238 
Pliny's natural history. [Book XIV. 
ponius Secundus, the poet, and the banquet which he gave 
to that prince^''' — so enormous is the capital that lies buried in 
our cellars of wine ! Indeed, there is no one thing, the value 
of which more sensibly increases up to the twentieth year, or 
which decreases with greater rapidity after that period, sup- 
posing that the value of it is not by that time greatly en- 
hanced.^^ Very rarely, indeed, up to the present day, has it 
been known for a single^^ piece of wine to cost a thousand 
sesterces, except, indeed, when such a sum may have been paid 
in a fit of extravagance and debauchery. The people of 
Yienne, it is said, are the only ones who have set a higher price 
than this upon their picata," wines, the various kinds of 
which we have already mentioned ;^ and this, it is thought, 
they only do, vying with each other, and influenced by a sort 
of national self-esteem. This wine, drunk in a cool state, is 
generally thought to be of a colder^^ temperature than any 
other. 
CHAP. 7. (5.) — THE NATURE OF WINES. 
It is the property of wine, when drunk, to cause a feeling 
of warmth in the interior of the viscera, and, when poured 
upon the exterior of the body, to be cool and refreshing. It 
will not be foreign to my purpose on the present occasion to 
state the advice which Androcydes, a man famous for his 
wisdom, wrote to Alexander the Great, with the view of put- 
ting a check on his intemperance : When you are about to 
drink wine, 0 king said he, remember that you are about 
to drink the blood of the earth : hemlock is a poison to man, 
wine a poison^^ to hemlock." And if Alexander had only fol- 
lowed this advice, he certainly would not have had to answer 
*7 Caligula. 
By some remarkable and peculiar quality, such, as in the Opimian 
wine. " Testa," meaning the amphora. 
^ See c. 3 of the present Book, where these "picata," or "pitched- 
wines/' have been further described. 
51 On the contrary, Fee says, the coldest wines are those that contain 
the least alcohol, whereas those of Vienne (in modern Dauphine) contain 
more than the majority of wines. 
52 He implies that wine is an antidote to the poisonous effects of hem- 
lock. This is not the case, but it is said by some that vinegar is. It is 
the plant hemlock (cicuta) that is meant, and not the fatal draught that 
was drunk by Socrates and Philopoemen. See further in B. xxiii. c. 23^ 
and B. xxv. c. 95. 
