CHOCOLATE.
Every one is aware that chocolate is an aliment obtained from the cocoa-nut, roasted and reduced to paste, with sugar and aromatics.
But first, the choice of cocoa nuts is not indifferent.
Those from Soconusco, from Caracas, and Maracaibo, are the best and sweetest; it is, however, well to mix with them other kinds, to correct their insipidity by a certain sharpness far from being unpleasant; thus, to four parts of Caracas cocoa, earthed—that is, rendered mild by a sojourn of some weeks under the moist earth—a part of cocoa from the Antilles, or Maragnon and Para, is added; this kind contains more of sharp and bitter matter. These cocoas are slightly torrefied in an iron pan. The Spaniards burn their cocoa much less than the Italians. Being left to grow cold, this cocoa is slightly crushed, to separate the envelopes or shells, which are thrown away. However, in England, Switzerland, and Germany, these shells serve to make, with boiling water, a warm infusion, mixed with milk and drank in lieu of real chocolate. The envelopes of torrefied coffee are employed in a similar manner in the east for the “Sultana coffee.” The mixtures of torrefied cocoa are reduced into a fat paste of a brown colour, either between stones, or by means of an iron roller upon a porphyry rock, warmed underneath by live coals; this paste, regularly ground, is at last incorporated with sugar, equal to its weight, then it is mixed together as perfectly as possible. In this chocolat de santé a small quantity of very fine cinnamon powder is admitted, which makes it more palatable, and neutralizes the action of the fat and heavy substance, or vegetable butter, contained in the cocoa.
“The term chocolate belongs, it is said, to the language of the Mexicans, and is derived from the two words choco, sound or noise, and atle, water, because it is beaten in boiling water to make it froth, according to the custom of this people. Before their conquest by the Spaniards, it formed the principal aliment of the Mexicans. They held the cocoa tree in such estimation, that its kernel served as current coin, and this custom even now remains.”—Humboldt.
The Mexican chocolate, besides the pimento, contained the chile, or Indian wheat-flour, with honey, or sweet juice of the agava. To this was added annotto, an astringent tinctorial juice, of a rosy hue, obtained from the seeds of the Bixa Orleana. The chieftains, or lords and warriors only, enjoyed the right of feeding on chocolate, as the most restoring aliment, and the most capable, in their opinion, of repairing worn-out strength and producing vigour. The addition of the perfume of vanilla, again, augments this quality, according to the testimony of physicians and travellers. Dias of Castilho relates that Montezuma drank vanilla chocolate, and the Maréchal de Bellisle says, in his “Testament Politique,” that the regent, Louis Philippe d’Orléans regaled himself every morning with chocolate at his petit lever.
The ladies of Chiapa, in Mexico, are so fond of these perfumed chocolates that they even have them carried to eat in church. The Spanish Creole nuns have also brought to great perfection the art of preparing fine chocolate, perfumed with amber.
The use of chocolate was soon brought from Mexico, after its conquest by Fernando Cortes, into Spain, and this food has there become quite habitual. First, it easily deceives hunger by reason of its oily qualities and slow digestion; then it is softening and cooling, which renders it particularly desirable in warm climates, especially such as the Iberian peninsula. Thus the Spaniards but slightly roast their cocoa-nuts; they prefer preserving but a very slight bitterness, and mixing with it more aromatics. Besides, chocolate, so useful to dry and nervous temperaments, is an agreeable analeptic, recommended against hypochondria and melancholy, two affections so common to the Spaniards. The beggars, even, could not live without it, and they accost each other in the morning with inquiring if their lordships have taken their chocolate.
This aliment is favourable to idleness, augments the calm of the body and mind, and plunges one in a sweet quietude of far niente at a small expense.
From Spain the fashion of taking chocolate was introduced into Italy, especially by the Florentine, Antonio Carletti. The Italians extract from cocoa more exalted qualities by torrefication: they burn it till it becomes bitter. The grave question arose among them, whether chocolate taken in the morning by the monks broke the fast principally in Lent. The Cardinal Brancaccio, and other learned casuists, battled long in order to prove that chocolate, being evidently a beverage made of water, could not be in the least considered as an aliment, nor break the fast. We see, indeed, in the correspondence of the Princess des Ursins—all powerful at the court of Philip V. of Spain—and Madame de Maintenon, that the consciences of pious persons had been placed in full tranquillity by this decision, and that any one might fast during the whole Lent as perfectly by drinking chocolate as if he had only partaken of a glass of cold water.
“Chocolate became pretty common in France from the time of Anne of Austria, mother of Louis XIV.; however, it does not appear to have ever excited the same enthusiasm as coffee; it is not favourable to good cheer, nor is it exhilarating. To this may be traced, perhaps, the indifference of the English for this beverage.”—Virey.
In trade, as we have said, are distinguished a great variety of cocoas, and they are called by the name of the country whence they come. Thus we have the Caracas cocoa, the Surinam cocoa, &c. That which comes from the French possessions is called also “cocoa of the isles.” The Caracas is the most esteemed of all: it is more oily than the other kinds, and has no sharpness of flavour. It is known by being larger, rough, of an ovoid, oblong shape, not flattened, covered with a greyish dust, and by the kernel being easily divided into several irregular fragments. “The name of cacao, of which in French has been made the word cacaoyer, is that given by the inhabitants of Guiana to this grain. As to the scientific name, theobroma, Linnæus formed it from two Greek words, signifying ‘food of the gods.’ ”—Demezil.
XXVII.
DRINKING CUPS.
If men were wiser, the 19th century would probably not have seen a beneficent apostle preaching temperance everywhere, and making his name cherished and celebrated by a series of successes which could hardly have been expected; numerous societies of Hydropotes, or “teetotallers,” would not alarm, in our days, those joyful disciples of Bacchus’s temple, hydrophobes by profession, by taste, and interest, who sincerely bewail the desertion of newly made abstemious members; and no person would promise, by a solemn and formidable pledge, to forego the drinking of anything but water! The abuse must have been very great, since it was necessary to have recourse to such a remedy.
It is true that the evil had taken deep root, and that the most ancient people, the gods, and the heroes, have left us examples of this dangerous seduction. The Scythians, the Celts, Iberians, and Thracians,[XXVII_1] were confirmed drunkards. The wise Nestor himself, who was so good a match for Agamemnon, often felt some difficulty in finding his tent.[XXVII_2] Alexander the Great slept sometimes two days and two nights, after having paid too much devotion to the god of good cheer;[XXVII_3] and Philip, his father, very frequently left the table with a very heavy head and staggering legs.[XXVII_4]
It is reported that Dionysius the Younger, tyrant of Sicily, lost his sight through drinking too much, which will not be wondered at, if
DESCRIPTION OF [PLATE No. XVIII.]
No. 1. Drinking-cup, of terra cotta, in the form of a pig’s head, found at Herculaneum.—Hamilton, I., IIe.
No. 2. Also that of a dog’s head.—Caylus, I., Plan 35.
what is supposed, be true, that this miserable man was drunk every day, without fail, for three months together![XXVII_5] Shall we mention Tiberius—surnamed by the army, Biberius (Tippler)—who, after he became Emperor, passed the days and nights drinking with Flaccus and Piso, at the very time they were working at the reformation of the Romans?[XXVII_6]
This pagan Solomon, having to choose from among several very distinguished candidates who offered themselves for the quæstorship, preferred the least known, because he had drunk a whole pitcher of wine, which the prince himself had condescended to fill.[XXVII_7]
Intoxication, with the Greeks, was noted as belonging to low company, if we are to judge by certain personages whom Æschylus and Sophocles did not fear to bring on the stage, and who struck each other with vases—a thing which the modern theatre has judiciously banished.[XXVII_8] Homer is more reserved; for Achilles, after copious libations, only threw a neat’s foot at Ulysses’ head,[XXVII_9] which probably was not of much consequence.
The fact is, that the ancients did not at all profess the same principles that we do respecting intemperance. Hippocrates himself, advised men to seek mirth now and then in wine;[XXVII_10] Seneca recommends us to drown cares and fatigue in it;[XXVII_11] and Musæus decorates with crowns of flowers the foreheads of the sages who, sitting by the side of Plato at all new banquets, should find in continual drunkenness the sweetest reward for their virtues.[XXVII_12] A singular bliss, which only reason in delirium could have imagined.
We have spoken of the delicious beverage which was so costly a seduction to choice epicureans, who took merit to themselves for not resisting it; for this reason, it was necessary to invent vessels worthy of containing it; and art, encouraged by luxury, produced those magnificent vases of which ostentatious antiquity has only left us a faint idea.
The cups of the Homeric times were all of equal capacity; one of them was offered to each guest, but several were offered to persons of high distinction.[XXVII_13]
The Greeks thought much of their cups; for them they were sacred relics from father to son, and were only used on certain solemnities. Thus Œdipus delivers the most frightful imprecation against his son Polynices, who had presented, at a common repast, the cup of his ancestors.[XXVII_14] That of Nestor was so large that a young man could hardly carry it; as to him, he lifted it up without the slightest difficulty.[XXVII_15]
The Athenians drank from cups in the shape of horns.[XXVII_16] Wax vases were sufficient for the Spaniards.[XXVII_17] The Gaul who had thrown down an Urus (wild ox) took its horns, decorated them with silver and gold rings, and made his guests drink out of them.[XXVII_18] Often the skull of an enemy, killed in single combat, was transformed into a cup of honour, and reminded a Gallic family of the memorable action of a valiant ancestor.[XXVII_19]
The first cups of the Romans were made of horns, or of the earthenware of Samos.[XXVII_20] Those conquerors of the world had not yet enervated their manly courage with the luxurious spoils of conquered nations. Afterwards, some very simple ones were made of beech-wood[XXVII_21] or elder;[XXVII_22] these possessed a marvellous property which they ought to have always preserved—the wine only escaped from them, and they retained the water which had been mixed with it.[XXVII_23]
But Rome, already tired of its austere simplicity, and its disdain for the Greek cups of glass and crystal, soon began to desire something finer. Those magnificent chalices, master-pieces of patience and skill, in which gold and silver were amalgamated with a more brittle material,[XXVII_24] were soon in much request, and appeared worthy of their renown.
But it is to be observed, that the crystal of which the most precious cups were made, had not the slightest similarity to that which we make use of now, and which the least shock will break; it was flexible and malleable;[XXVII_25] it might be thrown on the pavement with impunity, and remained unhurt.[XXVII_26]
Here is, on this subject, a curious anecdote, which has been left to us by Petronius:—
A certain skilful workman used to make crystal vases as strong as vases of gold and silver. He produced an incomparable masterpiece; it was a chalice of astonishing beauty, which he thought worthy of Cæsar only, and which he felt a pride in offering to him. Tiberius highly praised the skill and the rich present of the artist. This man, wishing to increase still more the admiration of the prince, and secure his favours to a greater degree, begged of him to give back the vase. He then threw it with all his might on the marble pavement of the
DESCRIPTION OF [PLATE No. XIX.]
Nos. 1. and 2. Drinking horns; these give us an idea how the ancient Greeks and Romans made use of the horns: taken from two paintings at Herculaneum.
No. 3. A horn, with a chimerical head, in Grecian terra cotta.—“Herculan. Bronsi,” II., 2, 3.
apartment: the hardest metal could never have resisted this terrible shock. Cæsar appeared moved, and was silent. The artist, with a triumphant smile, picked up the vase, which had only a slight dent, and which, by striking it with the hammer, was soon brought to its original state. This being done, no doubt remained on his mind that he had conquered the good graces of the Emperor, and the esteem of an astonished court. Tiberius asked him if he was the only one who knew how to work crystal in so remarkable a manner? The workman immediately answered that no one possessed his secret. “Very well,” said Cæsar, “let his head be struck off without loss of time; for if this strange invention were known, gold and silver would very soon have not the least value.”[XXVII_27] Thus did the Emperor Tiberius encourage artists and the arts.
There were, besides, cups made of the most pure crystal, “the brittleness of which seems to have added to their price,”[XXVII_28] and which were paid for dearer than gold and precious stones;[XXVII_29] but much less, however, than those famous Murrhine vases, which have so long exercised the useless sagacity of ancient commentators.
Among the rich spoils that Pompey, conqueror of Mithridates and master of a part of Asia, ostentatiously displayed in his triumph,[XXVII_30] the Romans, for the first time, admired vases and cups, the material and workmanship of which surpassed all that the imagination could fancy the most graceful and delicate.[XXVII_31] They were much in request; the price was exorbitant, and thenceforth they were indispensable. One of the ancient consuls thought himself too happy to give only a little more than £6,000 for one of those Murrhines. Such was the name given to this brittle and rare novelty. Petronius paid for a large basin £28,800;
DESCRIPTION OF [PLATE No. XX.]
This vase, made of one single piece of crystal, is in its original size; the delicacy of the work gives a great value to it. The body of the vase, and all other parts in relief, are of glass. It was discovered in 1725, and is preserved in the cabinet of the Marquis of Trivulsi, at Milan. The fillet round the body, and those forming the ordinary motto of the feasts—“BIBE VIVAS MULTIS ANNIS”—are isolated from the body of the cup about one quarter of an inch, and are attached to it by threads or fillets of glass, very fine. They are not soldered to the cup, but the whole of the labour is worked on a turning lathe, being seen more or less angular as the instrument may have been led to penetrate in the most difficult parts. The inscription is green; the fillet is blue: these two colours are very bright. The cup is an opaque or changing colour, without being able to distinguish whether that hue was intended to be so, as it happens to glass which has remained a long while buried, exposed to the vapours of a dunghill, or a sewer, &c., &c. A second antique vase is known to exist, whose workmanship is similar.—“Histoire de l’Art,” Liv. I., Chap. I., page 45.—Paris: Janson.
and Nero spent the like sum for a vase with two handles, which he forgot two days afterwards.[XXVII_32]
The Murrhine cups appeared on the table with the wine of the “hundred leaves,” and the Falernian was poured into them, so as to preserve all the generous delicacy of its odour.[XXVII_33]
The Murrhines were much sought after, on account of their form and brilliant transparency: they were made of mother of pearl, according to Belon, but others say of agate. Their dimensions, however, would incline one to doubt it. Scaliger,[XXVII_34] Cardan,[XXVII_35] and Madame Dacier,[XXVII_36] thought that the ancients gave unheard-of prices for simple porcelain vases, which were precious on account of their rarity. This opinion, which several modern literati[XXVII_37] have adopted, rests plausibly enough, it appears, on one verse of Propertius, in which this poet speaks of “Murrhine cups, baked in the furnace of the Parthians.”[XXVII_38] It has been said that, perhaps the Parthians learnt from the Chinese how to make porcelain; but this supposition, entirely void of proof, has been contradicted in a most peremptory manner by the author of a very curious book, who demonstrates irrefragably that the Murrhines were not of porcelain, but of stones of the species of onyx.[XXVII_39] The following fact will leave but very little doubt on that subject:—
In 1791, the Constituent National Assembly, appointed a commission to make an inventory and valuation of all objects in the Garde-Meuble of the crown. They found, among other very beautiful sardonyx, two very antique vases: one made in the form of an ewer, ten inches in height and four inches in diameter, having its handle cut out of the same piece, and the second, hollowed out as a bowl, ten inches in diameter, which were recognised as real Murrhines—beautiful white and blue veins and other shades, circulated about the bowl without interfering with its semi-transparency; the bottom was of the same colour as the ewer. The jewellers estimated these vases at £6,000 each, although there was nothing engraved in the hollow nor in relief, but merely on consideration of the beauty of the material, the fineness of the polish, and the difficulty that must have attended the hollowing out of the ewer.[XXVII_40]
These valuations would appear exaggerated, if it were not known that the antique vase of the Duke of Brunswick, which formerly belonged to the Dukes of Mantua, in 1631, and made of sardonyx, in the cruet shape, was valued at 150,000 German crowns—or dollars of 4s. 3d. The relief
engraving represented the mysteries of Ceres and Bacchus; but it had no primitive handle, and the diameter was only two inches and a-half.[XXVII_41]
By the side of these inestimable Murrhines were standing very graceful chalices of amber, the prodigious workmanship of which absolutely gave to them a most arbitrary value,[XXVII_42] but which Roman prodigality never found too high.
Silver cups engraved were also nearly as much esteemed, when they came from the hands of some well-known workman—such as Myos, Mentor, or Myron.[XXVII_43] They were even preferred to gold cups,[XXVII_44] unless these latter were enriched with precious stones.[XXVII_45]
All these vases presented still greater varieties in their forms than in the materials employed. There were very large ones, some narrow, some oblong; many ornamented with two handles, others had only one.[XXVII_46] Some were much like a tympanon—or zoph, a musical instrument of the ancient Hebrews—a small boat or ewer.[XXVII_47] In one word, the Greek or Roman artist never listened to anything but his own fancy, and was then far from supposing that he was preparing very long and wakeful hours of study to many antiquarians, zealous to explain seriously the strange wanderings of a fantastical imagination.
DESCRIPTION OF [PLATE No. XXI.]
Murrhine Vase.—This vase is the most precious of all those which have come down to us. It is drawn here half the original size, and belongs to Prince de Biscari, in Sicily, which has been described by him in the dissertation entitled, “De Vasi Murrini Ragionamenti.” Three pieces of opal in the first place form the cup; the second, the stem; and the last, the base of the foot. If this vase is an antique, as it is said by the Prince de Biscari; if true that several pieces of opal have often been found as large and as fine (which appears doubtful, in the actual state of mineralogic knowledge), the question upon the Murrhine vases would be decided. They would have been of opal, and not porcelain; neither of sardonyx—Pierre de lard—as many have believed, nor of cacholong (a species of chalcedony, opaque, and of a yellowish white), as I have described it.
XXVIII.
WINE.
Bacchus, son of Ammon, was born in Egypt, and was the first who taught his countrymen the art of cultivating the vine, and of making wine. He is the same as Osiris, the famous conqueror of India.[XXVIII_1] Should this assertion be contradicted, we shall only entreat any and every disputant to make his own choice of the god of vineyards, from among the five heroes bearing the name of Bacchus, as we are too impartial to prefer any one in particular.[XXVIII_2]
Œnopion, worthy son of one of these heroes, enriched the inhabitants of Chios with the first rosy wine that ever yet obscured their reason.[XXVIII_3] Greece, Italy, and Sicily owed this wonderful liquor to the Egyptians. The Gauls received this sweet present from a Tuscan, who had been banished from Clusium, his country;[XXVIII_4] and the cultivation of the grape spread rapidly till the reign of the sanguinary Domitian, who completed the catalogue of his crimes by tearing up the vines.[XXVIII_5] The Emperor Probus restored them to the disconsolate Gauls.[XXVIII_6] That prince was certainly worthy of his name!
Modern science, agreeing with holy writ,[XXVIII_7] looks upon the east as the common cradle of the vine and the human race.
Palestine was renowned for its vines. Pliny speaks in praise of them.[XXVIII_8] The vineyards constituted a part of the riches of the country, and they were preserved with the greatest care; so much so that Moses, with an especial view to vines, forbade the sowing of different seeds in the same field, on pain of confiscation:[XXVIII_9] and it was done to encourage their cultivation, that that wise legislator exempted every person who had planted one from military service, and from all public duties, until the first vintage.[XXVIII_10]
The growths of Lebanon,[XXVIII_11] of Helbon,[XXVIII_12] and of Sorec,[XXVIII_13] enjoyed an extraordinary reputation, and the delicious wine they produced was capable of inspiring the lyric David with that celebrated praise[XXVIII_14] by which intemperance has often dared to authorize reprehensible excesses.
However, the Hebrews, a sober people, like all eastern nations, rarely made use of pure wine; they generally mixed it with a quantity of water, and only drank a little at some ceremonial feasts, and at the end of their repasts.[XXVIII_15] They sometimes mixed with it perfumes and odoriferous drugs.[XXVIII_16]
Some nations seem to have had a great horror of wine. The Persians drank nothing but water;[XXVIII_17] and the inhabitants of Pontus, the Scythians, and the Cappadocians, partook of this strange taste.[XXVIII_18] The Arcadians, who lived on chesnuts and acorns, were not worthy of the favours of Bacchus; neither were the troglodytes, the ichthyophagists, and other swarms of hydropotes who were as yet too little civilized to ask of drunkenness its illusions and its enchantments.[XXVIII_19]
The Egyptians would have thought it a profanation of their temples to carry in a flagon of the rosy liquid; but Psammetichus came (670 B.C.), and that wise prince made them understand that a pot of beer is not worth a cup of good wine.[XXVIII_20]
The Romans asserted that their old king, Janus, planted the first vine in Italy,[XXVIII_21] and that, later, Numa taught them how to trim it.[XXVIII_22] That noble people knew how to appreciate such blessings, and in order to demonstrate that wisdom is always to be found in wine, they never failed to place on their altars the statue of Minerva beside that of Bacchus.[XXVIII_23]
The inflexible muse of history has preserved to us the name of the individual who doomed himself to a sorry sort of immortality by inventing the custom of mixing water with wine; it was Cranaüs, King of Athens, 1532 B.C.[XXVIII_24] The gods, doubtless to punish him, caused a great part of Greece to be inundated, and it was not long before he was dethroned.[XXVIII_25] Pliny accuses the obscure Staphil, sou of Sithen,[XXVIII_26] of this depravation of taste, which gained upon imitators to such an extent that, in the time of Diodorus of Sicily (45 B.C.), the guests still mixed water with their wine at the end of the repast.[XXVIII_27] It is true that they were then all intoxicated.
Lycurgus was, no doubt, ignorant of this practice, when he had the barbarity to destroy the vines of the Lacedæmonians, under pretext of putting an end to the disorders caused by intemperance. It would have been preferable, says Plutarch, to have united the nymphs with Bacchus.[XXVIII_28] The ingenious philosopher insists on the mixture being made by a fourth, a fifth, or an octave, in the same manner as the chords in music, which charm our ears. The fifth was obtained by pouring three measures of water on two of wine; one part water and two parts wine made the octave; a quarter of wine and three quarters of water produced the fourth,[XXVIII_29] a most inharmonious chord, struck only by inexperienced and unskilful hands.
Hippocrates, great physician as he was, had already somewhere advised[XXVIII_30] this deplorable dereliction from all wise doctrines, so true is it, that science sometimes goes astray; but, happily for his glory, that learned man, further on,[XXVIII_31] recommends us to drink pure wine, and to drink enough for joy to dissipate our griefs, and rock us in the sweet errors of hope.
The god of grapes had everywhere fervent admirers, except, perhaps, 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
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]
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.
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.