Dr. Henderson adopts the opinion of M. de Rozière that these cups were of fluor-spar; but this article is not found in Karamania, from which district of Parthia both Pliny and Propertius agree that they came, though they differ with respect to their nature; its geographic situation seems confined to Europe. The anecdote told by Lampridius of Heliogabalus (502) proves, not the similarity of material, but only the equal rareness and value of vessels of onyx and murrhine. [Illustration: AMPHORÆ, RHYTONS, ETC. (_Brit. Mus._).] A writer in the _Westminster Review_ for July, 1825, believes them to have been porcelain cups from China; the expression of Propertius, “_cocta focis_,” proves that they were manufactured. In the time of Belon (1555) the Greeks called them _the myrrh of Smyrna_, from _murex_, a shell. From this it seems that their name was given to the vases from a resemblance of colours to those of the _murex_. Stolberg (_Travels_, ix. 280) says he saw in a collection at Catania a little blue vase, believed to be a _vas murrhinum_. The modern jars in any of the wine districts of Italy, such as Asti Montepulciano or Montefiascone, thin earthen two-handled vessels holding some twenty quarts, are almost identical with the ancient _amphoræ_. Suetonius speaks of a candidate for the quæstorship who drank the contents of a whole _amphora_ at a dinner given by Tiberius. This _amphora_ was probably of a smaller size. Wooden vessels for wine seem to have been unfamiliar to the Greeks and Romans; they, however, occasionally employed glass. Bottles, vases, and cups of that material, which may be seen often enough now in collections of antiquities, show the great taste which in these and in other matters they possessed. A few of these are given to illustrate our text. Skins of animals, rendered impervious by oil or resinous gums, were probably the most ancient receptacles for wine after it was taken from the vat. To these there are frequent allusions in Homer and Isaiah. Vessels of clay, with a coating of pitch, were introduced subsequently. [Illustration] [Illustration] NORTHERN DRINKING. Beowulf—Ale—Beer—Mead—English Wine—The Mead Hall—Drinking Horns—Tosti and Harold—Pigment, etc.—The Clergy, etc., drinking—Northern Wine drinking—King Hunding—Brewing—Strange Drinking Vessels, and their Use—Punishment of Drunkards. Sailing from the north, being lured to the south with visions of plunder and luxury, came the Danish and Norwegian Vikings, and, as England was the nearest to them, she received an early visit. With them they brought their habit of deep drinking, which was scarcely needed, as on that score the then inhabitants of England could pretty well hold their own. Their liquors seem to have been ale, _ealu_, beer, _beor_, wine, _win_, and mead, _medo_. There was a difference between those that drank ale and those that drank beer, as we find in _Beowulf_[8]:—