270 plint's natural histort. [BookXIY. 



words, at the conjunction of that planet, and at no other time. 

 Leaden 55 vessels should be used for this purpose, and not copper 56 

 ones, and walnuts are generally thrown into them, from a 

 notion that they absorb 57 the smoke. In Campania they ex- 

 pose the very finest wines in casks in the open air, it being the- 

 opinion that it tends to improve the wine if it is exposed to the 

 action of the sun and moon, the rain and the winds. 



CHAP. 28. (22.) DRUNKENNESS. 



If any one will take the trouble duly to consider the matter, 

 he will find that upon no one subject is the industry of man 

 kept more constantly on the alert than upon the making of wine ; 

 as if Nature had not given us water as a beverage, the one, in 

 fact, of which all other animals make use. We, on the other 

 hand, even go so far as to make our very beasts of burden 

 drink 58 wine : so vast are our efforts, so vast our labours, and 

 so boundless the cost which we thus lavish upon a liquid 

 which deprives man of his reason and drives him to frenzy 

 and to the commission of a thousand crimes ! So great, how- 

 ever, are its attractions, that a great part of mankind are of 

 opinion that there is nothing else in life worth living for. 

 Nay, what is even more than this, that we may be enabled to 

 swallow all the more, we have adopted the plan of diminishing 

 its strength by pressing it through 69 filters of cloth, and have 

 devised numerous inventions whereby to create an artificial 

 thirst. To promote drinking, we find that even poisonous 

 mixtures have been invented, and some men are known to 

 take a dose of hemlock before they begin to drink, that they 

 may have the fear of death before them to make them take 

 their wine: 60 others, again, take powdered pumice 61 for the 



55 Vessels of lead are never used for this purpose at the present day ; as 

 that metal would oxidize too rapidly, and liquids would have great diffi- 

 culty in coming to a boil. A slow fire must have been used by the ancients. 



56 They were thought to give a bad flavour to the sapa or defrutum. 



57 A mere puerility, as Fee remarks. 



53 He does not state the reason, nor does it appear to be known. At 

 the present day warmed wine is sometimes given to a jaded horse, to put 

 him on his legs again. 



59 Though practised by those who wished to drink largely, this was con- 

 sidered to diminish the flavour of delicate wines. 



eo See B. xxii. c. 23, and B. xxv. c. 95 ; also c. 7 of the present Book. 

 Wine is no longer considered an antidote to cicuta or hemlock. 



6i See B. xxxvi. c. 42. 



