[1224] We have no corresponding word for this beverage in the English language—a thin, poor liquor, made by pouring water on the husks and stalks after being fully pressed, allowing them to soak, pressing them again, and then fermenting the liquor. It was also called “vinum operarium,” or “labourer’s wine.” As stated in the present instance, grapes were sometimes stored in it for keeping.
[1225] A variety of the Aminean, as stated below.
[1226] See B. iii. c. 9.
[1227] The elder Africanus. He retired in voluntary exile to his country-seat at Liternum, where he died.
[1228] Mercis.
[1229] The suggestion of Sillig has been adopted, for the ordinary reading is evidently corrupt, and absurd as well—“not in the very worst part of a favourite locality”—just the converse of the whole tenor of the story.
[1230] The philosopher, and tutor of Nero.
[1231] Said to have been so called from Maron, a king of Thrace, who dwelt in the vicinity of the Thracian Ismarus. See B. iv. c. 18. Homer mentions this wine in the Odyssey, B. ix. c. 197, et seq. It was red, honey-sweet, fragrant. The place is still called Marogna, in Roumelia, a country the wines of which are still much esteemed.