252 
pliny's natural history. 
[Book XIV. 
repute having only been acquired since the six hundredth year 
of the City. 
CHAP. 14. (12.) — THE INSPECTIOIir OF WINE OEDEEED BY KING 
ROMULUS. 
Eomulus made libations, not with wine but with milk ; a 
fact which is fully established by the religious rites which 
owe their foundation to him, and are observed even to the 
present day. The Posthumian Law, promulgated by King 
JSTuma, has an injunction to the following effect : — Sprinkle 
not the funeral pyre with wine a law to which he gave his 
sanction, no doubt, in consequence of the remarkable scarcity 
of that commodity in those days. By the same law, he also 
pronounced it illegal to make a libation to the gods of wine that 
was the produce of an unpruned vine, his object being to compel 
the husbandmen to prune their vines ; a duty which they 
showed themselves reluctant to perform, in consequence of the 
danger which attended climbing the trees. M. Yarro in- 
forms us, that Mezentius, the king of Etruria, succoured the 
Eutuli against the Latini, upon condition that he should re- 
ceive all the wine that was then in the territory of Latium. 
(13.) At Eome it was not lawful for women to drink wine. 
Among the various anecdotes connected with this subject, we 
find that the wife of Egnatius Mecenius was slain by her hus- 
band with a stick, because she had drunk some wine from the vat, 
and that he was absolved from the murder by Romulus. Fabius 
Pictor, in his Book of Annals, has stated that a certain lady, 
for having opened a purse in which the keys of the wine-cellar 
were kept, was starved to death by her family : and Cato tells 
us, that it was the usage for the male relatives to give the 
females a kiss, in order to ascertain whether they smelt of 
temetum for it was by that name that wine was then 
known, whence our word temulentia,'* signifying drunken- 
ness. Cn. Domitius, the judge, once gave it as his opinion, 
that a certain woman appeared to him to have drunk more 
wine than was requisite for her health, and without the know- 
ledge of her husband, for which reason he condemned her to 
lose her dower. Por a very long time there was the greatest 
89 " Circa pericula arbusti.'* This is probably the meaning of this yery 
elliptical passage. See p. 218. 
Called Metellus, by Valerius Maximus, B, vi. c. 3. 
