About four hundred years after the Deluge, King Gomer Chephoraod
reigned in Babylon. He united all the characteristics of an
excellent sovereign. He made good laws, won great battles, and
white-washed long streets. He was, in consequence, idolised by
his people, and panegyrised by many poets and orators. A book
was then a sermons undertaking. Neither paper nor any similar
material had been invented. Authors were therefore under the
necessity of inscribing their compositions on massive bricks.
Some of these Babylonian records are still preserved in European
museums; but the language in which they are written has never
been deciphered. Gomer Chephoraod was so popular that the clay
of all the plains round the Euphrates could scarcely furnish
brick-kilns enough for his eulogists. It is recorded in
particular that Pharonezzar, the Assyrian Pindar, published a
bridge and four walls in his praise.

One day the king was going in state from his palace to the temple
of Belus. During this procession it was lawful for any
Babylonian to offer any petition or suggestion to his sovereign.
As the chariot passed before a vintner's shop, a large company,
apparently half-drunk, sallied forth into the street, and one of
them thus addressed the king:

"Gomer Chephoraod, live for ever! It appears to thy servants
that of all the productions of the earth good wine is the best,
and bad wine is the worst. Good wine makes the heart cheerful,
the eyes bright, the speech ready. Bad wine confuses the head,
disorders the stomach, makes us quarrelsome at night, and sick
the next morning. Now therefore let my lord the king take order
that thy servants may drink good wine.