Delphi Complete Works of Pliny the Elder

by Pliny the Elder

  Should he, however, fortunately escape all these dangers, the drunkard never beholds the rising sun, by which his life of drinking is made all the shorter. From wine, too, comes that pallid hue, those drooping eyelids, those sore eyes, those tremulous hands, unable to hold with steadiness the overflowing vessel, condign punishment in the shape of sleep agitated by Furies during the restless night, and, the supreme reward of inebriety, those dreams of monstrous lustfulness and of forbidden delights. Then on the next day there is the breath reeking of the wine-cask, and a nearly total obliviousness of everything, from the annihilation of the powers of the memory. And this, too, is what they call “seizing the moments of life! whereas, in reality, while other men lose the day that has gone before, the drinker has already lost the one that is to come.

  They first began, in the reign of Tiberius Claudius, some forty years ago, to drink fasting, and to take whets of wine before meals; an outlandish fashion, however, and only patronized by physicians who wished to recommend themselves by the introduction of some novelty or other.

  It is in the exercise of their drinking powers that the Parthians look for their share of fame, and it was in this that Alcibiades among the Greeks earned his great repute. Among ourselves, too, Novellius Torquatus of Mediolanum, a man who held all the honours of the state from the prefecture to the pro-consulate, could drink off three congii at a single draught, a feat from which he obtained the surname of “Tricongius:” this he did before the eyes of the Emperor Tiberius, and to his extreme surprise and astonishment, a man who in his old age was very morose, and indeed very cruel in general; though in his younger days he himself had been too much addicted to wine. Indeed it was owing to that recommendation that it was generally thought that L. Piso was selected by him to have the charge and custody of the City of Rome; he having kept up a drinking-bout at the residence of Tiberius, just after he had become emperor, two days and two nights without intermission. In no point, too, was it generally said that Drusus Cæsar took after his father Tiberius more than this. Torquatus had the rather uncommon glory — for this science, too, is regulated by peculiar laws of its own — of never being known to stammer in his speech, or to relieve the stomach by vomiting or urine, while engaged in drinking. lie was always on duty at the morning guard, was able to empty the largest vessel at a single draught, and yet to take more ordinary cups in addition than any one else; he was always to be implicitly depended upon, too, for being able to drink without taking breath and without ever spitting, or so much as leaving enough at the bottom of the cup to make a plash upon the pavement; thus showing himself an exact observer of the regulations which have been made to prevent all shirking on the part of drinkers.

  Tergilla reproaches Cicero, the son of Marcus Cicero, with being in the habit of taking off a couple of congii at a single draught, and with having thrown a cup, when in a state of drunkenness, at M. Agrippa; such, in fact, being the ordinary results of intoxication. But it is not to be wondered at that Cicero was desirous in this respect to eclipse the fame of M. Antonius, the murderer of his father; a man who had, before the time of the younger Cicero, shown himself so extremely anxious to maintain the superiority in this kind of qualifica- tion, that he had even gone so far as to publish a book upon the subject of his own drunkenness. Daring in this work to speak in his own defence, he has proved very satisfactorily, to lay thinking, how many were the evils he had inflicted upon the world through this same vice of drunkenness. It was but a short time before the battle of Actium that he vomited forth this book of his, from which we have no great difficulty in coming to the conclusion, that drunk as lie already was with the blood of his fellow-citizens, the only result was that he thirsted for it all the more. For, in fact, such is the infallible characteristic of drunkenness, the more a person is in the habit of drinking, the more eager he is for drink; and the remark of the Scythian ambassador is as true as it is well known — the more the Parthians drank, the thirstier they were for it.

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  CHAP. 29.

  LIQUORS WITH THE STRENGTH OF WINE MADE FROM WATER AND CORN.

  The people of the Western world have also their intoxicating drinks, made from corn steeped in water. These beverages are prepared in different ways throughout Gaul and the provinces of Spain; under different names, too, though in their results they are the same. The Spanish provinces have even taught us the fact that these liquors are capable of being kept till they have attained a considerable age. Egypt, too, has invented for its use a very similar beverage made from corn; indeed, in no part of the world is drunkenness ever at a loss. And then, besides, they take these drinks unmixed, and do not dilute them with water, the way that wine is modified; and yet, by Hercules! one really might have supposed that there the earth produced nothing but corn for the people’s use. Alas! what wondrous skill, and yet how misplaced! means have absolutely been discovered for getting drunk upon water even.

  There are two liquids that are peculiarly grateful to the human body, wine within and oil without; both of them the produce of trees, and most excellent in their respective kinds. Oil, indeed, we may pronounce an absolute necessary, nor has mankind been slow to employ all the arts of invention in the manufacture of it. How much more ingenious, however, man has shown himself in devising various kinds of drink will be evident from the fact, that there are no less than one hundred and ninety-five different kinds of it; indeed, if all the varieties are reckoned, they will amount to nearly double that number. The various kinds of oil are much less numerous — we shall proceed to give an account of them in the following Book.

  SUMMARY. — Remarkable facts, narratives, and observations, five hundred and ten.

  ROMAN AUTHORS QUOTED. — Cornelius Valerianus, Virgil, Celsus, Cato the Censor, Saserna, father and son, Scrofa, M. Varro, D. Silanus, Fabius Pictor, Trogus, Hyginus, Flaccus Verrius, Græcinus, Julius Atticus, Columella, Massurius Sabinus, Fenestella, Tergilla, Maccius Plautus, Flavius, Dossennus, Scævola, Ælius, Ateius Capito, cotta Messalinus, L. Piso, Pompeius Lenæus, Fabianus, Sextius Niger, Vibius Rufus.

  FOREIGN AUTHORS QUOTED. — Hesiod, Theophrastus, Aristotle, Democritus, King Hiero, King Attalus Philometor, Archytas, Xenophon, Amphilochus of Athens, Anaxipolis of Thasos, Apollodorus of Lemnos, Aristophanes of Miletus, Antigonus of Cymæ, Agathocles of Chios, Apollonius of Pergamus, Aristander of Athens, Botrys of Athens, Bacchius of Miletus, Bion of Soli, Chærea of Athens, Chæristus of Athens, Diodorus of Priene, Dion of Colophon, Epigenes of Rhodes, Euagon of Thasos, Euphronius of Athens, Androtion who wrote on agriculture, Æschrion who wrote on agriculture, Lysimachus who wrote on agriculture, Dionysius who translated Mago, Diophanes who made an Epitome of the work of Dionysius, Asclepiades the Physician. Onesicritus, King Juba.

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  BOOK XV. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FRUIT-TREES.

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  CHAP. 1. (1.)

  THE OLIVE. — HOW LONG IT EXISTED ONLY IN GREECE. AT WHAT PERIOD IT WAS FIRST INTRODUCED INTO ITALY, SPAIN, AND AFRICA.

  THEOPHRASTUS, one of the most famous among the Greek writers, who flourished about the year 440 of the City of Rome, has asserted that the olive does not grow at a distance of more than forty miles from the sea. Fenestella tells us that in the year of Rome 173, being the reign of Tarquinius Priscus, it did not exist in Italy, Spain, or Africa; whereas at the present day it has crossed the Alps even, and has been introduced into the two provinces of Gaul and the middle of Spain. In the year of Rome 505, Appius Claudius, grandson of Appius Claudius Cæcus, and L. Junius being consuls, twelve pounds of oil sold for an as; and at a later period, in the year 680, M. Seius, son of Lucius, the curule ædile, regulated the price of olive oil at Rome, at the rate of ten pounds for the as, for the whole year. A person will be the less surprised at this, when he learns that twenty-two years after, in the third consulship of Cn. Pompeius, Italy was able to export olive oil to the provinces.

  Hesiod, who looked upon an acquain
tance with agriculture as conducive in the very highest degree to the comforts of life, has declared that there was no one who had ever gathered fruit from the olive-tree that had been sown by his own hands, so slow was it in reaching maturity in those times; whereas, now at the present day, it is sown in nurseries even, and if transplanted will bear fruit the following year.

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  CHAP. 2.

  THE NATURE OF THE OLIVE, AND OF NEW OLIVE OIL.

  Fabianus maintains that the olive will grow neither in very cold climates, nor yet in very hot ones. Virgil has mentioned three varieties of the olive, the orchites, the radius, and the posia; and says that they require no raking or pruning, nor, in fact, any attention whatever. There is no doubt that in the case of these plants, soil and climate are the things of primary importance; but still, it is usual to prune them at the same time as the vine, and they are improved by lopping between them every here and there. The gathering of the olive follows that of the grape, and there is even a greater degree of skill required in preparing oil than in making wine; for the very same olives will frequently give quite different results. The first oil of all, produced from the raw olive before it has begun to ripen, is considered preferable to all the others in flavour; in this kind, too, the first droppings of the press are the most esteemed, diminishing gradually in goodness and value; and this, whether the wicker-work basket is used in making it, or whether, following the more recent plan, the pulp is put in a stick strainer, with narrow spikes and interstices. The riper the berry, the more unctuous the juice, and the less agreeable the taste. To obtain a result both abundant and of excellent flavour, the best time to gather it is when the berry is just on the point of turning black. In this state it is called “druppa” by us, by the Greeks, “drypetis.”

  In addition to these distinctions, it is of importance to observe whether the berry ripens in the press or while on the branch; whether the tree has been watered, or whether the fruit has been nurtured solely by its own juices, and has imbibed nothing else but the dews of heaven.

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  CHAP. 3. (2.)

  OLIVE OIL: THE COUNTRIES IN WHICH IT IS PRODUCED, AND ITS VARIOUS QUALITIES.

  It is not with olive oil as it is with wine, for by age it acquires a bad flavour, and at the end of a year it is already old. This, if rightly understood, is a wise provision on the part of Nature: wine, which is only produced for the drunkard, she has seen no necessity for us to use when new; indeed, by the fine flavour which it acquires with age, she rather invites us to keep it; but, on the other hand, she has not willed that we should be thus sparing of oil, and so has rendered its use common and universal by the very necessity there is of using it while fresh.

  In the production of this blessing as well, Italy holds the highest rank among all countries, and more particularly the territory of Venafrum, that part of it in especial which produces the Licinian oil; the qualities of which have conferred upon the Licinian olive the very highest renown. It is our unguents which have brought this oil into such great esteem, the peculiar odour of it adapting itself so well to the full developement of their qualities; at the same time its delicate flavour equally enlists the palate in its behalf. In addition to this, birds will never touch the berry of the Licinian olive.

  Next to Italy, the contest is maintained, and on very equal terms, between the territories of Istria and of Bætica. The next rank for excellence is claimed by the other provinces of our Empire, with the exception of Africa, the soil of which is better adapted for grain. That country Nature has given exclusively to the cereals; of oil and wine she has all but deprived it, securing it a sufficient share of renown by its abundant harvests. As to the remaining particulars connected with the olive, they are replete with erroneous notions, and I shall have occasion to show that there is no part of our agricultural economy upon which people have been more generally mistaken.

  (3.) The olive is composed of a stone, oil, flesh, and amurca: the last being a bitter liquid, principally composed of water; hence it is that in seasons of drought it is less plentiful, and more abundant when rains have prevailed. The oil is a juice peculiar to the olive, a fact more particularly stated in reference to its unripe state, as we have already mentioned when speaking of omphacium. This oil continues on the increase up to the rising of Arcturus, or in other words, the sixteenth day before the calends of October; after which the increase is in the stone and the flesh. When drought has been followed by abundant rains, the oil is spoilt, and turns to amurca. It is the colour of this amurca that makes the olive turn black; hence, when the berry is just beginning to turn that colour, there is but little amurca in it, and before that period none at all. It is an error then, on the part of persons, to suppose that that is the commencement of maturity, which is in reality only the near approach of corruption. A second error, too, is the supposition that the oil increases proportionably to the flesh of the berry, it being the fact that the oil is all the time undergoing a change into flesh, and the stone is growing larger and larger within. It is for this reason more particularly, that care is taken to water the tree at this period; the real result of all this care and attention, as well as of the fall of copious rains, being, that the oil in reality is absorbed as the berry increases in size, unless fine dry weather should happen to set in, which naturally tends to contract the volume of the fruit. According to Theophrastus, heat is the sole primary cause of the oleaginous principle; for which reason it is, that in the presses, and in the cellars even, great fires are lighted to improve the quality of the oil.

  A third error arises from misplaced economy: to spare the expense of gathering, people are in the habit of waiting till the berry falls from the tree. Others, again, who wish to follow a middle course in this respect, beat the fruit off with poles, and so inflict injury on the tree and ensure loss in the succeeding year; indeed, there was a very ancient regulation in existence relative to the gathering of the olive-” Neither pull nor beat the olive-tree.” Those who would observe a still greater degree of precaution, strike the branches lightly with a reed on one side of them; but even then the tree is reduced to bearing fruit but once in two years, in consequence of the injury done to the buds. Not less injurious, however, are the results of waiting till the berries fall from the tree; for, by remaining on it beyond the proper time, they deprive the crop that is coming on of its due share of nutriment, by occupying its place: a clear proof of which is, that if they are not gathered before the west winds prevail, they are found to have acquired renewed strength, and are all the later before they fall.

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  CHAP. 4.

  FIFTEEN VARIETIES OF OLIVES.

  The first olive that is gathered after the autumn is that known as the “posia,” the berry of which, owing to a vicious method of cultivation, and not any fault on the part of Nature, has the most flesh upon it. Next to this is the orchites, which contains the greatest quantity of oil, and then, after that, the radius. As these are of a peculiarly delicate nature, the heat very rapidly takes effect upon them, and the amurca they contain causes them to fall. On the other hand, the gathering of the tough, hard-skinned olive is put off so late as the month of March, it being well able to resist the effects of moisture, and, consequently, very small. Those varieties known as the Licinian, the Cominian, the Contian, and the Sergian, by the Sabines called the “royal” olive, do not turn black before the west winds prevail, or, in other words, before the sixth day before the ides of February. At this period it is generally thought that they begin to ripen, and as a most excellent oil is extracted from them, experience would seem to give its support to a theory which, in reality, is altogether wrong. The growers say that in the same degree that cold diminishes the oil, the ripeness of the berry augments it; whereas, in reality, the goodness of the oil is owing, not to the period at which the olives are gathered, but to the natural properties of this peculiarvariety, in which the oil is remarkably slow in turning to amur
ca.

  A similar error, too, is committed by those who keep the olives, when gathered, upon a layer of boards, and do not press the fruit till it has thrown out a sweat; it being the fact that every hour lost tends to diminish the oil and increase the amurca: the consequence is, that, according to the ordinary computation, a modius of olives yields no more than six pounds of oil. No one, however, ever takes account of the quantity of amurca to ascertain, in reference to the same kind of berry, to what extent it increases daily in amount. Then, again, it is a very general error among practical persons to suppose that the oil increases proportionably to the increased size of the berry; and more particularly so when it is so clearly proved that such is not the case, with reference to the variety known as the royal olive, by some called majorina, and by others phaulia; this berry being of the very largest size, and yet yielding a minimum of juice. In Egypt, too, the berries, which are remarkably meaty, are found to produce but very little oil; while those of Decapolis, in Syria, are so extremely small, that they are no bigger than a caper; and yet they are highly esteemed for their flesh. It is for this reason that the olives from the parts beyond sea are preferred for table to those of Italy, though, at the same time, they are very inferior to them for making oil.