178 HISTORY OF FRUITS. 



The heathens, likewise, held the vine in the highest 

 estimation. The Egyptians ascribed the invention of 

 wine to Osiris, the Latins to Saturn ; while Bacchus was 

 elevated to the rank of a god, by the Greeks, for having 

 taught men the use of the vine. As the god of vintage, 

 of wine, and of drinkers, he is generally represented as 

 crowned with the vine ; and, according to Pliny, to have 

 been the first who ever wore a crown, 



the grapy clusters spread 



On his fair brows, and dangle on his head. 



Ovid. 



Bacchus was sometimes represented as an infant hold- 

 ing a cluster of grapes, with a horn ; and he has often been 

 depicted as an old man, whose head was encircled with 

 the vine, to teach us that wine taken immoderately, will 

 enervate us, consume our health, and render us loquacious 

 and childish, like old men. 



Juno's crown was also made of the vine. The vine, 

 with grapes, is still selected as a proper ornament m all 

 bacchanalian devices. 



Wine was chiefly used by the ancient Romans in the 

 worship of their gods. Young men under thirty, and 

 women all their life-time, were forbidden to drink wine. 

 Egnatius Macennius killed his wife with a cudgel, 

 having caught her drinking wine out of a tun, for which 

 he was tried by Romulus, and acquitted of murder. 

 Fabius Pictor, in his annals, reports, that a Roman lady 

 was starved to death by her own relations for opening a 

 cupboard which contained the keys of the wine-cellar. 

 Cato records, that the custom of kinsfolk kissing women 

 when they met, was to know by their breath if they had 

 been drinking wine ; but these restrictions were removed 

 when wine became more plentiful ; and the use of it was 

 then carried to such an excess, that even females would 



