The works of Horace : with English notes, critical and ... - Cristo Raul

685
tween a sirup and a wine, and was termed by the Greets ieiyi-evKis, i. e,
temper mustum. When, instead of being placed in a fresh-water pond,
the vessel was plunged into the sea, the liqqor was thought to acquire
very speedily the flavor of age, " quo genere prascoxfii vetustas," and the
wine so obtained was denominated QaTi.aaalrrig. To this practice the
oracle given to the fishermen, desiring them tq dip Bacchus into the sea,
may be supposed to allude.^
The pi'eparation of the passum, or wine from half-dried grapes, varied
in different places. The grapes selected were chiefly of the apian or
muscat kind, and were allowed to remain on the vine until they had
shrunk to nearly one half their original bulk, or else they were gathered
when fuUy ripe, and, being carefully picked, were hung to dry in the sun,
upon poles or mats six or seven feet from the ground, care being taken to
protect them from the nightly dew j but some preferred the expedient of
immersing them in boiling oil. After they had been thus treated they
were freed from the stalk and introduced into a barrel, and a quantity of
the best must, sufficient to cover the whole, was thrown over them. In
this they were allowed to soak five or six days, at the expiration of which
they were taken out, put into a frail, and submitted to the operation of
the press. This was the choicest sort o( possum ; an inferior kind was
obtained by adding rain water, that had been previously boiled, instead
of must, the other parts of the process remaining the same. When the
apian grapes were used, they were first trodden in the cask, with a sprinkling
of wine to each layer as it was thrown in, and, after five days, were
again trodden before they were squeezed. When the fermentation ceas-
ed, the liquor was decanted into clean vessels to he stored for use.
—
On other occasions, when the juice of the grapes was deemed too thin
and watery for the production of a good wine, as was almost always the
case in rainy seasons, it was boiled down to a greater consistence, and a
small portion of gypsum was added to it. The- Lacedaemonians, we are
told by Democritus, were in the practice of reducing it one fifth part, and
keeping it four years before it was drunk ; others were satisfied with the
evaporation of a twentieth part of the bulk." Sometimes, however, the
iuspissation was carried much further, and the boiling prolonged till one
third, one half, or even two thirds of the liquor were evaporated. The
place where this operation was performed was called the defrutarinm.
When the must was inspissated to one half, it acquired the name of dafrutitm
; when two thirds were left, the liquor was denominated care-
num ; and when reduced to one third, it received the appellation of sapa
among the Romans, and alpaiov and hjirma among the Greeks ; but the
proportions are not always stated in the same manner, and were no doubt
regulated, in some degree, by the original quality of the must.^ The lastmentioned
liquor, when obtained from rich grapes, appears to have been
drunk as a wine, and may be regarded as corresponding to the boiled
mustum in amphoram novam, eamque oblinito, et impicato diligenter, no quioquam
aquae introire poBsit. Tunc in piscinam frigidEO et dulcia aquae totam amphoram
mergito, ita ne qua pars extet Delude post dies quadraginta eximito.
Sic usque in annum dulce permanebit." Colvm., xii., 29. Cato, c. 120.
J. Plutarch, Quffist Nat., 2^ 'Pp., ed. Reiske, vol. ix., p. 620).
2. Geoponioa, vU., 4.
' 3. Colum., xil, 19. Pallad^ xi., 18, Vioscar., v., 9