The Pelasgians appear to have introduced the culture of the vine into Greece, and subsequently into Italy. The art of making wine was known from the earliest ages, and its origin is lost in fable. To the careful selection of the site for a vineyard, the pruning of the vine, the props, training, manure, and careful cleaning of the soil, we can only allude. The solemn or festal character of the vintage-time, the religious aspect of the customs then observed, their near connection with the origin of the Greek drama, the general joy, and often riotous excess, which marked the gathering-in of the grape, will all recur to mind in connection with this part of our subject. But our more immediate object is, to give a short sketch of the methods by which the juice of the grape was prepared for use.
When gathered, the grapes were first placed in the vat and trodden by men, who often moved in time to the sound of some vintage strain, or enlivened their labors with the song. When the juice thus collected had been drained off, the remaining mass was still further subjected to the action of wooden screw-presses. The first yield of juice was most prized, as producing the best-flavored and richest wine; the second was only used for inferior purposes. One exquisitely rich kind of wine was formed from the juice exuding from over-ripe clusters before they were gathered. The sweet juice, or “must,” before fermentation, was frequently drunk, after undergoing a clarifying process. This “must,” too, was often preserved sweet and unfermented, by inclosing it in air-tight vessels; while grape-jellies were formed by boiling it down to the required consistency, and the addition of honey. This essence of the grape was used for “doctoring” poor wines.
To form the “must” into wine, it was placed in long, bell-mouthed vessels of earthenware, to undergo fermentation. These were sunk in the ground, and exposed to a moderate, equable temperature. When the “must” had become wine, these large vessels were carefully closed, and only opened at intervals to purify their contents, or to subject them to any mixing process. Similar arts to those of modern wine-makers were in use among the ancients, in order to produce the desired qualities. But further, the lids of these vessels were rubbed with an aromatic compound of saffron, pitch, grape-jelly, mastic, and fir-cones; which process was supposed to communicate an agreeable flavor.
Some wines were drunk from the “dolium,” or, as we should say, from the “wood;” but the choicer kinds were drawn off into smaller earthenware vases, called amphoræ—in short, bottled as with us. We may mention that glass was used for these vessels in later times, and a wooden cask was sometimes substituted for the “dolium.” Even after bottling, the Greek and Roman wines were frequently very thick, and required fining or straining before they could be used. Bottled wines were often kept to a great age before consumption; some required from twenty to twenty-five years for attaining perfection, but the ordinary time allowed was seven years. If an earlier ripening was desired, it was produced artificially by heat. Powdered resin was sometimes added on bottling, and various alkaline correctives, aromatic adjuncts, perfumes, essential oils, bitters, and spices, were added to produce the desired flavor; while imitation wines, in great variety, were manufactured in Rome. The colors of wines in Italy and Greece were, as among the moderns, white, red, and brown; the red being either brackish, like some of our port, or ruby-colored, like claret. Sweet wines were formed by incomplete fermentation, and wines prepared from raisins, or partly dried grapes, were also common. An inferior drink for laborers was formed by boiling the grape-husks after the process of expression: it probably resembled our worst kinds of cider.
The commoner wines were ridiculously cheap. We hear of ten gallons being sold for threepence, and a high order of wine in Athens only fetched two-pence a gallon. But then, as with us, high prices were given by connoisseurs for the choice vintages and varieties. The Thracian wine given to Ulysses, the Pramnian mentioned in the “Iliad” and “Odyssey,” and in later times the Thasian, Lesbian, Chian, and the wine of Cos, were among the best kinds of Greek wine. In Italy the wines of Latium and Campana, the Imperial wine, the Cæcuban, Falernian, Alban, Surrentine, Massic, Setinian, and Statinian, were the most highly prized.
The cultivation of the olive, the fig, flax, and the various productions of the field and garden, was doubtless conducted with equal skill. The Romans were familiar with all the appliances of husbandry and gardening, and especially with the arts of grafting and budding; but in this branch of our subject the two examples above given will suffice to furnish a general idea of Greek and Roman skill, and we must hasten to give the reader an account of the modes in use for appropriating the mineral wealth of the soil.
II. Extraction and Use of Metals.
The art of extracting the metals from their ores, lying, as it does, at the very foundation of the means by which the useful arts advance, cannot be said to have reached a high point of perfection in Greece, Rome, or the other countries from which they derived their supply. An idea of mining processes can scarcely be better given than by a description of those used in the Attic silver mines at Laurium.
The veins of silver were situated in a range of pine-covered hills of no considerable height, affording quarries of good marble, in contact with which substance the silver ore was mostly found. These mines were probably opened at a very early period, but the precise date does not appear. The ore, or “silver earth,” as the Greeks called it, was extremely hard and probably very pure and rich in the yield of metal, as the Greeks, from their defective knowledge of chemical processes, could not extract the silver with profit when united with large proportions of other metals. Contrary to common experience, the ore appears to have assumed the form of layers rather than of veins.
The mines were worked, either by perpendicular shafts, or by tunneling the side of the hill. Pillars of the ore were of course left, or the superincumbent mass was supported by props of timber, which was largely imported for the purpose. The noxious vapors exhaling from the mines were carried off by shafts of ventilation. The ore was removed partly by simple machines, partly by unassisted labor. On reaching the mouth of the mine it was broken small with iron pestles in stone mortars. These pieces were then ground down smaller, washed, strained through sieves, and sorted into qualities of different richness.