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

EXCUESUS IV. WINE-VESSELS. 680
length and foarteen in breadth, in Trhiob was borne an uter made of panthers'
hides, and containing three thousand amphorse of wine, which was
allowed to flow from it slowly, as it was dragged along;' bat, unless this
enormous wine-skin had been protected by some solid casing, it could not
have resisted the lateral pressure of such a body of liquor. As the arts
improved, vessels of clay were introduced, and the method of glazing
them being unknown, or, at least, not used for .this purpose, a coating of
pitch was applied, in order to prevent the exudation of the liquor. In some
places where wood abounded, as in the neighborhood of the Alps and in
lUyria, wine-casks were made of that material •, but the vessels in general
use among the Greeks and Romans were of earthen-ware ; and great
nicety was shown in choosing for their construction such clay as was least
porons, and bore the action of the furnace best. But i): was only the
smaller sort that coald.be made on the wheel ; the larger were formed on
the ground, in stoves, where a sufficient degree of heat for baking them
could be applied.' They had, for the most part, a bulging shape, with a
wide mouth, and the lips were turned oat in such a way as to prevent the
ashes and pitch, with wbich they were smeared, from falling in when the
cover was removed. "When new, these vessels received their coating immediately
on being taken out of the furnace. As sach of them as were
of any considerable size vrere liable to rents and other accidents, it was
customary to bind them with leaden or oaken hoops, in order to preserve
them entire.^ Fancirollos affirms that they were occasionally capacious
euoagh to hold a wagon load of wine, or one hundred and twenty am-
phorffl ;» bat this is hardly credible. That they were often very large,
however, is certain, for we read of dolia sesquiculearia, or tuns which held
a cttleus and a half, or three hogsheads and one third. The culearia appear
to have been the vessels in which the ordinary wines were common-
ly sold.
As the Greeks gave the preference to small vessels for the preservation
of their wines, we may infer that thgir casks (iriBei) were of more moderate
capacity. Their largest wiue-measore was the fteTpnT^Si containing
eight gallons, six pints, and a quarter ( and the Kcidof , Kspiiuov, and i/tr
Aopevg^ were earthen-ware vases which held about that quantity. The
guadrantal, or cube of the Roman foot, on the other hand, was equivalent
to forty-eight sextarii, or twenty-seven English quarts ; and the testa, ca-
Aus, diota, and amphora of the Romans were, for the most part, of that
measure. The ar»» was equal to half an amphora. The last-mentioned
vessel was generally of an elegast form, with a narrow neck, to which the
two handles were attached, and the body tapering toward the bottom, by
which means it could be fixed with little trouble in the ground, and the
sediment which was deposited by the wine could not be easily disturbed
by the process of decanting. Those made at Cnidos and Athens, but par-
ticularly the latter place, were most esteemed, whence the representation
of an amphora npon certain of the Attic coins. Sometimes the name of
the maker, or of the place where tbey were manufactured, was stamped
gpon the neck. ^
1. Athenaus, v., 7. 2. Geoponicn, vi., 3. 3. Cato, e. 39.
4. Rerum Memorabilium, i., 138.
!5. By syncope, from iiufiKpolicis, so colled from the twe handles attached to the
neck, by which it was carried. The Siurij had its name from a sinular nircumstanca