As to the Hebrews, they were well acquainted with wine, and placed Noah’s beginning to be a husbandman, and planting a vineyard, as the earliest thing he did after the subsidence of the flood. Throughout their sacred writings, wine is frequently mentioned, and intoxication must have been very well known among them, judging by the number of passages making mention of it. A great variety of wines is not named—nay, there are only two specifically mentioned: the wine of Helbon, which, as we have seen, was an article of merchandise at Damascus, a fat, luscious wine, as its name signifies; and the wine of Lebanon, which was celebrated for its _bouquet_. “The scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon” (Hos. xiv. 7). It is possible that this _bouquet_ was natural, or it might have been artificial, for it was the custom to mix perfumes, spices, and aromatic herbs so as to enhance the flavour of the wine, as we see in Canticles viii. 2: “I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate;” by which illustration we also see that the Hebrews made wines other than those from grapes. [Illustration] That it was commonly in use is proved, if it needed proof, by the miracle at the marriage at Cana, where the worldly-wise ruler of the feast says, “Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now.” That they drank water mixed with wine may be inferred by the two verses (Prov. ix. 2, 5): “She hath mingled her wine”; “Drink of the wine that I have mingled.” Their wine used to be trodden in the press, the wine being put into bottles or wine skins, specially mentioned in Joshua ix. 4, 13. In later days they had vessels of earthenware and glass, similar to those in the illustration, which were found whilst excavating in Jerusalem. That the ancient Jews knew of other intoxicating liquors, such as palm and date wines, there can be very little doubt. J. A. [Illustration] [Illustration] CLASSICAL WINES. GREEK.[4] Homer’s Wine of the Coast of Thrace—Pramnian Wine—Psithian, Capnian, Saprian, and other Wines—The Mixing of Wines—Use of Pitch and Rosin—Undiluted Wine—Wine Making—Spiced Wines—A Greek Symposium. The only wine upon which Homer dilates, in a tone of approval approaching to hyperbole, is that produced on the coast of Thrace, the scene of several of the most remarkable exploits of Bacchus. This wine the minister of Apollo, Maron, gave to Ulysses. It was red and honey sweet, so strong that it was mingled with twenty times its bulk of water, so fragrant that it filled even when diluted the house with perfume (_Od._ ix. 203). Homer’s _Pramnian_ wine is variously interpreted by various writers.