BOOK XIV. VIII. 59-62 



VIII. VVho can doubt, however, that some kinds itaiinn 

 of wine are more agreeable than others, or who "J^,^/"* 

 does not know that one of two wines from tlie same ^«■''- 

 vat can be superior to the other, surpassing its wili». " 

 rehition either owing to its cask or from some acci- 

 dental circumstance ? And consequently each man 

 will appoint himself judge of the question which wine 

 hoads the hst. JuHa Augusta gave the credit for her 

 eighty-six years of Hfe to the wine of Pizzino, having 

 never drunk any other. It is grown on a bay of the 

 Adriatic not far from the source of the Timavus, on a 

 rocky hill, where the breeze offthe sea ripens enough 

 grapes to make a few casks ; and no other wine is 

 considered more suitable for medicinal puq^oses. I 

 am inchned to beheve that this is the wine from the 

 Adriatic Gulf which the Greeks have extolled with 

 such marvellous encomiums under the name of 

 Praetutian. His late Majesty Augustus preferred 

 Setinum to all wines whatsoever, and so for the most 

 part did the Emperors who came after him, owing to 

 the verdict of experience that because injurious 

 attacks of indigestion do not readily arise from this 

 liquor. . . . It grows just above Foro Appio. Pre- 

 viously Caecuban wine had the reputation of being 

 the most generous of all ; it was grown in some poplar 

 woods 011 marshy ground on the Bay of Amyclae, 

 but the vineyard has now disappeared owing to the 

 neglect of the cultivator and the confined area of 

 the ground, though in a greater degree owing to 

 the ship canal from the lake of Baiae to Ostia that 

 was begun by Nero. 



The second rank belonged to the Falernian district, Second-dass 

 and in it particularly to the estate of Faustus '^ in "^'*^' 

 consequence of the care taken in its cultivation ; but 



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