According to Nicander of Colophon, the word οἶνος, “wine,” was derived from the name of Oineus, who having squeezed out the juice of the grape into vases, called it, after his own name, wine. Diphilos,[[711]] the comic poet, gives us, however, something better than etymologies in that burst of Bacchic enthusiasm in which, in verses fragrant as Burgundy, he celebrates the praises of the gift of Dionysos:
“Oh! friend to the wise, to the children of song,
Take me with thee, thou wisest and sweetest, along;
To the humble, the lowly, proud thoughts dost thou bring,
For the wretch who has thee is as blythe as a king:
From the brows of the sage, in thy humorous play,
Thou dost smooth every furrow, every wrinkle away;
To the weak thou giv’st strength, to the mendicant gold,
And a slave warmed by thee as a lion is bold.”
Nectar, the poetical drink of the gods, was a sort of wine made near Olympos in Lydia, by mingling with the juice of the grape a little pure honey and flowers of delicate fragrance. Anaxandrides, indeed, regards the nectar as the food of the immortals, and ambrosia as their wine; in which opinion he is upheld by Alcman and Sappho. But Homer and Ibycos take an opposite view of the matter.[[712]]