142 A N T I E N T M E T A P H Y S I C S. Book 11. 



€xcelltnt druik*. The antient Greeks and Romans, as they did not 

 drink wine without water, fo neither did they drink water without 

 wine, if they could get wine ; and the Roman foldier, who could not 

 afford wine, rather than drink pure water, mixed vinegar with it, 

 and made of it a liquor called PofcO' Virgil therefore has very 

 properly defcribed the ufe of wine, when, fpeaking of Bacchus, he 



has faid, 



Poculaque inventis AchcloVa mifcult uvis. 



The antient Greeks therefore never drank it pure, even in the heroic 

 ages, when they were (o much bigger and ftronger than in after 

 times : The Romans alfo mixed it with water ; and Horace calls 



loudly for it, 



Quia puer ocyus 



Reftinguet ardentis Falerni 



Pocula prsetereunte lympha ? Od. ii. Lib. 2. 



nor do we hear of a Vitellius, a Heliogabalus, or any other of their 

 moll luxurious Emperors, drinking pure wine. In thofe antient 

 times, therefore, it was only Scythians or other barbarians who 

 drank pure wine : And we read of a Scythianf, who, happening to be 

 at Sparta, became acquainted with one of the Kings, whom he taught 

 to drink pure wine ; the confequence of which was, that, though he 

 was of the race of Hercules, the ftrongefl: race of men then known 

 in the world, he died raving mad, and tearing his own flefh. 



There was another fermented liquor invented in Egypt, whether 

 by Ofiris or by whom elfe 1 cannot tell ; but it is well known to us 

 under the name of ak or beer^ a liquor made of barley, which, 

 before it is fermented, undergoes a procefs, a greater difcovery, 

 I think, than even fermentation ; I mean the operation of malt- 

 ing, by which the grain is in fome degree putrified ; and hence it 



was 



• The lafi; vcrfe of the Apocrypha. 

 f Herodot. lib. 6. cap. 84. 



