Chloe was happy:—for she believed him with all the simplicity of a girl, and of a shepherdess, and of one who thought that the sheep and the goats were the fitting and peculiar deities of those who tended them.
"Hic innocentis pocula Lesbii
Duces sub umbrâ; nec Semeleïus
Cum Marte confundet Thyoneus
Prœlia."—Hor. I. Od. xvii. 21.
"The Lesbian wine would seem to have possessed a delicious flavour; for it is said to have deserved the name of Ambrosia rather than of wine, and to have been like nectar when old. In Athenæus this wine is called οἰνάριον, vinulum, 'the little wine,' to which Bacchus gave ἀτέλειαν, an innocence and immunity from drunkenness. Horace terms the Lesbian an innocent or unintoxicating wine; but it was the prevailing opinion among the ancients, that all sweet wines were less injurious to the head, and less apt to cause intoxication, than strong dry wines. By Pliny, however, the growths of Chios and Thasos are placed before the Lesbian, which he affirms had naturally a saltish taste."—Henderson's Hist. of Ancient and Modern Wines, p. 77.
[2] When the grapes were ripe, (σταφυλή) the bunches were gathered, any which remained unripe (ὅμφαξ) were carefully removed, and the rest carried from the vineyard in deep baskets (ἀρρίχοι) to be poured into a vat (ληνός) in which they were trodden by men, who had the lower part of their bodies naked, except that they wore drawers. When sufficiently trodden, the grapes were subjected to the more powerful pressure of a thick and heavy beam (for which λίθος, in Longus, seems the substitute), for the purpose of obtaining all the juice yet remaining in them. Vine branches were very frequently employed as torches.—Vide Scholiast on Aristoph. Lys. 291.
[3] Compare the description of the garden in Achilles Tatius, 1. 15, and that of Virgil's "senex Corycius." G. iv, 125-146.
.... Love's heralds should be thoughts,
Which ten times faster glide than the sun-beams.
Romeo and Juliet.