1869 Drinking Cups and their Customs (Mixellany)

10

CFFS AND THEIB CUSTOMS.

described in tlie feast of Home/s heroes. The vessels from which they drank were generally made of wood^ decorated with gold and silver, and crowned with garlands, as also were their heads 3 particular flowers and herbs being selected^ which were supposed to keep all noxious vapours from the brain. In some cases their cups were formed entirely of gold^ silver^ or bronze, A beautiful example of a bronze cup was found in Wilt- shire, having the names of five Boman towns as an inscription, and richly decorated with scenes of the chase, from which it has been imagined that it belonged to a club or society of persons, probably hunters,, and may have been one of their prizes : they also used cups made from the horns of animals. The wines were com- monly drunk out of small glasses called ff cyaths/ J which held just the twelfth of a pint. The chief beve- rage among the Greeks and Romans was the fermented juice of the grape; but the particular form of it is a matter of some uncertainty. The "vinumAlbanum" was probably a kind of Frontignac^ and of all wines was most esteemed by the Romans>—though Horace speaks in such glowing terms of Falernian, which was a strong and rough wine^ and was not fit for drinking till it had been kept ten years j and even then it was customary to mix: honey with it to soften it. Homer speaks of a famous wine of Maronea in Thrace, which would bear mixing with twenty times the quantity of water^ al- though it was a common practice among the natives to drink it in its pure state. Salt water was commonly used by the Romans to dilute their wine 5 which they