Chap. 18.] USES OF THE WTLD TINE. 255 



wine was handed round more than once during the repast : 

 whereas he himself, when he returned from Asia, distributed 

 as a largess among the people more than a hundred thousand 

 eongiaria 6 of the same wine. C. Sentius, whom we have seen 

 Praetor, used to say that Chian wine never entered his house 

 until his physician prescribed it to him for the cardiac 7 dis- 

 ease. On the other hand, Hortensius left ten thousand casks 

 of it to his heir." Such is the statement made by Varro. 



(15.) And besides, is it not a well-known fact that Caesar, 

 when Dictator, at the banquet given on the occasion of his 

 triumph, allotted to each table an amphora of Falernian and a 

 cadus of Chian ? On the occasion, too, of his triumph for his 

 victories in Spain, he put before the guests both Chian as well 

 as Falernian ; and again, at the banquet given on his third 

 consulship, 8 he gave lalernian, Chian, Lesbian, and Mamer- 

 tine ; indeed, it is generally agreed that this was the first 

 occasion on which four different kinds of wine were served at 

 table. It was after this, then, that all the other sorts came 

 into such very high repute, somewhere about the year of the 

 City 700. 



CHAP. 18. (16.) THE USES OF THE WILD VINE. WHAT JUICES 



AEE NATURALLY THE COLDEST OF ALL. 



I am not surprised, then, that for these many ages there 

 have been invented almost innumerable varieties of artificial 

 wines, of which I shall now make some mention ; they are all 

 of them employed for medicinal purposes. We have already 

 stated in a former Book how omphacium, 9 which is used for 

 unguents, is made. The liquor known as " cenanthinum " is 

 made from the wild vine, 10 two pounds of the flowers of which 

 are steeped in a cadus of must, and are then changed at the 

 end of thirty days. In addition to this, the root and the 



6 Vessels containing a congius, or the eighth of an amphora, nearly six 

 pints English. 



7 As to this malady, see B. xi. c. 71. 



8 b.c. 46. 9 B. xii. c. 61. 



10 Or "labrusca." " (Enanthinum " means " made of vine flowers." The 

 •wild vine is not a distinct species from the cultivated vine : it is only a 

 variety of it, known in botany as the Vitis silvestris labrusca of Tournefort. 

 Fee thinks that as the must could only be used in autumn, when the wild 

 vine was not flowering, the flowers of it must have been dried. 



