among the Scythians. These schismatics refused to worship a divinity who
caused the faithful to become intoxicated.[XXVIII-32] In other places
they sacrificed to him a tiger, in order to show the power of his
empire;[XXVIII-33] and zealous disciples, with their heads crowned with
branches of the vine, holding in one hand a crater and in the other a
torch, ran with dishevelled hair about the streets, shouting to the son
of Jupiter, the terrible Evius,[XXVIII-34] in the silence of the
night.[XXVIII-35]
The Romans addressed to him special prayers twice a year, on the
occasion of the wine festivals,[XXVIII-36] which took place in the
months of May and September. In the first, they tasted the
wine;[XXVIII-37] and, during the second, they implored the god to grant
Italy fine weather and abundant vintages.[XXVIII-38]
The god could not reasonably refuse this request, for the vine-dressers
spared neither labour nor fatigue to procure an abundant harvest. They
were constantly seen disincumbering the plant of a too luxurious
foliage, thereby exposing the grapes to the sun’s rays, which bring them
to maturity, and breaking with indefatigable perseverance the least
clods of earth which, accumulating around the tendrils, appeared to
fatigue them by their weight.[XXVIII-39] And woe to the thief whom they
detected by night stealing any of these carefully reared grapes; his
crime was punished with death, unless the inexperience of youth pleaded
in his favour. In that case a severe flagellation impressed on
[Illustration: _Pl. 25._]
him permanently the remembrance of his fault and of the rights of
property.[XXVIII-40]
The imperial jurisprudence afterwards softened the Draconian rigour of
this law of the Decemviri.[XXVIII-41]
The ancients, like ourselves, were fond of seeing fresh grapes appear on
their tables at all periods of the year. They preserved them by covering
them with barley flour,[XXVIII-42] or by placing fine bunches in rain
water, diminished to a third by boiling. The vase was hermetically
sealed with pitch and plaster, and then placed in a spot where the sun’s
rays could not enter. This water was an excellent beverage for the
sick.[XXVIII-43]
The method of making wine was precisely the same both in Greece and
Italy.
The vine gatherers carefully rejected the green grapes,[XXVIII-44] and
piled the others in deep baskets,[XXVIII-45] the contents of which were
instantly emptied into large vats. There men, hardly clothed in the
lightest garments, trampled them under their feet,[XXVIII-46] whilst
joyous songs and sounds of flutes hastened their movements, and animated
them to work faster.[XXVIII-47]
Wine obtained in this manner was much esteemed, and kept very
well.[XXVIII-48] The wort which escaped from the vat as soon as they had
thrown in the grapes, and which came from the pressure occasioned by
their laying one on the other, enjoyed the preference. This first liquor
was transformed into an exquisite wine.[XXVIII-49]
The grapes, crushed by the feet, were placed under the press,[XXVIII-50]
and an opening made in the lower part of the vat allowed the wort to
flow into earthen jars, whence it was subsequently poured into the
barrels.[XXVIII-51]
The press was always raised at a little distance from the cellar and
kitchen.[XXVIII-52] Its mechanism was very simple. The antiquities of
Herculaneum will furnish us with an example. Two trees were firmly fixed
in the ground, at a few feet distance one from the other, and a strong
horizontal beam rested on their summit. Other pieces of wood, similar
DESCRIPTION OF PLATE No. XXII.
No. 1. Wine-press, explained in the text.
No. 2. A large vase, in which a man is sitting, supposed to be
Diogenes. This amphora is broken, and the pieces are joined by ties
of lead, cut dove-tailed. It is a bass-relief, from the Villa
Albani, published by Winkelman.
No. 3. Represents a beast of burthen, with a pack saddle, loaded
with two amphoræ. This piece of terra cotta, drawn the size of the
original, is taken from the collection of children’s playthings of
Prince de Biscari. The difficulty of carriage was so great in
mountainous countries, that the inhabitants of the Alps substituted
for vessels of terra cotta, casks, or wooden tubs, put together
with wooden circles, similar to our own. (See Plate III., No. 4.,
Chariot with four wheels, loaded with a cask.)
to the top piece, were placed underneath. The grapes occupied the space
between the vat and the lower plank. Between each of the cross planks
wedges were introduced, and two persons kept striking them with hammers,
one on each side; it is thus the pressure was effected.[XXVIII-53] Wine
from the press, inferior to those just mentioned, served for the
ordinary consumption of the family, and for the servants.[XXVIII-54] It
was not racked, but simply taken from the barrel as it was
wanted.[XXVIII-55]
The lees were taken from the press when it yielded no more liquor; a
certain quantity of water was poured over them, and the whole subjected
to a second pressure. The weak kind of wine obtained by this new
operation must have somewhat resembled that acrid stuff called
_piquette_, in France; it was the beverage of the people, and especially
of the country people during the winter.[XXVIII-56]
A part of the wort--that which was required for immediate use--was put
aside, and clarified with vinegar.[XXVIII-57] A portion of that obtained
from the crushed grapes was put to boil on furnaces, supported on three
legs, at a little distance from the press, in coppers, the contents of
which were continually stirred.[XXVIII-58] This liquor, reduced by a
third, was called carenum;[XXVIII-59] when the half only remained, it
was called _defrutum_;[XXVIII-60] and, lastly, when the ebullition left
only a third part remaining, this substance, very similar to honey, took
the name of _sapa_.[XXVIII-61] It was mixed with flour, to fatten the
snails reared by skilful speculators, who reserved them for the Roman
sybarites.[XXVIII-62]
This wort, thus prepared by night, when the moon did not
shine,[XXVIII-63] and carefully skimmed,[XXVIII-64] served to preserve
wines, to give more body to those which were thought too weak, and
became the base of several beverages sought in preference by Roman
ladies, at that period of life when maturity of years made alliance with
sensuality.[XXVIII-65]
Those who wished to preserve sweet wine during a whole year, filled with
the second wort--that is to say, that which was produced by the pression
of the feet--some amphoræ covered with pitch inside and out. They were
then hermetically sealed, and buried in the sand, or plunged in cold
water, where they remained at least two months.[XXVIII-66]
There still was left a large quantity of wort as it came from the
grapes. This was taken into the cellar,[XXVIII-67] which was always
situated a little below the level of the ground; or to the ground floor,
where no kind of smell was allowed to penetrate, or any emanation
capable of spoiling the bouquet of the wine it contained.[XXVIII-68]
[Illustration: _Pl. 26._]
At Herculaneum a spacious cellar has been discovered, round which
hogsheads were ranged, and built into the wall.[XXVIII-69] Another
cellar, at Pompeii, remarkable for its small size, is divided into two
compartments, both containing barrels, and divided one from the other by
an horizontal wall.[XXVIII-70]
Large earthen vessels were found there, with and without handles, very
carefully executed, and smeared with pitch.[XXVIII-71] We know that the
cynic, Diogenes, dwelt in one of these vases; and that the king,
Alexander, found him crouching in his strange kind of
carapace.[XXVIII-72] The ancients had butts also, but they used them
only in cold countries.[XXVIII-73]
The _Dolia_--for so they were named--were first subjected to a
fumigation with aromatic plants; then watered with sea-water, and buried
half way in the earth. They were separated each one from another, and
strict attention was paid to see that the cellar contained neither
leather, nor cheese, nor figs, nor old casks. Sometimes persons who
inhabited the country paved the store-room, spread sand, and placed the
dolia on it.[XXVIII-74]
At the end of nine days, when the fermentation had cleared the wine from
those substances it rejects, they carefully covered the dolia, after
having smeared all the upper part of the inside, as well as the covers
themselves, with a mixture of defrutum, saffron, mastic, pitch, and pine
nuts.[XXVIII-75] The butts of aqueous wine were exposed to the north;
spirituous wines often braved the rain, the sun, and every change of
temperature.[XXVIII-76]
They accelerated the fining of the wine by throwing in plaster, chalk,
marble dust, salt, resin, dregs of new wine, sea-water, myrrh, and
aromatic herbs.[XXVIII-77] The butts were uncovered once a month, or
more frequently, in order to refresh the contents; and before the head
was put on again, it was rubbed with pine nuts.[XXVIII-78] Wine was also
clarified by drawing it off into another butt, and mixing yolks of eggs
beaten with
DESCRIPTION OF PLATE No. XXIII.
COLUM NIVARIUM.--A strainer, used to separate the dregs from the
wine. Two are preserved in the collection of Herculaneum; they are
made of white metal, and worked with elegance. Each is composed of
two plates, round and concave, of four inches in diameter, supplied
with flat handles. The two dishes (as it were) and their handles
adapt to each other so well, that when put together they appear as
one; holes in great number are symmetrically perforated in the
upper dish, which keeps the dregs, and lets the clear liquid pass
through the lower one. The strainer here represented is taken from
Montfaucon’s “_Antiquities_,” and was found at Rome, towards the
end of the 17th century. It is of bronze, and ornamented. On the
handles are reliefs in silver, referring to the worship of
Bacchus.
salt,[XXVIII-79] or straining it through the _colum nivarium_ (already
described),[XXVIII-80] covered with a piece of linen.[XXVIII-81]
Fine wines were kept in the wood for two, three, or four years,
according to their different properties; after which they were
transferred to amphoræ, and that operation required the greatest
care.[XXVIII-82]
The amphoræ were earthen pitchers with two handles,[XXVIII-83] reserved
for choice wines.[XXVIII-84] To prevent evaporation through their pores,
they covered them with pitch, and stopped the neck with wood or cork,
covered with a mastic composed of pitch, chalk, and oil, or any other
fat substance. The name of the wine was inscribed on the amphora; its
age was indicated by the designation of the consuls who were in office
when it was made. When the amphora was of glass, it was ticketed with
these details.[XXVIII-85] For this kind of vessels they had store-rooms,
which were commonly at the top of the house.[XXVIII-86] By exposing them
to the sun and to smoke the maturity of the wine was
hastened.[XXVIII-87] The discovery of this means of ripening, which the
Roman œnophiles never failed to practice, was attributed to the
Consul Opimius.[XXVIII-88]
Pliny assures us that the vineyards of the entire world produce 195
different kinds of wine; or double that number, if we reckon every
variety.[XXVIII-89] The whole universe, says he, furnishes only 80 of
superior quality, and of this number, two-thirds belong to
Italy.[XXVIII-90] Modern agriculture must have singularly disturbed the
calculations of the Roman naturalist.
Let that be as it may, the best Greek wines were those of
Thasos,[XXVIII-91] Lesbos,[XXVIII-92] Chios,[XXVIII-93][Q] and
Cos.[XXVIII-94] Italy boasted of the Sentinum,[XXVIII-95] the
DESCRIPTION OF PLATE No. XXIV.
No. 1. Amphora, or Dolium. Upon one of the handles is engraved the
_sigles_ P. S. A. X; the first two, probably, are the initials of
the proprietor, and the last describes the capacity of the vase,
being 250 quarts.--MONTFAUCON’s “_Antiquities_,” expl.
Nos. 2 and 3. Smaller Dolium, found at Herculaneum, buried at the
bottom of a cellar. The mouths of these vases were fixed in a
marble slab, and closed with a cover of the same material. There is
in the Villa Albani, an amphora of terra cotta of this kind, which
contained 18 Roman amphoræ, or 463 quarts, as marked by numerical
letters, engraved upon the outside. In 1750, one of these amphoræ
was found at Pouzzole, which was five feet six inches in height,
and five feet in diameter, containing 1,728 quarts. Several amphoræ
from Herculaneum and Pompeii have inscriptions written in colours,
and which give the name of the Prætor Nonnius; the same as those
found at Rome, which were inscribed with the name of the consul, to
fix the year of the vintage.
[Illustration: _Pl. 27._]
Falernum,[XXVIII-96] the Albanum,[XXVIII-97] and the
Mamertinum.[XXVIII-98] After these, a number of other excellent wines
occupied a very distinguished place in a long nomenclature to be found
in Pliny[XXVIII-99] and Athenæus.[XXVIII-100]
The ancients professed to have a very particular veneration for wines of
a renowned growth, which had ripened slowly in amphoræ. Some gastronomic
archæologists produced, on their tables certain wines which had so far
dried up in leather bottles, that they were taken out in
lumps;[XXVIII-101] others, placed in the chimney corner, became in time
as hard as salt.[XXVIII-102] Petronius speaks of a wine of a hundred
leaves.[XXVIII-103] Pliny says that guests were served with wine more
than two hundred years old: it was as thick as honey.[XXVIII-104] This
wine was thinned with warm water, and passed through the straining bag
(_saccatio vinorum_).[XXVIII-105]
This predilection for good old wine was common to the
Greeks;[XXVIII-106] the Romans--who liked it for the bitterness it had
contracted by age;[XXVIII-107] and the Egyptians, who, notwithstanding
their time-honoured love of beer, were not unjust towards the beverage
with which their Osiris found it so delightful to intoxicate
himself.[XXVIII-108]
Athenæus sets no bounds to his praise of old wine. He says it is
excellent for the health; it is the best thing to dissolve the food; it
strengthens; it assists the circulation of the blood, and assures a
peaceful sleep.[XXVIII-109] Who, then, would be ungrateful enough to
refuse to drink?
The topers of antiquity did not disdain white wine, but they seem to
have viewed it as of secondary importance. It digests easily, says the
writer just cited, but it is weak, and has but little body.[XXVIII-110]
Red wine, on the contrary, is full of strength and energy, and it is the
first that the inhabitants of Chios learned to make,[XXVIII-111] when
Œnopion, the son of Bacchus, had planted the vine in their
country.[XXVIII-112]
However, there was no lack of amateurs of white wine, and, like
ourselves, the ancients doubtless preferred it when they eat snails,
oysters, or any of those shell fish with which the Lucrine lake
abounded. They even took it into their heads (how ingenious is
gluttony!) to change red wine sometimes into white. To do this it was
only necessary to put three whites of egg, or some bean flour, into a
flagon, and shake it a long time. The same result was obtained with
ashes from the white vine.[XXVIII.113] Now, is Apicius jesting with us a
little when he gives this recipe; or was it a legerdemain trick to amuse
the guests at the end of a repast, when too frequent libations had
rendered them incapable of distinguishing clearly one colour from
another?
The Greeks endeavoured to preclude the disastrous effects of
intoxication by putting sea-water into the wine; a mixture which they
also thought had the effect of assisting digestion. One measure of water
was enough for fifty measures of wine.[XXVIII-114] And, again, the
merchants of that nation took so much interest in the health of foreign
consumers that they never shipped the wines of the Archipelago for Rome
or elsewhere without diluting them in this manner. Such, for example,
was the course followed in concocting that celebrated wine of Chios,
which Cato imitated so as to deceive the best judges.[XXVIII-115] That
honest geoponic has transmitted us his secret. Fifty-six pints of old
sea-water are thrown into a pipe of sweet wine made with grapes dried in
the sun; or two-thirds of a bushel of salt are put into a rush basket,
and suspended in the middle of the pipe, where it is left to
melt.[XXVIII-116]
This very simple process metamorphoses the most indifferent liquor into
that delightful nectar which gave renown and fortune to the isle of Cos.
The saline wine of the Greeks (_vinum tethalassomenon_) was nothing
else.[XXVIII-117] Their _thalassites_ wine, so much in demand in Italy
on account of its apparent age, owed its reputation to the fact of its
having been plunged for some time in the sea.[XXVIII-118] This little
trading knavery was a tolerably innocent means of increasing the profits
of the speculator, who hastened the maturity of his wines without
employing any of those deleterious ingredients which illicit traders
have introduced at a later period. When the wine had remained a
sufficient time in the sea to give it age, it was drawn off into
goatskin bottles, well coated with pitch, and, in this manner it
supported the longest sea voyages.[XXVIII-119]
The following are the made wines most in vogue in olden times.
The _Passum_ was one of those most esteemed in Rome, particularly, when
it came from Crete.[XXVIII-120] It was made with grapes, spread in the
sun until they were reduced in weight to one-half. The pips, thus dried,
were then put into a butt containing some excellent wort. When they were
well soaked, they were crushed with the feet, and then subjected to a
slight pressure in the wine-press. Sometimes they simply plunged the
fresh grapes into boiling oil, instead of exposing them to the sun, and
the result was the same.[XXVIII-121]
The _Dulce_ wine was obtained by drying the grapes in the sun for three
days, and crushing them with the feet on the fourth, at the time of the
greatest heat.[XXVIII-122] The Emperor Commodus thought this a most
delectable drink.[XXVIII-123]
The _Mulsum_, or honeyed wine, was an exquisite mixture of old Falernian
wine and new honey, from the Mount Hymettus.[XXVIII-124] The physician,
Cœlius Aurelianus, recommends the holding of warm mulsum in the mouth
as a palliative in cases of violent head-ache.[XXVIII-125]
The name of _Anisites_ wine was given to that in which some grains of
aniseed had been infused.[XXVIII-126]
The _Granatum_ was prepared by throwing thirty broken pomegranates into
a pipe of wine, and pouring over them ten pints and a-half of a
different wine, hard and sour. This drink was fit for use at the end of
thirty days.[XXVIII-127]
Apicius gives us the recipe for the _Rosatum_:--“Put,” says he, “some
rose leaves into a clean linen cloth; sew it up, and leave it seven days
in the wine; take out the roses, and put in fresh ones; repeat the
operation three times, and then strain the wine. Add some honey at the
time of drinking. The roses must be fresh, and free from
dew.”[XXVIII-128]
The _Violatum_ is made in the same manner, only violets are used instead
of roses.[XXVIII-129]
Rosatum may also be obtained without roses, by putting a small basket
filled with green lemon leaves into a barrel of new wine before the
fermentation has taken place, and leaving them there for forty days.
This wine is to be mixed with honey before it is drunk.[XXVIII-130]
Myrrh wine--_Myrrhinum_, among the ancients--was wine mixed with a
little myrrh, to render it better and make it keep longer. They thought
much of it.[XXVIII-131]
All these wines, like those previously mentioned, were strained through
the _colum vinarium_ before they were served to the guests. This
strainer was composed of two round, deep dishes, of four inches in
diameter. The upper part was pierced, and received the wine, which ran
into the lower recipient, whence the cups were filled.[XXVIII-132]
In Rome the price of common wine--sometimes adulterated[XXVIII-133]--was
300 sesterces for 40 urns, or 15 sesterces for an amphora; that is to
say, about sixpence per gallon.[XXVIII-134] At Athens it was thought
dear when it cost fourpence per gallon. This measure was commonly sold
for not more than twopence.[XXVIII-135]
In the early days of the Roman republic women were forbidden to drink
wine;[XXVIII-136] but that law fell into disuse, and noble matrons often
carried intemperance as far as their toping husbands.
LIQUEUR WINE.
It must be owned that the Roman law was, for a long time, tyrannical in
the extreme with regard to women. Totally interdict the use of wine!
Kill the unfortunate creatures who were unable to resist the seductions
of that dangerous liquor! For the Roman history furnishes us with more
than one example of that atrocious chastisement inflicted on the guilty
thirst of the fair sex. The barbarous Micennius immolated his wife on
the butt, at which he caught her one day, quenching her thirst at the
tap or the bunghole. The ferocious Romulus thought this act simple and
natural: he did not even reprimand the cruel husband.[XXVIII-137]
Another unfortunate creature discovered the place where her husband kept
the keys of the cellar. She took them, and had the imprudent curiosity
to go and visit the mysterious and inauspicious treasure, to which she
was forbidden all access. Her family perceived this innocent larceny,
and refused her every kind of food, to punish her for an imaginary
crime. She died in the tortures of hunger.[XXVIII-138]
Is it necessary to speak of C. Domitius, that uncourteous judge, who
deprived a lady of her marriage portion because she had taken the
liberty to drink a spoonful or two of wine unknown to her lord and
master?[XXVIII-139] But, let us say it at once--Roman civilisation put
an end to such strange manners; and so early as the age of Augustus,
Livia, the consort of that emperor, affirmed, when eighty-two years old,
that she was indebted to Bacchus for her long existence.[XXVIII-140] Let
us remark, by the way, that the great prince, her husband, honoured the
labours of the vine-dresser and the serious study of wines,[XXVIII-141]
to which little attention had been paid down to his time. It began then
to be understood that this grateful drink draws the ties of friendship
closer,[XXVIII-142] and all honest people, all generous souls, were
eager to taste it.
The good Trajan quaffed off numberless cups every day: of course he
became the idol of the human species.[XXII-143] Agricola wished to
drink before he died.[XXII-144] The imbecile Claudius often found some ray of
wisdom at the bottom of an amphora.[XXVIII-145] Domitian merited the
pardon of his crimes, thanks to the streams of wine which during the
night ran from the fountains;[XXVIII-146] and Caligula would, perhaps,
have obtained that popularity which always failed him, had he possessed
sufficient sense to offer to the Roman people the delicious Falernian
wine he allotted to his favourite horse.[XXVIII-147]