The Pramnian wine, too, which Homer[1237] has also similarly eulogized, still retains its ancient fame: it is grown in the territory of Smyrna, in the vicinity of the shrine of the Mother[1238] of the Gods.
Among the other wines now known, we do not find any that enjoyed a high reputation in ancient times. In the year of the consulship of L. Opimius, when C. Gracchus,[1239] the tribune of the people, engaging in sedition, was slain, the growth of every wine was of the very highest quality. In that year, the weather was remarkable for its sereneness, and the ripening of the grape, the “coctura,”[1240] as they call it, was fully effected by the heat of the sun. This was in the year of the City 633. There are wines still preserved of this year’s growth, nearly two hundred years ago; they have assumed the consistency of honey, with a rough taste; for such, in fact, is the nature of wines, that, when extremely old, it is impossible to drink them in a pure state; and they require to be mixed with water, as long keeping renders them intolerably bitter.[1241] A very small quantity of the [Opimian] wine, mixed with them, will suffice for the seasoning of other wines. Let us suppose, according to the estimated value of these wines in those days, that the original price of them was one hundred sesterces per amphora: if we add to this six per cent. per annum, a legal and moderate interest, we shall then be able to ascertain what was the exact price of the twelfth part of an amphora at the beginning of the reign of Caius Cæsar, the son of Germanicus, one hundred and sixty years after that consulship. In relation to this fact, we have a remarkable instance,[1242] when we call to mind the life of Pomponius Secundus, the poet, and the banquet which he gave to that prince[1243]—so enormous is the capital that lies buried in our cellars of wine! Indeed, there is no one thing, the value of which more sensibly increases up to the twentieth year, or which decreases with greater rapidity after that period, supposing that the value of it is not by that time greatly enhanced.[1244] Very rarely, indeed, up to the present day, has it been known for a single[1245] piece of wine to cost a thousand sesterces, except, indeed, when such a sum may have been paid in a fit of extravagance and debauchery. The people of Vienne, it is said, are the only ones who have set a higher price than this upon their “picata,” wines, the various kinds of which we have already mentioned;[1246] and this, it is thought, they only do, vying with each other, and influenced by a sort of national self-esteem. This wine, drunk in a cool state, is generally thought to be of a colder[1247] temperature than any other.
CHAP. 7. (5.)—THE NATURE OF WINES.
It is the property of wine, when drunk, to cause a feeling of warmth in the interior of the viscera, and, when poured upon the exterior of the body, to be cool and refreshing. It will not be foreign to my purpose on the present occasion to state the advice which Androcydes, a man famous for his wisdom, wrote to Alexander the Great, with the view of putting a check on his intemperance: “When you are about to drink wine, O king!” said he, “remember that you are about to drink the blood of the earth: hemlock is a poison to man, wine a poison[1248] to hemlock.” And if Alexander had only followed this advice, he certainly would not have had to answer for slaying his friends[1249] in his drunken fits. In fact, we may feel ourselves quite justified in saying that there is nothing more useful than wine for strengthening the body, while, at the same time, there is nothing more pernicious as a luxury, if we are not on our guard against excess.
CHAP. 8. (6.)—FIFTY KINDS OF GENEROUS WINES.
Who can entertain a doubt that some kinds of wine are more agreeable to the palate than others, or that even out of the very same vat[1250] there are occasionally produced wines that are by no means of equal goodness, the one being much superior to the other, whether it is that it is owing to the cask,[1251] or to some other fortuitous circumstance? Let each person, therefore, constitute himself his own judge as to which kind it is that occupies the pre-eminence. Livia[1252] Augusta, who lived to her eighty-second year,[1253] attributed her longevity to the wine of Pucinum,[1254] as she never drank any other. This wine is grown near a bay of the Adriatic, not far from Mount Timavus, upon a piece of elevated rocky ground, where the sea-breeze ripens a few grapes, the produce of which supplies a few amphoræ: there is not a wine that is deemed superior to this for medicinal purposes. I am strongly of opinion that this is the same wine, the produce of the Adriatic Gulf, upon which the Greeks have bestowed such wonderful encomiums, under the name of Prætetianum.
The late Emperor Augustus preferred the Setinum to all others, and nearly all the emperors that have succeeded him have followed his example, having learnt from actual experience that there is no danger of indigestion and flatulence resulting from the use of this liquor: this wine is grown in the country[1255] that lies just above Forum Appii.[1256] In former times the Cæcubum enjoyed the reputation of being the most generous of all the wines; it was grown in some marshy swamps, planted with poplars, in the vicinity[1257] of the Gulf of Amyclæ. This vineyard has, however, now disappeared, the result of the carelessness of the cultivator, combined with its own limited extent, and the works on the canal which Nero commenced, in order to provide a navigation from Lake Avernus to Ostia.
The second rank belonged to the wine of the Falernian territory, of which the Faustianum was the most choice variety; the result of the care and skill employed upon its cultivation. This, however, has also degenerated very considerably, in consequence of the growers being more solicitous about quantity[1258] than quality. The Falernian[1259] vineyards begin at the bridge of Campania, on the left-hand as you journey towards the Urbana Colonia of Sylla, which was lately a township of the city of Capua. As to the Faustian vineyards, they extend about four miles from a village near Cædiciæ,[1260] the same village being six miles from Sinuessa. There is now no wine known that ranks higher than the Falernian; it is the only one, too, among all the wines that takes fire on the application of flame.[1261] There are three varieties of it—the rough, the sweet, and the thin. Some persons make the following distinctions: the Caucinum, they say, grows on the summit of this range of hills, the Faustianum on the middle slopes, and the Falernum at the foot: the fact, too, should not be omitted, that none of the grapes that produce these more famous wines have by any means an agreeable flavour.
To the third[1262] rank belonged the various wines of Alba, in the vicinity of the City, remarkable for their sweetness, and sometimes, though rarely, rough[1263] as well: the Surrentine[1264] wines, also, the growth of only stayed vines, which are especially recommended to invalids for their thinness and their wholesomeness. Tiberius Cæsar used to say that the physicians had conspired thus to dignify the Surrentinum, which was, in fact, only another name for generous vinegar; while Caius Cæsar, who succeeded him, gave it the name of “noble vappa.”[1265] Vying in reputation with these are the Massic wines, from the spots which look from Mount Gaurus towards Puteoli and Baiæ.[1266] As to the wines of Stata, in the vicinity of Falernum, there is no doubt that they formerly held the very highest rank, a fact which proves very clearly that every district has its own peculiar epochs, just as all other things have their rise and their decadence. The Calenian[1267] wines, too, from the same neighbourhood, used to be preferred to those last mentioned, as also the Fundanian,[1268] the produce of vines grown on stays, or else attached to shrubs. The wines, too, of Veliternum[1269] and Priverna,[1270] which were grown in the vicinity of the City, used to be highly esteemed. As to that produced at Signia,[1271] it is by far too rough to be used as a wine, but is very useful as an astringent, and is consequently reckoned among the medicines for that purpose.
The fourth rank, at the public banquets, was given by the late Emperor Julius—he was the first, in fact, that brought them into favour, as we find stated in his Letters[1272]—to the Mamertine wines, the produce of the country in the vicinity of Messana,[1273] in Sicily. The finest of these was the Potulanum,[1274] so called from its original cultivator, and grown on the spots that lie nearest to the mainland of Italy. The Tauromenitanum also, a wine of Sicily, enjoys a high repute, and flaggons[1275] of it are occasionally passed off for Mamertinum.