1863 Cups and their customs

CUPS AND THEIR CUSTOMS,

10

wine-vessels^ to inscribe upon them the name of the consul under whose office they were filled, thus supplying them w^ith a good means of distinguishing their vintages and pointing out the excellence of

ones, much in the same way as we now

particular

speak of the vintages of ^20, ^34, or ^41,

Thus, Pliny

name from

mentions a celebrated wine which took its

Opimius, in whose consulate it was made, and was preserved good to his time (a period of nearly 200 The vessel used for carrying the wine to the table was called Ampulla, being a small bulging bottle, covered with leather, and having two handles, which it would be fair to consider as the original type of the famous " leathern bottel,^^ the inventor of which is so highly eulogized in the old song years). Although the ancients were well acquainted with the excellence of wine, they were not ignorant of the dangers attending the abuse of it. Salencus passed a law for- bidding the use of wine, upon pain of death, except in At Rome, in the early ages, young persons of high birth were not permitted to drink wine till they attained the age of thirty, and to women the use of it was absolutely for- bidden j but Seneca complains of the violation of this law, and says that in his day the women valued themselves upon carrying excess of wine to as great a height as the most robust men. ^^ Like them,^^ says he, ^^ they pass case of sickness ; and the inhabitants of Marseilles and Miletus prohibited the use of it to women. '^ I wish that his soul in heaven may dwell, Who first invented the leathern bottel."