Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/251

Rh the famous Italian vintages, the strong, fiery Falernian, the rich Massic, the sweet Alban, the Cæcuban, Setine, Pucine, and others, sung by Horace and Virgil and Lucretius, held the palm over all their rivals, and in many respects must have compared favorably with those of the present day.

But most of them would have been spoiled for our tastes by the curious substances which were added to them, for flavoring or as preservatives. For instance, both in Greece and Rome it was a quite common practice to mix honey, and also various spices, myrrh and aloes and cloves. A more surprising admixture was that of salt water, which, in small quantities, one to fifty or so, was believed to greatly improve the flavor of fine wines. Indeed, most careful directions are given by the old writers about the quality of this salt water. It must be drawn from the ocean, some three miles from shore, on a calm day, when the sea was at rest. Another, and to us barbarous, habit was that of adding resin or pitch or turpentine, either directly to the wine, or by smearing the wine vessels before filling them. This is done in Greece up to the present day, and the modern traveler is asked in the taverns whether he wishes "foreign wine" or "resined wine"—οίνος έξότικος or όίνος ρεαινήτής.

In one respect they were fully our equals. They appreciated the value of age. We still, some of us, have our wine cellars, and "lay down" our wines for aging. We smack our lips over a glass of Chǎteau La Rose of '70, and think it old; while "Stuyvesant" or "Monticello" Madeira, from the beginning of the century, is doled out, on rare festal occasions, a few drops at a time, like a precious elixir.

But in Cæsar's day we hear of Hortensius, a well-known orator, leaving his heir ten thousand casks of good Greek wine in the cellar of his country house. Plump little Horace, always referring to his poverty, can still write to a friend and ask him to visit him at his humble cottage, and take a glass of Falernian laid down "Consule Planco," some thirty years ago. His patron Mæcenas used to give him wine—Marsi memorem duelli—that remembered the Marsian war, seventy or eighty years before. And we learn from Pliny that, in his day, there was still in existence some of a famous "cru" of wine, made in the consulship of Opimius, some two hundred years before. This wine, we read, was only used for flavoring other varieties. It was thick, so that it had to be dug out with a spoon, and dissolved in water, and strained before using it, and when the cover was taken off the jar it emitted a delightful, powerful fragrance which filled the whole room.

From the fall of the republic on, intemperance and licentiousness increased in Rome with rapid strides. Nothing more was