bees, like birds, were augurs of good or ill fortune in the old days of Greece and Italy, and had power to foretell what was about to happen.

A wsarm of bees settling on a house foretold a conflagration, which recalls the sacrifices considered necessary by the ancient Hindus when a man's house was made the resting-place of a swarm of bees.

A swarm of bees sometimes foretold misfortune, as in the case of the defeat of Scipio when engaged in war with Hannibal. Livy the historian describes in a graphic manner Hannibal's influence over his troops gained by great promises of what he would give them if they won, and how they "with one mind and one voice demanded the battle," and then adds: "By no means so great an alacrity prevailed among the Romans, who, in addition to other causes, were also alarmed by recent prodigies; for both a wolf had entered the camp, and having torn those who met him, had escaped unhurt, and a swarm of bees had settled on a tree overhanging the general's tent."

In this case the prophecy of defeat was fulfilled, but it did not always happen so; as Pliny tells us, - "Bees settled, too, in the camp of the chieftain Drusus when he gained the brilliant victory of Arbalo; a proof, indeed, that the conjectures of soothsayers are not by any means infallible, seeing that they are of opinion that this is always of evil augury."