BOOK XIV. IV. 39-41 



frost. Pisa rejoices in the vine ofParos, and Modena 



in the vine of Perugia, which has a black grape and 



makes a wine that within four years turns white. It 



is a reraarkable fact that at Modena there is a grape 



that turns round with the sun and is consequently 



called in Greek the ' revolving grape ' ; and that in 



Italy a grape from Gaul is popular, but across the 



Alps that of Picenum. Virgil mentions a Thasian Georgks u. 



vine, a Maraeotid and a Lagean, and a number of 



other foreign kinds that are not found in Italy. 



But again there are some vines which are dis- Vinex grown 

 tinguished for their grapes and not for their wine, for f^f^**' 

 instance, among the hard-berry group the ambrosia 

 grape, which needs no jars but will keep on the 

 vine, so strong is its resistance to cold and heat and 

 to bad Mcather, nor does it require a tree or stakes 

 to support it, as it sustains its own weight, though 

 this is not the case with the dactyUs, the stalk of 

 which is only the thickness of a fmger ; and among 

 the vines with large bunches the pigeon-vine, and 

 still more the purple ' double-bosomed ' vine, so 

 called because it does not bear clusters but only 

 secondary bunches ; and also the * three-foot ' vine, 

 named from its size, and also the ' rush ' vine with its 

 shrivelled grape and the vine called the Raetic vine 

 in the Maritime Alps, which is quite unUke the famous 

 vine of that name, because this is a short-stalked vine 

 with closely packed clusters and producing a low class 

 of wine ; but it has the thinnest skin of any grape, and 

 a single very smaU stone (caUed chium), and one or two 

 grapes in each bunch are exceptionaUy large. There 

 is also the black Aminean grape to which they give 

 the name of ' Syrian grape,' and also the Spanish grape, 

 which is the most highly rated of the inferior kinds. 



213 



