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]