EARLY HISTORY. 345 



aspera. What the Greek author says of the fruit is par- 

 ticularly applicable to this plant; but, on the other hand, 

 it differs widely from the fruit of the hop. 



Again, in Pliny 1 we find a plant described under the 

 name of Lupus salictarius, which, with more probability, 

 has by many been considered as our hop. But after all, 

 the evidence is very slight, as the only points of resem- 

 blance between the plant described and our hop are, that 

 the plant grew in willow plantations, and that it was 

 esculent, and we know well that the young shoots of the 

 hop are in some countries eaten in spring as a salad the 

 commentators being probably led in their conjectures more 

 by the name lupus than by any of the physical analogies 

 between them. In Cato 2 there is mention made of a wild 

 plant which was used as fodder for cattle, and which has 

 also been suggested as referring to the hop. Although we 

 have no evidence that the Greeks or Romans were ac- 

 quainted with the hop, or at all events with its use in the 

 preparation of beer, it is quite possible that it might have 

 been known to and used at that period by the more 

 northern nations, for the Romans were acquainted only 

 with beer from the accounts given of the Germans and of 

 their manners, and they considered that beverage merely 

 as the unsuccessful imitation of their wine by a people 

 whose climate did not admit of the cultivation of the 

 grape. 3 From the opinions given by the various authors 

 referred to in the footnote, it would appear that hops were 

 not made use of for beer purposes until a much later period. 



About the ninth and tenth centuries, however, we have 

 good evidence that the plant was not only known, but 



1 Plin. Nat. Hist., lib. xxi. c. 15. 



2 Cato, De Re Rusticd, xxxvii. p. 55. 



3 Most of the passages which relate to beer in ancient authors have been 

 collected by Dithmar in his edition of Tacitus, De Moribus Germanor., cap. 

 xxiii. ; and by Meibomm, De Cereviciis Veterum in Gronovii Thesaur. Antiq. 



., ix. p. 548. 



