256 
pltny's natxteal histoet. 
[Book XIV. 
husks of the grapes are employed in dressing leather. The 
grapes, too, a little after the blossom has gone off, are sin- 
gularly efficacious as a specific for cooling the feverish heat of 
the body in certain maladies, being, it is said, of a nature re- 
markable for extreme coldness. A portion of these grapes 
wither away, in consequence of the heat, before the rest, 
which are thence called solstitiaP^ grapes ; indeed, the whole 
of them never attain maturity ; if one of these grapes, in 
an unripe state, is given to a barn-door fowl to eat, it is pro- 
ductive of a dislike to grapes for the future^* 
CHAP. 19. SIXTY- SIX VAEIETIES OF AETIPTCIAL WINE. 
The first of the artificial wines has wine for its basis ; it is 
called adynamon,''^^ and is made in the following manner. 
Twenty sextarii of white must are boiled down with half that 
quantity of water, until the amount of the water is lost by 
evaporation. Some persons mix with the must ten sextarii of 
sea- water and an equal quantity of rain-water, and leave the 
whole to evaporate in the sun for forty days. This beverage 
is given to invalids to whom it is apprehended that wine may 
prove injurious. 
The next kind of artificial wine is that made of the ripe 
grain of millet ; a pound and a quarter of it with the straw 
is steeped in two congii of must, and the mixture is poured off 
at the end of six months. We have already stated" how 
various kinds of wine are made from the tree, the shrub, and 
the herb, respectively known as the lotus. 
Erom fruit, too, the following wines are made, to the list of 
which we shall only add some necessary explanations : — First 
of all, we find the fruit of the palm^® employed for this pur- 
13 " Solstitiales." Because they withstand the heat of the solstice. Mar- 
cellus Empiricus calls them " caniculati," because they bear the heat of the 
Dog-star. 
1^ Fee remarks that this assertion is quite erroneous. 
15 From the Greek, meaning " without strength." The mixture, Fee 
remarks, would appear to he neither potahle nor wholesome. 
16 See B. xviii. c. 24. A kind of beer might be made with it, Fee says ; 
but this mixture must have been very unnalatable. 
17 See B. xiii. c. 32. 
18 A vinous drink may be made in the manner here stated ; but the palm, 
wine of the peoples of Asia and Africa is only made of the fermented sap 
of the tree. See B. xiii. c. 9. 
