Chap. 10.] 
SALTED WIKES. 
217 
general not attended with good results. The protagion^^ is 
quite gone out of date, a wine which the school of Asclepiades 
has reckoned as next in merit to those of Italy. The physician 
Apollodorus, in the work which he wrote recommending King 
Ptolemy what wines in particular to drink — for in his time 
the wines of Italy were not generally known — has spoken in 
high terms of that of J^aspercene in Pontus, next to which he 
places the Oretic/^ and then the OEneatian/^ the Leucadian/^ 
the Ambraciotic/^ and the Peparethian/^ to which last he gives 
the preference over all the rest, though he states that it en- 
joj^ed an inferior reputation, from the fact of its not being 
considered fit for drinking until it had been kept six years. 
CHAP. 10. (8.) SEVEN KINDS OF SALTED WINES. 
Thus far we have treated of wines, the goodness of which is 
due to the country of their growth. In Greece the wine that 
is known by the name of bion," and which is administered 
for its curative qualities in several maladies (as we shall have 
occasion to remark when we come to speak on the subject of 
Medicine'*^), has been justly held in the very highest esteem. 
This wine is made in the following manner : the grapes are 
plucked before they are quite ripe, and then dried in a hot 
sun : for three days they are turned three times a day, and on 
the fourth day they are pressed, after which the juice is put 
in casks, and left to acquire age in the heat of the sun.^^ 
The people of Cos mix sea-water in large quantities with 
their wines, an invention w^hich they first learned from a slave, 
who adopted this method of supplying the deficiency that had 
been caused by his thievish propensities. When this is mixed 
with white must, the mixture receives the name of ^'leu- 
From its Greek name, it would seem to mean *'of first quality." 
^2 So called from a place in Euboea, the modern Negropont. See. B. iv. 
c. 20. Negropont produces good wines at the present day. 
The locality is unknown. 
From Leucadia, or Leucate ; see B. iv. c. 2 ; the vine was very abun- 
dant there. 
From Ambracia. See B. iv. c 2, 
From the island of Peparethus. See. B. iv. c. 23, where he says that 
from its abundance of vines it was called svoivdg, or " Evenus." 
B. xxiii. c. 1, and c. 26. Cadis." 
*9 Fee remarks that this method is still adopted in making several of 
the liqueurs. 
