Deipnosophistae

Athenaeus of Naucratis

Athenaeus. The Deipnosophists or Banquet Of The Learned Of Athenaeus. Yonge, Charles Duke, translator. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854.

The Temple of the Muses is called by Timon the Phliasian, the satiric writer, the basket, by which term he means to ridicule the philosophers who frequent it, as if they were fattened up in a hen-coop, like valuable birds:—

Aegypt has its mad recluses,
Book-bewilder'd anchorites,
In the hen-coop of the Muses
Keeping up their endless fights.

. . . . till these table orators got cured of their diarrhea of words; a pack of men, who from their itch for talking appear to me to have forgotten the Pythian oracle, which Chameleon quotes—

Three weeks ere Sirius burns up the wheat,
And three weeks after, seek the cool retreat
Of shady house, and better your condition
By taking Bacchus for your sole physician.

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And so Mnesitheus the Athenian says that the Pythia enjoined the Athenians to honour Bacchus the physician. But Alcæus, the Mitylenæan poet, says—

Steep your heart in rosy wine, for see, the dog star is in view;
Lest by heat and thirst oppress'd you should the season's fury rue.

And in another place he says—

Fill me, boy, a sparkling cup;
See, the dogstar's coming up.

And Eupolis says that Callias was compelled to drink by Protagoras, in order that his lungs might not be melted away before the dogdays. But at such a time I not only feel my lungs dried up, but I may almost say my heart too. And Antiphanes says—

A. Tell me, I pray you, how you life define.
B. To drink full goblets of rich Chian wine.
You see how tall and fine the forest grows
Through which a sacred river ceaseless flows;
While on dry soils the stately beech and oak
Die without waiting for the woodman's stroke.

And so, says he, they, disputing about the dogstar, had plenty to drink. Thus the word βρέχω, to moisten or soak, is often applied to drinking. And so Antiphanes says—

Eating much may bring on choking,
Unless you take a turn at soaking.

And Eubulus has—

A. I Sicon come with duly moisten'd clay.
B. What have you drunk then? A. That you well may say.

Now the verb ἀναπίπτω, meaning to fall back, has properly reference to the mind, meaning to despair, to be out of heart. Thucydides says in his first book,

When they are defeated they are least of all people inclined to ἀναπίπτειν.

And Cratinus uses the same expression of rowers—

Ply your oars and bend your backs.

And Xenophon in his Œconomics says,

Why is it that rowers are not troublesome to one another, except because they sit in regular order, and bend forward in r gular order, and (ἀναπίπτουσιν) lean back in regular order?

—The word ἀνακεῖσθαι is properly applied to a statue, on which account they used to laugh at those who used the word of the guests at a feast, for whom the proper expression was κατακεῖμαι.

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Accordingly Diphilus puts into the mouth of a man at a feast—

I for a while sat down (ἀνεκείμην):

and his friend, not approving of such an expression, says, ʼἀνάκεισο. And Philippides has—

I supped too ἀνακειμένος in his house.

And then the other speaker rejoins—

What, was he giving a dinner to a statue?

But the word κατακεῖσθαι is used, and also κατακεκλῖσθαι, of reclining at meals: as Xenophon and Plato prove in their essays called the Banquet. Alexis too says—

'Tis hard before one's supper to lie down,
For if one does one cannot go to sleep;
Nor give much heed to aught that may be said;
One's thoughts being fix'd on what there 'll be to eat.

Not but what the word ἀνακεῖσθαι is used in this sense, though rarely. The satyr in Sophocles says—

If I catch fire I'll leap with a mighty
Spring upon Hercules, as ἀνακεῖται.

And Aristotle says, when speaking of the laws of the Tyrrhenians,

But the Tyrrhenians sup, ἀνακειμένοι with the women under the same covering.

Theopompus also says—

Then we the goblets fill'd with mighty wine,
On delicate couches κατακειμένος,
Singing in turn old songs of Telamon.

And Philonides says—

I have been here κατακειμένος a long time.

And Euripides says in the Cyclops—

ʼἀνέπεσε (which is the same as ἀνέκειτο
Breathing forth long and deep and heavy breath.

p And Alexis says—

After that I bade her ἀναπεσεῖν by my side.

The ancients, too, used the word πάσασθαι for to taste. And so Phœnix says to Achilles, "You would not πάσασθαι anything in any one else's house. And in another place we find—

When they ἐπάσαντο the entrails:

for they only taste the entrails, so that a great multitude

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might have a taste of what exists in but a small quantity. And Priam says to Achilles—-

Now I have tasted food, (πασάμην.)

For it was natural for a man suffering under such calamities as his, only just to taste food, for his grief would not permit him to go so far as to satisfy his hunger. And therefore, he who did not touch food at all is called

fasting,

ἄπαστος. But the poet never uses the word πάσασθαι of those who eat their fill; but in their case he uses words which express satiety:—

But when their minds were pleased (τάρφθεν) with wholesome food;

and,

When they had ceased to wish for meat and drink.

But more modern writers use the word πάσασθαι for being satisfied. Callimachus says—

I should like to satiate
(πάσασθαι) myself with thyme;

and Eratosthenes—

They roasted their game in the ashes and ate it,
(ἐπάσαντο) at least they all did who could get it.

We find in the Theban bard the expression,

glueing them together as one would glue one piece of wood to another.

Seleucus says that the expression so common in Homer, δαῖτα θάλειαν, is the same as δίαιτα by a slight alteration of the arrangement of the letters; for he thinks that is too violent a change to consider it as derived from δαίσασθαι.

Carystius of Pergamos relates that the Corcyrean women sing to this day when playing at ball. And in Homer, it is not only men who play, but women also. And they used to play at quoits also, and at throwing the javelin, with some grace:—

They threw the quoit, and hurl'd the playful spear.

For any amusement takes away the feeling of ennui. And young men prosecute hunting as a sort of practice against the dangers of war; and there is no sort of chase which they avoid; and the consequence is that they are more vigorous and healthy than they otherwise would be.

As when they stand firm as unshaken towers,
And face the foe, and pour forth darts in showers.

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The men of those times were acquainted with baths also of all sorts. as a relief from fatigue. Refreshing themselves after toil by bathing in the sea; which of all baths is the best for the sinews; and having relaxed the excessive strains of their muscles in the bath, they then anointed themselves with ointment, in order to prevent their bodies from becoming too rigid as the water evaporated. And so the men who returned from a reconnoissance,

Wash'd off their heat in Neptune's briny tides,
And bathed their heads, and legs, and brawny sides.[*](Iliad, x. 572.)

And then—

They to the polish'd marble baths repair,
Anoint with fresh perfumes their flowing hair,
And seek the banquet hall.

There was another way, too, of refreshing themselves and getting rid of their fatigue, by pouring water over the head:—

Then o'er their heads and necks the cooling stream
The handmaids pour'd:[*](Odyss. x. 362.)

for baths, in which the whole body is immersed, as the water surrounds all the pores on every side, prevents the escape of the perspiration, just as if a sieve were thrown into the water. For then nothing goes through the sieve, unless you lift it up out of the water, and so allow its pores, if one may call them so, to open, and make a passage through; as Aristotle says in his problems of natural philosophy, when he asks,

Why do men in a perspiration, when they come into warm or cold water no longer perspire, until they leave the bath again?

Vegetables also were set before the ancient heroes when they supped. And that they were acquainted with the use of vegetables is plain from the expression,

He went down to the furthest bed
In the well-order'd garden.

And they used onions too, though they have a very disagreeable smell:—

There was the onion, too, to season wine.

Homer represents his heroes also as fond of the fruit of trees:—

Figs after figs grow old, pears after pears.

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On which account also he calls those trees which bear fruit beauteous:—

There many a beauteous tree appears—
Pomegranates, apples, figs, and pears.

And those which are adapted for being cut down for timber he calls tall, distinguishing the epithets which h applies to each by their respective uses:—

There tall trees adorn the grove,
The ash, and pine that towers above.

And the use of these trees was older than the Trojan war. And Tantalus, even after he is dead, is not cured of his fancy for these fruits; as the god, to punish him, waves such before his eyes (just as men lead on irrational animals by holding branches in front of them), and then prevents him from enjoying them, the moment he begins to entertain a hope of doing so. And Ulysses reminds Laertes of what he gave him when he was a child:

You gave me thirteen pears

—and so on.

And that they used to eat fish, Sarpedon proves plainly, when he compares the being taken prisoner to fish caught in a large net. Yet Eubulus, jesting in the way that the comic writers allow themselves, says—

I pray you, where in Homer is the chief
Who e'er eat fish, or anything but beef?
And, though so much of liberty they boasted,
Their meat was never anything but roasted.

Nor did those heroes allow the birds the free enjoyment of the air; setting traps and nets for thrushes and doves. And they practised the art of taking birds, and, suspending a dove by a small string to the mast of a ship, then shot arrows at it from a distance, as is shown in the book describing the funeral games. But Homer passed over the use of vegetables, and fish, and birds, lest to mention them should seem like praising gluttony, thinking besides there would be a want of decorum in dwelling on the preparation of such things, which he considered beneath the dignity of gods and heroes. But that they did in reality eat their meat boiled as well as roasted, he shows when he says—

But as a caldron boils with melting fat
Of well-fed pig;

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and the foot of the ox which was thrown at Ulysses proves it too, for no one ever roasts oxen's feet. And the line too-

Then many a well-fill'd dish was duly set
On the full board, with every kind of meat;

as this not only speaks of the variety of meats, such as birds, pigs, kids, and beef; but it also speaks of the way in which they were dressed as having varied, and not having been all of one kind, but carefully arranged. So that you may see here the origin of the Sicilian and Sybaritic and Italian ways of giving feasts, and the Chian fashion also. For the Chians are reported not to have been less studious than the other nations just mentioned in the art of dressing their meat. Timocles says—

The Chians
Are splendid hands at dressing viands.

And in Homer, not only the young men, but the old men too, such as Phœnix and Nestor, sleep with the women; and Menelaus is the only man who has no woman allotted to him, inasmuch as he had collected the whole expedition for the sake of his wife, who had been carried away from him.

Pindar praises

Ancient wine and modern songs.

And Eubulus says—

Inconsistent it seems for a fair one to praise
Old wine, and to say that such never can cloy;
But bring her a man who has seen his best days,
And she'd rather put up with a whiskerless boy.

And Alexis says very nearly the same thing word for word; only using the word little instead of never. Though in reality old wine is not only more pleasant, but also better for health; for it aids digestion more; and being thinner it is itself more digestible; it also invigorates the body; and makes the blood red and fluid, and produces untroubled sleep. But Homer praises that wine most which will admit of a copious admixture of water; as the Maronean. And old wine will allow of more water being added to it, because its very age has added heat to it. And some men say, that the flight of Bacchus to the sea is emblematic of the making of wine, as it was practised long ago; because wine is very

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sweet when sea-water is poured into it. And Homer praising dark-coloured wine, often calls it αἴθοψ. For the dark-coloured wine is the strongest, and it remains in the system of the drinkers of it longer than any other. But Theopompus says, that black wine was first made among the Chians; and, that the Chians were the first people who imparted the knowledge of planting and tending vines to the rest of mankind, having learnt it from Œnopion the son of Bacchus, who was the original colonizer of their island. But white wine is weak and thin; but yellow wine is very digestible, being of a more drying nature.

Respecting the Italian wines, Galen is represented by this sophist as saying, that the Falernian wine is fit to drink from the time that it is ten or fifteen years old, till it is twenty; but after that time it falls off, and is apt to give headaches, and affects the nervous system. There are two kinds of Falernian wine, the dry and the sweet. The sweet wine is made when the south wind blows through the vineyard; which also makes it darker in colour. But that which is not made at this time is dry and yellow. Of the Alban wine there are also two kinds, one sweet and one sour; and both are in their prime after they are fifteen years old. The wine of Surrentum begins to be drinkable when five-and-twenty years old; for as it has no oil of any sort in it, and is very thin, it is a long time ripening: and when it is old it is nearly the only wine that is wholesome to be drunk for a continuance. But the Rhegian wine, being richer than the Surrentine, may be used as soon as it is fifteen years old. The wine of Privernum too is very good, being thinner than the Rhegian wine, and one which does not take much effect on the head. And the Formian wine is like it; and is a wine which soon comes to its prime; it is, however, a richer wine than the other, But the Trifoline wine is slower ripening, and has a more earthy taste than the Surrentine. The Setine is a wine of the first class, like the Falernian wine, but lighter, and not so apt to make "a man drunk. The wine of Tibur is thin, and evaporates easily, being at its best as soon as it is ten years old. Still it is better as it gets older. The Labican wine is sweet and oily to the taste, being something between the Falerrian and the Alban: and you may drink that when it is ten years old. There is the Gauran wine too, a scarce and very fine wine, and

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likewise very powerful and oily; more so indeed than the wine of Præneste or of Tibur. The Marsic is a very dry wine; and very good for the stomach. Around Cumæ in Campania there is a wine made which is called Ulban, a light wine, fit to be drunk when five years old. The wine of Ancona is a fine wine, and rather oily. The Buxentine is like the Alban, as far as being rather sour; but it is a strong wine, and good for the stomach. The Veliternian wine is very sweet to drink and good for the stomach; but it has this peculiarity, that it does not taste like a pure wine, but always has an appearance as if some other was mixed with it. The Calenian wine is light, and better for the stomach than the Falernian. The Cæcuban is a noble wine, full of strength and easily affecting the head; but it does not come to its prime till after many years. The Fundan wine is strong, and nutritious, and affects the head and stomach, on which account it is not much used at banquets. But the Sabine wine is lighter than any of these, and is fit to be drunk from the time that it is seven years old till it is fifteen; and the Signine wine is available at six years old, but as it gets older it is far more valuable. The wine of Nomentum gets in season very early, and can be drunk as soon as it is five years old; it is not very sweet, and not very thin; but that of Spoletum is very sweet to the taste, and has a golden colour. The wine of Capua is in many respects like the Surrentine wine. The Barbine is very dry and continually improving. The Caucine too is a noble wine, and resembles the Falernian. The wine of Venafrum is good for the stomach, and light. The Trebellian wine, which is made round Naples, is of moderate strength, good for the stomach, and pleasant to the taste. The Erbulian wine is at first dark coloured, but in a few years it becomes white; and it is a very light and delicate wine. That of Marseilles is a fine wine, but it is scarce, and thick, with a good deal of body. The Tarentine, and all the other wines of that district, are delicate wines, without very much strength or body, sweet, and good for the stomach. The Mamertine is a foreign wine, made out of Italy. There is also another wine made in Sicily, and called Iotaline; it is a sweet wine and light, but there is some strength in it.

Among the Indians a deity is worshipped, according to the

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account of Chares of Mitylene, who is called Soroadeus; which name, as interpreted in Greek, means Winemaker.

Antiphanes, that witty man, catalogues all the things which are peculiar to each city thus:—

Cooks come from Elis, pots from Argos,
Corinth blankets sends in barges,
Phlius wine, and Sicyon fish,
While cheese is a Sicilian dish.
Aegium sends flute-playing maids;
Perfumers ply their dainty trades
At Athens, under Pallas' eye;
Bœotia sends us eels to fry.

And Hermippus says,

Tell me, ye Muses, who th' Olympic height
Cheer with your holy songs and presence bright;
Tell me what blessings Bacchus gave to man,
Since first his vessel o'er the waters ran.
Ox-hides from Libya's coasts, and juicy kail:
The narrow sea, still vocal with the wail
Of lost Leander's bride, the tunny sends,
And our first meal with kipper'd salmon mends.
Groats come from Italy, and ribs of beef;
While Thrace sends many a lie and many a thief.
Still do the Spartans scratch their sides in vain,
Mad with the itching of th' Odrysian pain.
Then Syracuse gives cheese and well-fed pigs;
Fair Athens olives sends, and luscious figs.
Cursed of all islands let Corcyra be,
Where no especial excellence we see.
Sails come from Egypt, and this paper too;
Incense from Syria; Crete upholds to view
The cypress tall; and, dear to mighty Jove,
In Paphlagonia grows the almond grove.
The elephant sends its teeth from Afric's sands;
Pears and fat sheep grow on Eubœa's lands;
Rhodes sends us raisins, and beguiles the night
With figs that make our dreams and slumbers light
From Phrygia slaves, allies from Area's land;
The Pagas$ean ports their hirelings brand;
Phœnicia sends us dates across the billows,
???nd Carthage, carpets rich, and well-stuft'd pillows.

Pindar too, in the Pythian ode addressed to Hiero, says,

Give me the noble Spartan hound
With whose deep voice Eurotas' banks resound;
While the dark rocks
Of Scyrus give the choicest flocks
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Of milky goats; and, prompt at war's alarms,
Brave Argos burnishes the well-proved arms,
The Sicels build the rapid car,
And the fierce Thebans urge the chariot to the war.[*](This is no part of Pyth. 1 or 2, but a fragment of another ode.)

Critias tells us—

Know ye the land of the fair Proserpine,
Where the cottabus splashes the ominous wine;
Where the lightest and handsomest cars . . .

And what can for tired limbs compare
With the soft and yielding Thessalian chair?
But no town with Miletus vies
In the bridal bed's rich canopies.
But none the golden bowl can chase,
Or give to brass such varied grace,
As that renowned hardy race
That dwells by Arno's tide;
Phœnicia, mother of the arts,
Letters to learned men imparts;
Thebes scaled the mountain's side,
Bade the tough ash its trunk to yield,
And fill'd with cars the battle-field;
While Carians, masters of the seas,
First launch'd the boat to woo the breeze.
Offspring of clay and furnace bright,
The choicest porcelain clear and light
Boasts, as its birth-place, of the towers
Which Neptune's and Minerva's powers
From ills and dangers shield;
Which beat back war's barbaric wave
When Mede and Persian found a grave
In Marathon's undying field.

And indeed the pottery of Attica is deservedly praised. But Eubulus says,

Cnidian pots, Sicilian platters, and Megarian jars.

And Antiphanes enumerates

mustard, and also scammony juice from Cyprus; cardamums from Miletus; onions from Samothrace; cabbages, kail, and assafœtida from Carthage; thyme from Hymettus, and marjoram from Tenedos.

The Persian king used to drink no other wine but that called the Chalybonian, which Posidonius says is made in Damascus of Syria, from vines which were planted there by the Persians; and at Issa, which is an island in the Adriatic, Agatharchides says that wine is made which is superior to every other wine whatever. The Chian and Thasian wines

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are mentioned by Epilycus; who says that

the Chian and the Thasian wine must be strained.

And also,—

For all the ills that men endure,
Thasian is a certain cure;
For any head or stomach ache,
Thasian wine I always take,
And think it, as I home am reeling,
A present from the God of healing.

Clearchus speaks of

Lesbian wine, which Maro himself appears to me to have been the maker of.

And Alexis says—

All wise men think
The Lesbian is the nicest wine to drink.

And again he says—

His whole thoughts every day incline
To drink what rich and rosy wine
From Thasos and from Lesbos comes,
And dainty cakes and sugarplums.

And again—

Hail, O Bacchus, ever dear,
You who from Lesbos drove dull care
With sparkling rosy wine;
He who would give one glass away,
Too vile on cheerful earth to stay,
Shall be no friend of mine.

And Ephippus sings—

Oh how luscious, oh how fine
Is the Pramnian Lesbian wine!
All who 're brave, and all who're wise,
Much the wine of Lesbos prize.

And Antiphanes—

There is good meat, and plenteous dainty cheer;
And Thasian wine, perfumes, and garlands here;
Venus loves comfort; but where folks are poor,
The merry goddess ever shuns their door.

And Eubulus—

In Thasian wine or Chian soak your throttle,
Or take of Lesbian an old cobwebb'd bottle.

He speaks too of Psithian wine—

Give me some Psithian nectar, rich and neat,
To cool my thirst, and quench the burning heat.

And Anaxandrides mentions

a jar full of Psithian wine.

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Thesmophorius of Trœzene entitles the second θεσμοφοριάζουσαι of Aristophanes θεσμοφοριάσασαι.. In that play the poet speaks of Peparethian wine:—

Shun, my boy, the Pramnian cup,
Nor Thasian drink, nor Chian sup;
Nor let your glass with Peparethian brighten—
For bachelors that liquor's too exciting.

Elbulus says—

As sweet as
Wine from Leucas or Miletus.

Archestratus, the author of

The Art of giving a Banquet,

says,—

When a libation to the gods you make,
Let your wine worthy be, and ripe and old;
Whose hoary locks droop o'er his purple lake,
Such as in Lesbos' sea-girt isle is sold.
Phœnicia doth a generous liquor bear,
But still the Lesbian I would rather quaff;
For though through age the former rich appear,
You'll find its fragrance will with use go off.
But Lesbian is the true ambrosial juice,
And so the gods, whose home's Olympus, think it;
And if some rather the Phoenician choose,
Let them, as long as they don't make you drink it.
The Thasian isle, too, noble wine doth grow,
When passing years have made its flavour mellow,
And other places too; still all I know
Is that the Lesbian liquor has no fellow.
I need not stop to tell you all the names
Of towns which in the generous contest vie,
Each for itself the vict'ry hotly claims;
But still the Lesbian wine beats all, say I.

Ephippus, too, mentions the Phoenician wine, saying,

Nuts, pomegranates, dates, and other sweetmeats, and small casks of Phœnician wine.

And again,—

A cask of good Phœnician wine was tapp'd.

Xenophon, too, mentions it in his Anabasis. The Mendæan wine is mentioned by Cratinus:—

When a man tastes Mendæan wine,
How rich, says he, how sweet, how fine!
I wonder where it can be bought, or
What's the right quantity of water.

And Hermippus somewhere introduces Bacchus as mentioning several different kinds of wine:—

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Mendæan wine such as the gods distil,
And sweet Magnesian, cures for every ill,
And Thasian, redolent of mild perfume;
But of them all the most inviting bloom
Mantles above old Homer's Chian glass;
That wine doth all its rivals far surpass.
There is a wine, which Saprian they call,
Soon as the seals from whose rich hogshead fall,
Violets and roses mix their lovely scent,
And hyacinths, in one rich fragrance blent;
You might believe Jove's nectar sparkled there,
With such ambrosial odour reeks the air.
This is the wine I'll to my friends disclose;
The Peparethian trash may suit my foes.

And Phanias the Eresian poet says that the Mendæans are in the habit of syringing the grapes with opening medicine, even while still on the vine; and that this makes the wine soft.

Themistocles received from the king of Persia Lampsacus, to supply him with wine; Magnesia, for bread; Myus, for meat; and Percope and Palæscepsis were to provide him with bedclothes and garments. The king moreover enjoined him to wear a cloak such as is worn by the barbarians, as he had previously bade Demaratus do; and he gave him the same presents as he had formerly given to Demaratus, and added also a robe such as is worn by the sons-in-law of the king, on condition of his never reassuming the Greek attire. And Cyrus the Great gave Pytharchus of Cyzicus, being a friend of his, seven cities, as is related by Agathocles of Babylon; namely, Pedasus, and Olympius, and Cama, and Tium, and Sceptra, and Artypsus, and Tortyra. But he, being made insolent and having his head turned by this liberality, attempted to make himself tyrant of his country, and collected an army for that purpose. On which the people of Cyzicus went out to battle against him, and attacked him eagerly, and so preserved their liberties.

Among the people of Lampsacus Priapus is held in high honour, being the same as Bacchus, and having this name Priapus only as an epithet, just as Thriambus and Dithyrambus are.

The Mitylenæans have a sweet wine which they call πρόδρομος, and others call it πρότροπος.

The Icarian wine, too, is held in high estimation, as Amphis says:—

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Thurium gives the olive juice,
Lentils Gela's fields produce;
Icarian wine well merits praise,
And figs which the Cimolians raise.

The Pramnian wine, too, according to Eparchides, is produced in Icarus. It is a peculiar kind of wine; and it is neither sweet nor thick, but dry and hard, and of extraordinary strength; and Aristophanes says that the Athenians did not like it, for that

the Athenian people did not like hard and sour poets, nor hard Pramnian wines, which contract the eyebrows and the stomach; but they prefer a fragrant wine, ripe, and flavoured like nectar.

For Semus says that there is in Icarus a rock called the Pramnian rock; and near it is a great mountain, from which the Pramnian wine has its name, and some call it a medicinal wine. Now Icarus used formerly to be called the Fishy Icarus, from the number of fish around it; just as the Echinades had their name from the sea-urchins, and the promontory Sepias from the number of cuttle-fish which are taken near it. And in like manner the Lagussæ islands are so called from λαγὼς, a hare, as being full of hares. And other islands are called Phycussæ, and Lopadussæ, for similar reasons. And according to Eparchides, the vine which produces the Icarian Pramnian wine, is called by the strangers the Holy vine, and by the people of Œnoe the Dionysiac vine. And Œnoe is a city in the island.

But Didymus says that the Pramnian wine comes from a vine called Pramnian; and some say that the name means merely dark-coloured. But others affirm that it is a generic name for wine suitable for long keeping, as being παραμένιος, that is to say, such as can be kept. And some say that it is so called from πραΰνειν τὸ μένος, mollifying anger, because those who drink it become good-humoured.

Amphis praises also the wine which comes from the city of Acanthus, saying,—

A. Whence do you come, friend? speak.
B. From Acanthus I.
A. Acanthus? then I trow,
Since you're a countryman of wine so strong,
You must be fierce yourself;
Your country's name is thorny,[*](῎ἄκανθα is Greek for a thorn.) but I hope
Your manners are not quite so rough and prickly.

v.1.p.51

And Alexis mentions Corinthian wine as a harsh wine—

And foreign wine was there; for that from Corinth
Is painful drinking.

He speaks, too, of wine from Eubœa—

Drinking deep draughts of harsh Eubœan wine.

The Naxian wine is compared by Archilochus to nectar. And he says in some one of his poems—

My spear finds corn, my spear finds wine,
From Ismarus; on my spear I dine,
And on it, when fatigued, recline.

But Strattis praises the wine of Sciathus—

The black Sciathian wine mix'd half and half,
Invites the traveller to halt and quaff.

And Achæus praises the Bibline wine—

He pledged him in a cup of Bibline wine.

While it has its name from some district which is called by a similar appellation. And Philyllius says,—

I'll give you Lesbian, Chian wine,
Thasian, Mendæan, and Bibline;
Sweet wines, but none so strong and heady
As that you shall next day feel seedy.

But Epicharmus says that it is named from some mountains of a similar name. And Armenidas says that there is a district of Thrace called the Biblian, the same which was afterwards called Tisara, and Œsyma. And it was very natural for Thrace to be admired as a country producing fine wines; and indeed all the adjacent country deserves the same character.

Full of rich wine the ships from Lemnos came.

But Hippias the Rhegian says that the wine called the creeper was also called Biblian; and that Pollis the Argive, who was king of Syracuse, was the first person who brought it to Syracuse from Italy. And if that be true, probably the sweet wine which among the Sicilians is called Pollian, is the same as the Bibline wine. There is an ancient oracle:—

Drink wine where lees abound, since Fate has not
Placed you amid Anthedon's flowery plains,
Or in the streets of sacred Hypera,
Where purer wine abounds.

v.1.p.52

And there was a vine among the people of Trœzene, (as Aris- totle says, in his book on their polity,) called Anthedonian, and another called Hyperian; from men of the name of Anthus and Hyperus, just as the Althephian vine is named after a man of the name of Althephias, one of the descendants of Alpheus.

Aleman somewhere speaks of a wine as free from fire, and smelling of flowers, which is produced from the Five Hills, a place about seven furlongs from Sparta. And he mentions another wine which comes from Denthiades, a small fortress, and another from Œnus, and another from Onogle and Stathmi. And these places are all near Pitane. Accordingly, he says,

And wine from Œnus, or from Denthis, or from Carystus, or from Onoglæ, or from Stathmi.

The Carystian wine is that which comes from Carystus in Laconia, on the borders of Arcadia. And he calls it

free from fire

as not having been boiled; for they often used boiled wines. Polybius says that there was an admirable wine made at Capua; which was called ἀναδενδρίτης, to which no other wine was at all comparable. But Alciphron of the Mæander says, that there was a mountain village near the Ephesian territories, which was formerly called Latona's, but is now called Latorea, from Latorea the Amazon; and that there also Pramnian wine is made. Timachidas the Rhodian calls a wine made at Rhodes ὑπόχυτος, or the adulterated wine, being near akin to sweet wine. But that wine is called γλύξις which goes through no process of decoction.

There is also a Rhodian wine, which Polyzelus calls αὐτίτης· [*](αἰτίτης, by itself, i.e. unmixed.) and another which Plato the comic writer calls καπνίας;[*](καπνίας,i.e. smoky.) and this wine is made in the greatest perfection at Beneventum, a city in Italy. But the wine Amphis is spoken of as a very poor wine by Sosicrates. The ancients used also a certain wine made of spices, which they called τρίμμα. But Theophrastus, in his History of Plants, says, that a wine is made in Heræa in Arcadia which, when it is drunk, drives men out of their senses, and makes women inclined to preg- nancy: and that around Cerunia in Achaia there is a kind of vine, from which a wine is made which has a tendency to cause abortion in pregnant women; and if they eat the grapes too, says he, they miscarry;—and the Trœzenian wine, he says, makes those who drink it barren: and at Thasos,

v.1.p.53

says he, they make a wine which produces sleep, and another which causes those who drink it to keep awake.

But concerning the manufacture of scented wine, Phanias of Eresus says,

There is infused into the wine one portion of sea-water to fifty of wine, and that becomes scented wine.

And again he says,

Scented wine is made stronger of young than of old vines;

and he subjoins,

Having trodden on the unripe grapes they put the wine away, and it becomes scented.

But Theophrastus says, that

the wine at Thasos, which is given in the prytaneum, is wonderfully delicious; for it is well seasoned; for they knead up dough with honey, and put that into the earthen jars; so that the wine receives fragrance from itself, and sweetness from the honey.

And he proceeds to say,

If any one mixes harsh wine which has no smell with soft and fragrant wine, such, for instance, as the Heraclean wine with that of Erythræ, softness is derived from the one, and wholesomeness from the other.

And the Myrtite or Myrrhine wine is spoken of by Posidippus:—

A tasteless, dry, and foolish wine
I consider the myrrhine.

Hermes, too, is mentioned by Strattis as the name of a drink. And Chæreas says, that a wine is made in Babylon which is called nectar.

The bard of Ceos says—

'Tis not enough to mix your wine with taste,
Unless sweet converse seasons the repast;
And Bacchus' gifts well such regard deserve,
That we should e'en the stones of grapes preserve.

Now of wines some are white, some yellow, and some red. The white is the thinnest in its nature, diuretic, and warm; and being a promoter of digestion it causes a heat in the head; for it is a wine which has a tendency to move upwards. But of red wine that which is not sweet is very nutritious, and is astringent; but that which is sweet (as is the case with even white and yellow wine also) is the most nutrition of all: for it softens all the ducts and passages, and thickens the fluid parts of the body, and does not at all confuse the head. For in reality the nature of sweet wine lingers about the ribs, and engenders spittle, as Diodes and Praxagoras asset. But Mnesitheus the Athenian says,

Red wine is the mot nutritious; but white is the most diuretic and the thinnest; and the
v.1.p.54
yellow is a dry wine, and that which most assists in the digestion of the food.

Now the wines which have been very carefully prepared with sea-water never cause headaches; and they open the bowels, and sometimes gripe the stomach, and produce flatulency, and assist in the digestion of food. Of this character is the Myndian wine, and that of Halicarnassus. And so Menippus the Cynic calls Myndus

brine-drinking.

The Coan wine too has a good deal of sea-water in it. The Rhodian has not so much sea-water; but a great deal of that wine is good for nothing. Wine made in the islands is very good to drink, and not at all ill-calculated for daily use. But Cnidian wine makes blood, is nutritious, and keeps the bowels in a healthy state; though if it is drunk in great quantities it relaxes the stomach. The Lesbian wine is less astringent, and more diuretic. But the Chian is a nicer wine; and of all the Chian wine, that called the Aryusian is the best. And of this there are three varieties: for there is a dry kind, and a sweet kind; and that the flavour of which is between the two is called autocratic, that is, self-mixed. Now the dry kind is pleasant to the taste, nutritious, and more diuretic than the others; but the sweet kind is nutritious, filling, and apt to soften the bowels. The autocratic wine in its effects also is something between the two. But, generally speaking, the Chian wine is digestible, nutritious, a producer of good blood, mild, and filling, inasmuch as it has a great deal of body. But the nicest of all wines are the Alban and Falernian wines of Italy; but these, if they have been kept a length of time and are old, acquire a medicinal effect, and rapidly produce a sensation of heaviness. But the wine called Adrian relieves any oppression of the breath, is very digestible, and wholly free from all unpleasant consequences; but these wines require to be made with rapidity, and then to be set in an open place, so as to allow the thicker portions of their body to evaporate. But the best wine to keep a length of time is the Corcyrean. The Zacynthian and Leucadian wines also are apt to be bad for the head, because they contain chalk. There is a wine from Cilicia, called Abates, which has no effect except that of relaxing the bowels. But hard water, such as that from springs, or from rain if it is filtered, and has stood some time, agrees very well with Coan and Myndian and Halicarnassian wine,

v.1.p.55

and indeed with every wine which has plenty of salt-water in it. And accordingly these wines are of the greatest use at Athens and Sicyon, because the waters in these cities are harsh. But for those wines which have no sea-water, and which are of a more astringent nature, especially for the Chian and Lesbian wine, the purest water is the most suitable.

Oh thou my tongue, whom silence long hath bound,
How wilt thou bear this tale of thine t' unfold?
Hard is their fate to whom compulsion stern
Leaves no alternative; which now compels thee
To open what thy lord would fain conceal.

These are the words of Sophocles.

The Mareotic wine, which comes from Alexandria, had its name from a fountain in the district of Alexandria called Marea; and from a town of the same name which was close to it; which was formerly a place of great importance, but is now reduced to a petty village. And the fountain and town derived their name from Maro, who was one of the companions of Bacchus in his expedition. And there are many vines in that country, which produce grapes very good to eat when raw, and the wine which is made from them is excellent. For it is white, and sweet, and good for the breath, and digestible, and then, it never produces any ill effect on the head, and is diuretic. And still better than this is the wine called Tæniqtic. The word ταινία means a riband; and there is in that district a long narrow riband of land, the wines produced from which are of a slightly green colour, with something oily in them, which is quickly dissolved when it is mixed with water; just as the Attic honey is dissolved by the same process. This Tæniotic wine, in addition to being sweet, has something aromatic in it, of a slightly astringent character. But there are vines near the Nile in great quantities as far as the river extends; and there are many peculiarities in those vines, both a to their colour and as to their use. However, the best of all the wines made in that district is that made near the city of Antylla (which is not far from Alexandria), the revenues fro which the kings of those ages, both the Egyptian and Persian kings, used to give to their wives for pin-money. But the wine which is made in the Thebais, especially that near the city Coptos, is light, and easy of digestion, and also so great an assistant in

v.1.p.56

the digestion of the rest of one's food, that it is given to people in fevers without injury.

You praise yourself, as does Astydamas, woman!

(Astydamas was a tragic poet.)