262 
PLINT's NATUEAL HISTOllY. 
[Book XIY. 
J^Tone of these wiues, howev-er, will keep beyond a year,^^ 
with the sole exception of those which we have spoken of as 
requiring age ; many of these, indeed, there can be no doubt, 
do not improve after being kept so little as thirty days. 
CHAP. 22. (18.) TWELYE KINDS OF WINE WITH MIKACITLOirS 
PEOPEETIES. 
There are some miraculous properties, too, in certain wines. 
It is said that in Arcadia there is a wine grown which is 
productive of fruitfulness^^ in women, and of madness in men ; 
w^hile in Achaia, and more especially in the vicinity of Cary- 
nia, there is a wine which causes abortion ; an effect which is 
equally produced if a woman in a state of pregnancy happens 
only to eat a grape of the vine from which it is grown, although 
in taste it is in no way different from ordinary grapes : again, 
it is confidently asserted that those who drink the wine of 
Troezen never bear children. Thasos, it is said, produces two 
varieties of wine with quite opposite properties. By one kind 
sleep is produced, by the other it is prevented. There is 
also in the same island a vine known as the theriaca,"^^ the 
wine and grapes of which are a cure for the bites of serpents. 
The libanian vine^ also produces a wine with the smell of 
frankincense, with which they make libations to the gods, while, 
on the other hand, the produce of that known as aspendios,^" 
is banished from all the altars : it is said, too, that this last 
vine is never touched by any bird. 
The Egyptians call by the name of Thasian/' ^ a certain 
grape of that country, remarkable for its sweetness and its 
Our medicinal wines will mostly keep longer than this, owing probably 
to the difference in the mode of making the real wines that form their 
basis. 
There is little doubt that this is fabulous : wine taken in excess, we 
know, is productive of loss of the senses, frenzy in the shape of delirium 
tremens. 
This is not unlikely ; for, as Fee remarks, the red wines, containing 
a large proportion of alcohol, act upon the brain and promote sleep, while 
the white wines, charged with carbonic gas, are productive of wakefulness. 
Or heaUng vine. See B, xxiii. c. 11. 
^ "Libaiiios." Probably incense was put in this wine, to produce the 
flavour. 
2 From a., not," and airevdeiv, " to make libation.'* 
2 See c. 9 of this Book. It was introduced, probably, from Thasos* 
