14 EARLY USE OP WINE AMONG THE ROMANS. 



saw at his father's table Greek wines served up but once at each 

 meal, but, that on his return from Asia, he bestowed oh the 

 people as a largess, more than a hundred thousand gallons of 

 such wine ; and that Hortensius at his death left to his heir 

 above ten thousand barrels filled with the esteemed wines of 

 Greece. 



Pliny mentions having drank wines that had been made dur- 

 ing the consulship of Opimius, which was about two hundred 

 years before. He also concludes that the vine was very rare 

 in Italy in the reign of Numa, and adds, that wines did not 

 come into much repute until six hundred years after the foun- 

 dation of Rome. 



Varro states a fact which shows the high value then set on 

 wines, that Mezentius, king of Tuscany, aided the Rutilans 

 of Ardea in their wars against the Latins, for no other hire 

 but the wine and the vines which were in the territories of the 

 Latins. It was to Ruma that Italy was first indebted for the 

 abolishment of the interdiction promulgated by Romulus, and 

 Pliny remarks, that politicians made use of the circumstance 

 of this privilege being granted for its free use in religious 

 sacrifices, as a means to promote and encourage its extensive 

 culture, and the result seems to have fully responded to these 

 exertions, for vineyards soon after became so numerous, and 

 their produce so abundant, that wine not only came into 

 general use, but the use of it was often carried to excess, and 

 even the Roman fair are said to have partaken too freely of 

 the enjoyment. This excess caused the enactment of the law 

 against its use by women in any case whatever, under penalty 

 of death, and by men until they had attained the age of thirty 

 years. Fabius Pictor tells us of a Roman lady who was 

 starved by her relations because she had opened a cupboard 

 which contained the keys of the wine cellar ; and Macennius 

 killed his wife with a cudgel on account of having caught her 

 drinking wine out of a tun, and being tried for it, was ac- 

 quitted of murder. Cato mentions, that the custom among re- 

 lations of kissing women when they met, was to ascertain by 

 their breath if they had been drinking wine. But this cus- 



