The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 3 (of 6)

Chapter 260: CHAP. 23. (19.)—WHAT WINES IT IS NOT LAWFUL TO USE IN THE SACRED RITES.

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About This Book

The work assembles systematic observations on animals, insects, and trees, combining natural history with practical notes. It surveys insect forms and habits, including bees, silk‑producing worms, spiders, and parasitic species, and discusses reproduction, classification, diseases, and useful products like honey and silk. It then examines animal anatomy in detail, limb by limb and organ by organ, comparing organs, vital functions, and bodily peculiarities across species. Later sections catalogue trees and exotic plants, describing aromatic gums, spices, frankincense, myrrh, and methods for producing and testing unguents and perfumes, and noting their uses and regions of origin.

CHAP. 23. (19.)—WHAT WINES IT IS NOT LAWFUL TO USE IN THE SACRED RITES.

As religion is the great basis of the ordinary usages of life, I shall here remark that it is considered improper to offer libations to the gods with any wines which are the produce of an unpruned vine, or of one that has been struck by lightning, or near to which a dead man has been hung, or of grapes that have been trodden out by sore feet, or made of must from husks that have been cut,1499 or from grapes that have been polluted by the fall of any unclean thing upon them. The Greek wines are excluded also from the sacred ministrations, because they contain a portion of water.

The vine itself is sometimes eaten; the tops of the shoots 1500 are taken off and boiled, and are then pickled in vinegar 1501 and brine.