Respecting the price of wines[488] our information is exceedingly imperfect; for although it be frequently stated how much a certain measure cost, the quality of the wine not being mentioned at the same time, we are very little nearer any real knowledge of the value. In Lusitania, ten gallons of pure wine were at one period sold for three-pence; at Athens the price of the metretes,[489] appears to have varied from about one and eight-pence, to three and four-pence, though occasionally it rose as high as about ten shillings. Even of the Mendæan, a wine of very superior quality, the wholesale price did not, at one period, exceed two drachmas, the metretes; but as the innkeepers were accused of having made enormous profits, it is at the same time quite credible, that they should occasionally have charged an obolos for the hemicotyla, especially to tipling women. Elsewhere, however, we find the chous, or twelve cotylæ, sold for an obolos,[490] the price, doubtless, depending partly on the quality of the wine, partly on the conscience of the innkeeper. For, notwithstanding that there were at Athens three magistrates charged with the inspection of wines,[491] part of whose business it probably was to prevent adulteration and exorbitant prices, the vintners, male and female, in all likelihood were an overmatch for them. ----- Footnote 488: Cf. Bœckh. Pub. Econ. i. p. 133. Footnote 489: Vid. Athen. iii. 86. Footnote 490: Athen. xi. 47. Cf. iii. 86. Footnote 491: Athen. x. 25. Poll. vi. 21. ----- Most of the means by which the ancients adulterated their wines appear to be unknown to us, though we find that they endeavoured to restore the taste of such as were spoiled, by mingling with them a certain quantity of boiled wine[492] and preparations of lime and gypsum. To check the progress of the second fermentation, they were sometimes in the habit of casting a pumice-stone into the jar;[493] but where wine was so cheap, there was little temptation to have recourse to any other art than that of watering a little, which, according to the comic poet, might proceed from a benevolent desire to keep men sober and preserve their health.[494] ----- Footnote 492: Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 1005. 878. Footnote 493: Conf. Beckmann, Hist. Invent. i. 402. sqq. Dioscor. v. 125. Footnote 494: A. Ἐν τοῖς συμποσίοισιν οὐ πίνετ᾽ Ἄκρατον. S. Οὐ γὰρ ῥᾴδιον· πωλοῦσι γὰρ Ἐν ταῖς ἁμάξαις εὐθέως κεκραμένων· Οὐχ ἵνα τι κερδαίνωσι, τῶν δ᾽ ὠνουμένων Προνοούμενοι τοῦ τὰς κεφαλὰς ὑγιεῖς ἔχειν Ἐκ κραιπάλης. Alex. ap. Athen. x. 38. -----