Chap. 3.] 



THE CULTIVATION" OF THE VINE. 219 



continually on the increase, and it is quite impossible to sepa- 

 rate the two, or rather, I may say, to tear them asunder. 

 Yalerianus Cornelius has regarded it as one of the most re- 

 markable facts that could be transmitted to posterity, that 

 single vines have been known to surround villas and country- 

 houses with their shoots and creeping tendrils ever on the 

 stretch. At Eome, in the porticoes of Livia, a single vine, 

 with its leaf-clad trellises, protects with its shade the walks 

 in the open air ; the fruit of it yields twelve amphorae of 

 must. 14 



Everywhere we find the vine overtopping the elm even, 

 and we read that Cineas, 14 * the ambassador of King Pyrrhus, 

 when admiring the great height of the vines at Aricia, 

 wittily making allusion to the peculiar rough taste of wine, 

 remarked that it was with very good reason that they had 

 hung the parent of it on so lofty a gibbet. There is a tree 

 in that part of Italy which lies beyond the Padus, 15 known 

 as the " rumpotinus," 15 * or sometimes by the name of "opu- 

 lus," the broad circular 16 storeys of which are covered with 

 vines, whose branches wind upwards in a serpentine form to 

 the part where the boughs finally divide, 17 and then, throw- 

 ing out their tendrils, disperse them in every direction among 

 the straight and finger-like twigs which project from the 

 branches. There are vines also, about as tall as a man of 

 moderate height, which are supported by props, and, as they 

 throw out their bristling tendrils, form whole vineyards : while 

 others, again, in their inordinate love for climbing, combined 

 with skill on the part of the proprietor, will cover even the 

 very centre 18 of the court-yard with their shoots and foliage. 



li " Mustum." Pure, unfermented juice of the grape. 

 u * See B. vii. c. 24. 15 Italia Transpadana.^ 



15 * See B. xxiv.'c. 112. The Bauhins are of opinion that this is the 

 Acer opulus of Willdenow, common in Italy, and very branchy. 



16 *' Tabulate in orbem patula." He probably alludes to the branches 

 extending horizontally from the trunk. 



17 " In palmam ejus." . . 



is There is no doubt that the whole of this passage is m a most cor- 

 rupt state, and we can only guess at its meaning. Sillig suggests a new 

 reading, which, unsupported as it is by any of the MSS., can only be 

 regarded as fanciful, and perhaps as a very slight improvement on the 

 attempts to obtain a solution of the difficulty. Pliny's main object seems 

 to be to contrast the vines that entwine round poles and^ rise perpendicu- 

 larly with those that creep horizontally. 



