The Wines of the Ancient Orient. -Jl 



the laurus malabathriim, also were used for making wine. 

 "Brier-wine", ^laTTl btL- "IDID was a date-wine mixed with cus- 

 cuta, which grows on a thorn-bush pTaT"'n). Similar was the 

 beverage called "^ZCSJ, prepared from the fruit of the n30 brier 

 (See bKethub. 77 b and bPesach. 107 a). 



Phoenicia also was one of the important wine countries 

 of the Orient. According to Schol. Apoll. Rhod. IV, 540 and 

 983 it shared the distinction, amongst other countries, to 

 have contained the birthplace (N)'sa) of Dionysos. Phoenicia 

 cultivated wine of excellent quality and great quantity. Phoe- 

 nician wine was exported together with the wines bought in 

 Palestine and Syria and elsewhere. Most of it was shipped 

 to Egypt, but also Arabia, eastern Africa and India were 

 supplied with the famous stocks of the Phoenician wine-mer- 

 chants. Diod. 5, 17 states that the traffic of wine led the 

 Phoenician traders even to Spain and the nearby islands. 

 Wine constituted one of the chief articles of the Phoenician 

 traders and the gain from this export article must have been 

 enormous. Compare i. i., Horace, Od. I, 31, 10: dives et aureis 

 mercator exsiccet culullis vina Syria reparata merce Dis cams 

 ipsis\ quippe ter ct quater anno revisens aequor Atlanticum ini- 

 pune. The wine of Tyre is mentioned in Alex. Trail. II, p. 327, 407, 

 4S7> 485* and 495; Pliny 14, 9(7). It claimed distinction together 

 with the Syrian Chalybonium '. Tyre was richer in beer and 

 wine than in water, for we read in Pap. Anast. 18 that "water 

 is brought to her by ship". An inscription of Heraclea in 

 Lucania2, dating from the end of the fourth century B. C, 

 speaks of [3u[3Xia and of l3o|3}.iva |jLa(Sx^- which has pro- 

 bably reference to the viticulture of Byblos. The Bi|3Aivoq 

 oivoq is, at least in some instances, understood to be a wine, 

 which came from the Phoenician city of Byblos '. The vine- 

 stalk of Byblos was planted in Luciana as well as in Sicily* 



1) The Chalybonium came originally from Beroea, but afterwards grew 

 also in the neighborhood of Damascus. P'or this wine see Pliny, Hist. ., 

 XIV, 73; Geop. 2, and Athen. I. p. 28 d. 



2) CIG III, 5774 lines 58 and 92. 



31 Byblos, i. e., Gubel, Arabic el-Kobyle, modern Djibeil; Jo. Phokas 



4) It is stated that a certain king TT6XXi<; of Sikyon or Syracuse, or 

 else an Argeian called TToXioc (Poll. VI, i6j brought the plant to Sicily. The 



