ORIGIN OF THE VINE. 



crown of Juno was also made of the vine. Plato, one of the 

 wisest of men, and who so particularly restrains the use of 

 wine within reasonable bounds, and so severely censures its 

 abuse by excess, remarks, " that nothing more excellent or 

 valuable than wine was ever granted by God to man." Among 

 the ancient Romans, wine was principally used for sacred pur- 

 poses in the worship of their gods, to which object it had 

 been appropriated by the inhabitants of the East, previous to 

 the foundation of that empire. 



To show still further that the ancients were well aware of 

 its abuse as well as of its worth, although we find Bacchus 

 generally represented with a countenance full of jollity, yet 

 he is often depicted as an old man, with his head encircled by 

 the vine, to teach us that wine taken to excess will induce 

 enervation, destroy our health and strength, and render us 

 weak, loquacious, and childish, like old men. 



In the earlier ages wine was used without dilution ; and the 

 Athenians mention Amphitryon as the first who mingled it 

 with water ; and it is said that to this circumstance we owe the 

 origin of the fable of Bacchus having been struck by a thun- 

 derbolt, and cast thus inflamed into the bath of the Nymphs 

 to be extinguished. 



Origin and native country of the vine, fyc. 



Not only, as Chaptal truly remarks, are we indebted to 

 Asia for civilization and the arts, but also for the most of the 

 cultivated grasses, fruits and vegetables, and even for the vine. 

 By some authors it has been supposed to be a native of Syria, 

 but none of these appear to have possessed any proofs on the 

 subject. The accounts of Andre Michaux, who found it in 

 the woods of Manzanderan, and of Olivier, member of the 

 French Institute, who saw it in many parts of the mountains 

 of Curdistan, as well as the circumstance that the most part 

 of our acclimated fruits, and our domestic animals, come from 

 upper Asia, banish all doubt of the fact that Persia is its na- 

 tive country. 



