The Wines of the Ancient Orient. 2 



soil, principally composed of gravel, Strabo ^ ascribed to the 

 Mareotic wine the merit of keeping well to a great age. It 

 was even exported to Rome and enjoyed by those who were 

 used to the much heavier Italian wines 2. Horace, Od. I, 37 

 mentions it as a favorite beverage of Cleopatra. The town 

 from which the wine received its name, Marea (Mapea; Steph. 

 Byz. Mdpeia; Diod. I, 68 Mapia; Ptol. IV, 105 na/.aijJLapia KtvyLr] 

 is the Egyptian Pa-mer, the capital of the autonomous district 



Pa-mer-ti ( 2>^ "^v ) According to Athen. I, 33 D, 



Marea owes its name to that of a companion of Dionysos, who 

 was named Maron, The town (now called Maryut) stood on 

 a peninsula south of Lake Mareotis. It was adjacent to the 

 mouth of the canal which connected Lake Mareotis with 

 the Canopic arm of the Nile. Superior to the Mareotic wine was 

 the Teniotic wine, at least in the estimation of some writers. 

 "Still, however," says Athenaeus, "it is inferior to the Tenio- 

 tic, a wine which receives its name from a place called Tenia^, 

 where it is produced. Its color is pale and white and there 

 is such a degree of richness in it, that when mixed with water, 

 it seems gradually to be diluted, much in the same way as 

 Attic honey, when a liquid is poured into it; and besides the 

 agreeable flavor of the wine, its fragrance is so delightful as 

 to render it perfectly aromatic, and it has the property of 

 being sHghtly astringent'. Athenaeus mentions the Plinthinic 

 wines. He states, on the authority of Hellanicus, that the vine 

 was first cultivated about Plinthine, and to which circumstance 

 Dion attributes the love of wine amongst the Egyptians 

 (Lib. I, 25). 



The Sebennyticum was another renowned Egyptian wine. 

 Pliny*, in fact, cites it among the best of foreign wines. It is 

 "the produce of three varieties of grape of the very highest 

 quality, known as the Thasian, the aethalus (i. e., the 'smoky' 



1) Strabo XVII, p. 799. 



2) See, however, Columella (R. R. Ill, 2), who states that it was too thin 

 tor Italian palates, accustomed to the stronger Falernian. 



3j Rather so called from a long narrow sandy ridge (xaivia) near the 

 Western extremity of the Delta. 

 4) Pliny XIV, 7. 



