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

ffJb EXCURSUS VII. GREEK WINES.
those poets who dealt'in the rough an.d horrible as much as they ahozu
inated the harsh Pramnian wine, which shrivelled the features and ob
Btraoted the digestive orgaos." Bnt in these respects it was far exceed*
ed, if we may rely on the testimony of Alexis, by the Corinthian wine,
which to drmk, he says, was actaal torture.* In the age of Pliny, the
Pramnian was still a noted growth of the vicinity of Smyrna.
It was in the luscious sweet wines that the Greeks surpassed all othar
nations, and to this class the commendations of their later poets must be
regarded as chiefly applying. They were, for the most part, the products
of the islands of the Ionian and ^gean Seas, where the cultivation of the
vine was assiduously practiced, and where the finest climate, and the
choicest soils and exposures, gave to its fruit an uncommon degree of excellence.
Lesbos, Chiosi and Tkasos in particular, seem each to have
contended for the superiority of its growths ; but several of the other islands,
such as Corcyra, Cyprus^ Crete, CnidoSt and Rhodes, yielded wines
which were much esteemed for their sweetness and delicacy, and it was
from them that the greater part of Europe was supplied, till a comparatively
recent period, with the richest sweet wines.
It has been already observed that these vrines were not white, in the
proper acceptation of the term, but rather of a straw or amber color, according
to their greater or less age. This hue they would naturally derive
from their being fermented along with the skins of the grapes, which
were used in their ripest state, or after they had become partially dried,
and which, being generally of the muscat sort,- would impart a grateful
perfume to the liquor, a quality on which the Greeks placed a due value,
as may be seen from the frequent allusions to it by their poets. The ex
quisite aroma of the Saprian, which was probably Chian wine matured
by gi'eat age, has been noticed in the preceding excursus. The Lesbian
wine would seem to have been less odorous, but to have possessed a de*
licious flavor, for it is said to bare deserved the name of ambrosia rather
than of wine, and to have been like nectar when old.' Horace terms the
Lesbian an " innocent" wine,* but it was the prevailing opinion among
the ancients that all sweet wines were less injurious to the head, and
less apt to cause intoxication, than the strong dry wines. By Pliny, however,
the 'growths of Chios and Thasos are placed before the Lesbian,
which, he affirms, had naturally a saltish taste ; but the Clazornenian,
wliich came from the coast of lonia^ and which was less adulterated with
sea water, is said to have been preferable to all the others, on account of
its purer flavor. The Tkasian was a generous sweet wine, ripening
slowly, and acquiring by age a delicate odor of the apple. The Chian,
again, is, by some writers, described as a thick, luscious wine ; and that
which grew on the craggy heights of Ariusiumt extending three hundred
stadia along the coast, is extolled by Strabo as the best of all Greek wines.*
!From Athenieus we learn that the produce of the Ariusian vineyards was
usually divided into three distinct 'species, a diy wine, a sweetish wine,
and ft third sort of a peculiar quality, thence termed ahTOKparov,^ All of
them seem to have been excellent of their kind, and they are frequently
1. 'O ya-p TLopivQtos fiaaaviands hTi.—Aihetuetia, I, ^. 2. Athenamey t, S2.
3 Carm. i., 17, 21. 4. Lib. aiX^iaH 1 5. Lib. 1., ai
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