1115 There is no doubt that the whole of this passage is in a most corrupt state, and we can only guess at its meaning. Sillig suggests a new reading, which, unsupported as it is by any of the MSS., can only be regarded as fanciful, and perhaps as a very slight improvement on the attempts to obtain a solution of the difficulty. Pliny’s main object seems to be to contrast the vines that entwine round poles and rise perpendicularly with those that creep horizontally.
1116 By throwing out fresh shoots every here and there. Fée, however, seems to think that he means that the grapes themselves, as they trail along the ground, suck up the juices with their pores. These are known in France as “running vines,” and are found in Berry and Anjou.
1117 He must evidently be speaking of the size of the bunches. See the account of the grapes of Canaan, in Numbers xiii. 24.
1118 “Durus acinus,” or, according to some readings, “duracinus.”
1119 From the Greek βουμαστὸς, a cow’s teat, mentioned by Virgil, Georg. ii. 102.
1120 Or finger-grape.
1121 From the Greek λεπτορᾶγες, “small-berried.”
1122 Pensili concamaratæ nodo.
1123 We have no corresponding word for the Latin “dolium.” It was an oblong earthen vessel, used for much the same purpose as our vats; new wine was generally placed in it. In times later than that of Pliny the dolia were made of wood.
1124 Hardouin speaks of these grapes as still growing in his time in the Valtelline, and remarkable for their excellence.
1125 “A patientia.” Because they have suffered from the action of the heat.
1126 From the thinness of the skin.
1128 See B. iii. c. 5, and B. xxxiii. c. 24.
1129 He died in the year B.C. 19.
1130 A vine sapling was the chief mark of the centurion’s authority.
1131 The reading “elatas,” has been adopted. If “lentas” is retained, it may mean, “promotion, slow though it be,” for the word “aquila” was often used to denote the rank of the “primipilus,” who had the charge of the eagle of the legion.
1132 Because it was the privilege solely of those soldiers who were Roman citizens to be beaten with the vine sapling.
1133 He alludes to the “vinea” used in besieging towns; the first notion of which was derived from the leafy roof afforded by the vines when creeping on the trellis over-head. It was a moveable machine, affording a roof under which the besiegers protected themselves against darts, stones, fire, and other missiles. Raw hides or wet cloths constituted the uppermost layer.
1134 See B. xxiii. c. 19.
1135 Many years ago, there were in the gardens of the Luxembourg one thousand four hundred varieties of the French grape, and even then there were many not to be found there; while, at the same time, it was considered that the French kinds did not form more than one-twentieth part of the species known in Europe.
1136 This vine was said to be of Grecian origin, and to have been conveyed by a Thessalian tribe to Italy, where it was grown at Aminea, a village in the Falernian district of Campania. It is supposed to have been the same as the gros plant of the French. The varieties mentioned by Pliny seem not to have been recognized by the moderns.
1137 Fée does not give credit to this statement.
1138 In allusion to the cotton-tree, or else the mulberry leaves covered with the cocoons of the silkworm. See B. vi. c. 20, and B. xii. c. 21. Virgil, in the Georgics, has the well-known line:
1139 See B. iii. c. 9, There are many vines, the wood of which is red, but this species has not been identified.
1140 From “apis,” a “bee.” He alludes, it is thought, to the muscatel grape, said to have had its name from “musca,” a “fly;” an insect which is greatly attracted by its sweetness.
1141 Græcula.
1142 Fée is inclined to think that he alludes to the vine of Corinth, the dried fruit of which are the currants of commerce.
1143 From the Greek εὐγένεια.
1144 How Taormina, in Sicily, where, Fée says, it is still to be found. The grapes are red, similar to those of Mascoli near Etna, and much esteemed.
1146 I. e., pale straw colour.
1147 It has been supposed that this vine received its name from “fæx;” the wine depositing an unusually large quantity of lees.
1148 It is doubtful whether this vine had its name from being grown in the district now called Bourges, or that of Bourdeaux. Dalechamps identifies it with the plant d’Orleans.
1149 The origin of its name is unknown. The text is evidently defective.
1150 By this name it would be understood that they were of an intermediate colour between rose and white, a not uncommon colour in the grape. Pliny, however, says otherwise, and he is supported by Columella.
1151 C. Bauhin took this to mean one of the garden currant trees, the Ribes uva crispa of Linnæus, called by Bauhin Grossularia simplici acino, or else Spinosa agrestis. But, as Fée observes, the ancients were not so ignorant as to confound a vine with a currant-bush.
1152 Like the Portuguese grapes of the present day.
1153 Crisped and indented.
1154 This variety, according to Christian de la Vega, was cultivated abundantly in Grenada. The word cocolab, according to some, meant cock’s comb. It is mentioned as a Spanish word by Columella.
1155 Dalechamps says, that a similar wine was made at Montpellier, and that it was called “piquardant.”
1156 See B. xxiii. cc. 20, 21.
1157 Probably from “albus,” “white.” Poinsinet thinks that it may have been so called from the Celtic word alb, or alp, a mountain, and that it grew on elevated spots. This, however, is probably fanciful.
1158 Called by the Greeks ἀμέθυστον, from its comparatively harmless qualities.
1159 Or “sober” vine.
1160 Hardouin says that in his time it was still cultivated about Macerata, in the Roman States. Fée thinks that it may be one of the climbing vines, supported by forks, cultivated in the central provinces of France. See also B. xxiii. c. 19, as to the effects produced by its wine.
1161 Poinsinet gives a Celto-Scythian origin to this word, and says that it means “injured by fogs.” This appears to be supported in some measure by what is stated below.
1163 Or “thorny” vine. Fée queries why it should be thus called.
1164 This humid, marshy locality was noted for the badness of its grapes, and consequently of its wine.
1165 Hardouin thinks that this is the “Marze mina” of the Venetians: whence, perhaps, its ancient name.
1166 “Testis.” See B. xxxv. c. 46.
1167 From Murgentum, in Sicily. See B. iii. c. 14.
1168 From Pompeii, afterwards destroyed. See B. iii c. 9.
1169 Hardouin, as Fée thinks, without good reason, identifies this with the “Arelaca” of Columella.
1170 Georgics, ii. 99.
1171 This seems to be the meaning of “ultro solum lætius facit.” These two lines have been introduced by Sillig, from one of the MSS., for the first time.
1172 Hardouin thinks that it is so called from Tuder, a town of Etruria. See B. iii. c. 19.
1173 Sillig suggests that the reading here is corrupt, and that Pliny means to say that the vine called Florentia is particularly excellent, and merely to state that the talpona, &c., are peculiar to Arretium: for, as he says, speaking directly afterwards in disparagement of them, it is not likely he would pronounce them “opima,” of “first-rate quality.”
1174 From “talpa,” a “mole,” in consequence of its black colour.
1175 “Album.”
1176 Probably so called from the Etesian winds, which improved its growth.
1177 Perhaps meaning “double-seeded.” We may here remark, that the wines of Tuscany, though held in little esteem in ancient times, are highly esteemed at the present day.
1178 The leaves of most varieties turn red just before the fall.
1179 And Baccius thinks that this is the kind from which the raisins of the sun, common in Italy, and more particularly in the Valley of Bevagna, the Mevania of Pliny, are made.
1180 Perhaps from “pumilio,” a dwarf.
1181 The “royal” vine, according to Poinsinet, who would derive it from the Sclavonic “ban.”
1183 The residence of Horace, now Tivoli.
1184 Baccius says that the wine of this grape was thin like water, and that the vine was trained on lofty trees, a mode of cultivation still followed in the vicinity of Rome. Laurentum was situate within a short distance of it, near Ostia.
1185 See B. iii. c. 9.
1186 So called from the smoky or intermediate colour of its grapes. Fée suggests that this may be the slow-ripening grape of France, called the “verjus,” or “rognon de coq.”
1187 Possibly meaning the “mouthful.”
1188 Perhaps so called from Prusa in Bithynia, a district which bore excellent grapes.
1189 Or the “turning” grape. A fabulous story no doubt, originating in the name, probably. Fée suggests that it may have originated in the not uncommon practice of letting the bunches hang after they were ripe, and then twisting them, which was thought to increase the juice.
1190 In the modern Marches of Ancona.
1191 Georgics, ii. 91, et seq.
1192 A muscatel, Fée thinks.
1193 Or “hard-berried.” Fée thinks that the maroquin, or Morocco grape, called the “pied de poule” (or fowl’s foot), at Montpellier, may be the duracinus.
1194 Or “upright vine.” In Anjou and Herault the vines are of similar character.
1195 The “finger-like” vine.
1196 The “pigeon” vine.
1197 Though very fruitful, it does not bear in large clusters (racemi), but only in small bunches (uvæ).
1198 The “three-foot” vine.
1199 Perhaps meaning the “rush” grape, from its shrivelled appearance.
1201 The ordinary number of pips or stones is five. It is seldom that we find but one. Virgil mentions this grape, Georg. ii. 95.
1202 “Chium.” This reading is doubtful. Fée says that between Narni and Terni, eight leagues from Spoleto, a small grape is found, without stones. It is called “uva passa,” or “passerina.” So, too, the Sultana raisin of commerce.
1203 “Grown for the table.”
1204 Or “hard-berry.”
1205 Mentioned by Virgil, Georg. ii. 101.
1206 Or pitch-grape.
1207 Perhaps the “noirant,” or “teinturier” of the French.
1208 Or “garland-clustered” vine.
1209 Fée says that this is sometimes accidentally the case, but is not the characteristic of any variety now known.
1210 Or “market-grapes.”
1211 The “ash-coloured.”
1212 The “russet-coloured.”
1213 Probably so called from its grey colour, like that of the ass.
1214 Or “fox” vine. This variety is unknown.
1215 So called from Alexandria, in Troas, not in Egypt. Phalacra was in the vicinity of Mount Ida.
1216 As the leaves of the vine are universally divided, it has been considered by many of the commentators that this is not in reality a vine, but the Arbutus uva ursi of Linnæus. The fruit, however, of that ericaceous plant is remarkably acrid, and not sweet, as Pliny states. Fée rejects this solution.
1217 Aubenas, in the Vivarais, according to Hardouin; Alps, according to Brotier. We must reject this assertion as fabulous.
1218 In B.C. 194, for his successes in Spain.
1219 Mode of culture, locality, climate, and other extraneous circumstances, work, no doubt, an entire change in the nature of the vine.
1220 Probably the first of the five that he has mentioned in c. 4.
1224 We have no corresponding word for this beverage in the English language—a thin, poor liquor, made by pouring water on the husks and stalks after being fully pressed, allowing them to soak, pressing them again, and then fermenting the liquor. It was also called “vinum operarium,” or “labourer’s wine.” As stated in the present instance, grapes were sometimes stored in it for keeping.
1225 A variety of the Aminean, as stated below.
1226 See B. iii. c. 9.
1227 The elder Africanus. He retired in voluntary exile to his country-seat at Liternum, where he died.
1228 Mercis.
1229 The suggestion of Sillig has been adopted, for the ordinary reading is evidently corrupt, and absurd as well—“not in the very worst part of a favourite locality”—just the converse of the whole tenor of the story.
1230 The philosopher, and tutor of Nero.
1231 Said to have been so called from Maron, a king of Thrace, who dwelt in the vicinity of the Thracian Ismarus. See B. iv. c. 18. Homer mentions this wine in the Odyssey, B. ix. c. 197, et seq. It was red, honey-sweet, fragrant. The place is still called Marogna, in Roumelia, a country the wines of which are still much esteemed.
1232 See B. vii. c. 57.
1233 Thus making “mulsum.”
1234 B. ix. c. 208.
1235 Indomitus.
1236 By “black” wines he means those that had the same colour as our port.
1237 Il. xi. 638. Od. x. 234.
1238 Cybele. A wine called “Pramnian” was also grown in the island of Icaria, in Lesbos, and in the territory of Ephesus. The scholiast on Nicander says that the grape of the psythia was used in making it. Dioscorides says that it was a “protropum,” first-class wine, made of the juice that voluntarily flowed from the grapes, in consequence of their own pressure.
1239 B.C. 121.
1240 “Cooking,” literally, or “boiling.”
1241 The wines of Burgundy, in particular, become bitter when extremely old.
1242 See B. vii. c. 18.
1243 Caligula.
1244 By some remarkable and peculiar quality, such as in the Opimian wine.
1245 “Testa,” meaning the amphora.
1246 See c. 3 of the present Book, where these “picata,” or “pitched-wines,” have been further described.
1247 On the contrary, Fée says, the coldest wines are those that contain the least alcohol, whereas those of Vienne (in modern Dauphiné) contain more than the majority of wines.
1248 He implies that wine is an antidote to the poisonous effects of hemlock. This is not the case, but it is said by some that vinegar is. It is the plant hemlock (cicuta) that is meant, and not the fatal draught that was drunk by Socrates and Philopœmen. See further in B. xxiii. c. 23, and B. xxv. c. 95.
1249 Clitus and Callisthenes.
1250 Lacus.
1251 The testa or amphora, made of earth.
1252 As the wife of Augustus is meant, this reading appears preferable to “Julia.”
1253 Dion Cassius says “eighty-sixth.”