BOOK XIV. X. 77-xi. 80 



X. Up to this point the goodness of a wine is ^ medMnai 

 credited to the countries of its growth. Among the 

 Greeks, the wine they have called ' Ufe ' has justly 



won a very distinguished name, having been de- 



veloped for the treatment of a great many maladies, 



as we shall show in the part of our work deaUng xxiii. 53. 



with medicine. The process of making it is this : 



the grapes are picked a Httle before they are ripe 



and are dried in a fierce sun, being turned three 



times a day for three days, and on the fourth day 



they are put through the press and then left in 



casks to mature in the sun. The people of Cos 



mix in a rather large quantity of sea-water — a 



custom arising from the peculation of a slave who 



used this method to fill up the due measure, and 



this mixture is poured into white must, producing 



what is called in Greek ' white Coan.' In other 



countries a blend made in a similar way is called 



' sea-flavoured wine,' and * sea-treated ' when the 



vessels containing the must have been thrown into 



the sea ; this is a kind of wine that matures young. 



Also with us as well Cato exhibited a method of «.«. cxii. 



making Coan ^nne out of Itahan, his most important 



instruction being that it must be left in the sun for 



four years * to ripen. The Rhodes vintage resembles 



that of Cos, but the Phorinean is salter. AU the 



overseas wines are thought to take seven years to 



reach the middle stage of maturity. 



XI. AU sweet wine has less aroma ; the thinner a Aromaand 

 wine is the more aroma it has. Wines are of four ZiZl. 

 colours, white, brown, blood-red and black. Psithian 



and black psithian are kinds of raisin-wine with a Raisin-wine. 

 pecuHar flavour which is not that of wine ; ScybeHtes 

 is a kind of must produced in Galatia, and Aluntium 



239 



