The practice is still the same in the Levant:—“The vintage was now begun, the black grapes being spread on the ground in beds exposed to the sun to dry for raisins; while in another part, the juice was expressed for wine, a man with feet and legs bare, treading the fruit in a kind of cistern, with a hole or vent near the bottom, and a vessel beneath it to receive the liquor.” Chandler, ii. p. 2. ----- The wine-press, which stood under cover, sometimes consisted of two upright, and many cross beams,[1588] which, descending with great weight upon the grapes squeezed forth all their juices, and these falling through a species of strainer,[1589] upon an inclined slab, were poured through a small channel formed for the purpose, into a broad open vessel communicating with the vat. Into the process of wine-making[1590] it is unnecessary to enter. It will be sufficient, perhaps, to say that, when made, it was laid up in skins or large earthen jars until required for use. The wines of modern Attica and the Morea[1591] are preserved from becoming acid by a large infusion of resin.[1592] ----- Footnote 1587: Anacreon, Od. 52. See a representation of the whole process in the Mus. Cortonens, pl. 9, where the vintagers are clad in skins; and Cf. Zoëga, Bassi Rilievi, tav. 26. Footnote 1588: Antich. di Ercol. t. i. tav. 35, p. 187. Footnote 1589: Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 527. Footnote 1590: For the making of the sweet wine (Βίβλινος οἶνος) which resembled, perhaps, our Constantia or Malaga, and enjoyed extraordinary favour among the ancients Hesiod gives particular directions. Opp. et Dies, 611, sqq. Colum. xii. 39. Plin. Hist. Nat. xiv. 8. Pallad. xi. 19. Footnote 1591: Sibth. in Walp. Mem. ii. 235. Chandler, ii. 251. Footnote 1592: A few drops of the oil which ran from olives without pressing were supposed by the ancients to render the wine stronger and more lasting.—Geop. vii. 12. 20. On the boiled wine, σίραιον. Cf. Sch. Aristoph. Vesp. 878. -----