They loved old wine, too, did those old people. Wine, as old as the years to which ravens are reported to attain,—a century, or even two,—was served up at Rome. It was in consistency something like the clotted cream of Devonshire. But there was wine of a more solid consistency than this. I have elsewhere spoken of wine chopped in pieces by an axe, before it could be used. This was because of an accident which had happened to the wine; but the Romans had vinous preparations which were served up in lumps; and we hear of wines being kept in the chimney like modern bacon, and presented to the guests “as hard as salt.” The ancients are also reported to have been able to change red wine into white, by means of white of egg and bean-flour, shaken together with the red wine in a flagon. It would require much shaking before a degenerate modern could effect the mutation in question. But if Cato could imitate the best Chian by means of his own gooseberries, the other feat may hardly be disputed. It is certain that the ancients could boldly swallow some questionable mixtures. Thus they drank their wine with sea-water, in order to stimulate and whip up energies exhausted by being over-driven the night before. Myrtle wine, on the other hand, was copiously drunk at dawn by those who could not sleep, but who could afford to remain in bed, and try to court Nature’s soft nurse.
There were Roman ladies who were not born before nerves were in fashion. These had their especial drinks, sovereign in their effects, to calm a nervous system too sorely excited. The most efficacious of these was the “Adynamon,” or “powerless wine;” that is, powerless to intoxicate, but excellent as an invigorator. It consisted simply of a mixture of water and white-wort; and when Julia or Lalage had tremblingly sipped thereof, her nerves were so braced, that she could stand by and look on while Geta was flogged for an hour.
On the point of secret drinking, the early Romans were quite as particular and more merciless regarding their wives. When Micennius detected his wife in the act of “sucking the monkey,” that is, feloniously imbibing his wine through a straw at the bung-hole, he then and there slew her. Complaint was made by her friends to Romulus; but that chief and sole magistrate confined himself to the remark, that she had been justly served. The wine-casks at home were for years afterwards accounted sacred by the wives in the absence of their lords. It would appear, too, by this incident, that wine was commonly produced long before Numa introduced the improvement of training the vine. There were ladies who were rendered more cautious, but not less bold, by the judgment pronounced by Romulus. We hear of one caught in the fact by some members of her own family, who were so disgusted with her immorality, that to preserve the respectability of their house, they starved her to death. As years wore on, Judges grew more good-natured, and only deprived tippling married women of all right in their marriage portions. The Empire could hardly have been inaugurated, before thirsty ladies adopted a custom that had been denied them under the Commonwealth. Livia, the consort of Augustus, was eighty-two when she died; and it was her boast that wine alone had made her an octogenarian. What wine she drank is not stated. She may have had a head that could bear old Falernian undiluted; but that was not the case with many of her sex. The Roman ladies’ wine was, generally speaking, little more than a sweet tisane, distilled from asparagus or marjoram; from parsley, mint, rue, wild thyme, or pennyroyal. These were sipped at breakfast-time; and the hour and the ingredient would seem rather to point to Æsculapius than to Bacchus. They were, in fact, medicinal drinks. The strong wines were drunk at other hours, and these more innocent draughts were swallowed in the morning, with reflections as bitter as the beverage. Wormwood wine, too, was a favourite morning stimulant with intoxication; and it cannot be denied, that if modern guests were condemned to a “pint of salt and water” with their wine, the hilarity after dinner would not be of a very joyous aspect. Some of the “sea-wines” of the Greeks, however, owed their name and reputation chiefly to being immersed, in casks, in the ocean. Our Madeira may thus be called a “sea-wine,” when it has been to the East Indies and back for the benefit of its health.
“Chambertin” was the favourite wine of Napoleon. The “vinum dulce” obtained after drying the grapes in the sun, during three days, and crushing them beneath the feet, in the hottest hours of the fourth day, was the drink for which Commodus had a predilection. It was after draughts of this beverage that he used to fight in the Circus as the “Roman Hercules,” as proud of his performance as Mr. Ducrow, when he used to ride round it in the same character. Commodus, too, like the great equestrian, was an artist in his way; but he ruined the managers by the exorbitant salaries which he wrung from them, whenever he condescended to appear in the arena!
For the games of the Circus, and for bread after the sport was over, the Romans have been reproachfully pointed at as alone caring. Considering the plight into which they had been plunged by their Rulers and Priests, they seem to me to have been wise in their sentiment. One circumstance is clear,—that they might dip their pennyworth of bread into a deep cup of “sack” at the same price. Wine cost but sixpence a gallon,—a sufficient quantity for half-a-dozen gentlemen just returned from the Circus; or for half-a-dozen ladies, who had learned to break through the total-abstinence principle of the women of the Republic. There was much wine to be had for a trifling outlay of money. In Greece, it was cheaper still. In Athens, wine was dear at fourpence per gallon; and ordinarily, Davus, out on a holiday, might get drunk upon four quarts of it, at a halfpenny per quart; but Chremes would nearly flay him alive, if he caught him before he was sober.
I may add, that this was the price of wine, that is, of French wine, in England, under John. A tun of Rochelle wine cost twenty shillings, and it was retailed at fourpence per gallon. But taking the value of money into consideration, this was rather a high price.
When Probus restored the vine to the Gauls, he sent cuttings of the precious plant into Britain; and many localities in the south part of the island produced a very respectable beverage, of which the parent stock had no reason to be ashamed. “As sure as God is in Gloucestershire!” was a common phrase when that picturesque county was covered with monasteries; and many of the monastic gardens were famous for their grapes and the liquor distilled from them. The little village of Durweston, near Blandford, in Dorsetshire, was once as remarkable for its peculiar grape and its product, as that restricted Rhenish locality, whose grapes produce the Lieb Frauenmilch. Of the respective merits of the English grapes, I will say nothing. The merits of French wines have, however, occupied the attention of rival medical colleges, whose professors have shed much ink, and cracked whole legions of bottles, in order to discuss, rather than settle, the divers deserts of Burgundy and Champagne. The question is yet an undecided one, as is also that respecting the devotion of the Gauls to the grapes. Arnaud de Villeneuve praises the mediæval people of France, who intoxicated themselves monthly upon hygienic principles. While other writers assert, that “in the middle ages, and in the sixteenth century, intoxication was severely punished in France.” I am the more inclined to believe in the latter assertion, as the laws against drinking and drinkers, from Charlemagne to Francis I., have often been cited; and they are marked by a severity—which Rabelais did not care for, a button!
Our own wine-trade with France began after the Norman Conquest, and was very considerable when our English Kings were proprietors of the French wine districts. About the middle of the sixteenth century, the maximum price of wine was fixed at twelve-pence per gallon; but at this time no one was allowed to have in his house a measure that would contain above ten gallons, unless, indeed, he were of noble birth, or could expend a hundred marks annually.
Of all French wines, that of Burgundy is the most difficult of carriage. Some Burgundies cannot bear it at all; others are transported in bottles covered with a cottony paper, or bedded in salt. Pure Burgundy exhilarates without intoxicating; and there is not a liver complaint in a hogshead of it. It is the alcoholic wines that massacre the jecur.
The Burgundy vineyards were originally in connexion with the Burgundian monasteries, and there were no better vignerons than the monks. The modern quality of the wine is inferior to its ancient reputation, simply because modern proprietors are not artistical monks, but mere money-makers. Napoleon adhered to the wine as long as he could; but at St. Helena he took to Bordeaux,—Chambertin would have lost its best qualities in the voyage thither.