BOOK XIV. VI. 56-vii. 58 



principate of Gaius Caesar, son of Germanicus, 160 a.d. 39. 

 years after the consulship of Opimius, the wine cost 

 that amount for one-twelfth of an amphora — -this 

 appears in our biography " of the bard Pomponius 

 Secundus and the banquet that he gave to the 

 emperor mentioned : so large are the sums of money 

 that are kept stored in our wine-cellars ! Indeed 

 there is nothing else which experiences a greater in- 

 crease of value up to the twentieth year — or a greater 

 fall in value afterwards, supposing that there is not 

 a rise of price.* Rarely indeed has it occurred 

 hitherto and only in the case of some spendthrift's 

 extravagance,for wine to fetch a thousand sesterces 

 a cask. It is beheved that the people of Vienne 

 alone sell their wines flavoured with pitch, the 

 varieties of which we have specified, for a higher § i^. 

 price, though out of patriotism they only sell it 

 among themselves ; and this wine when drunk cold 

 is beheved to be cooler than all the other kinds. 



VII. V>lne has the property of heating the parts of Physioiogicai 

 the body inside when it is drunk and of coohng them '^ 

 when poured on them outside. And it will not be 

 out of place to recall here what the famous philosopher 

 Androcydes wrote to Alexander the Great in an 

 attempt to restrain his intemperance : ' When you 

 are about to drink wine, O King, remember that you 

 are drinking the earth's blood. Hemlock is poison 

 to a human being and wine is poison to hemlock.' 

 If Alexander had obeyed this advice, doubtless he 

 would not have killed his friends '^ in his drunken 

 fits ; so that in fact we are justified in saying that 

 there is nothing else that is more useful for strength- 

 ening the body, and aUo nothing more detrimental 

 to our pleasures ^ if moderation be lacking. 



22^ 



