Dioscor. v. 34. ----- Numerous odoriferous plants were likewise employed in communicating a variety of flavours and fragrance to wine, as the rose,[523] thyme,[524] germander,[525] anis,[526] œnanthe,[527] wormwood,[528] betony,[529] southern-wood,[530] squills,[531] myrtle,[532] mastic,[533] terebinth,[534] sycamore,[535] fir-cones,[536] cedar-cones,[537] cypress-cones,[538] juniper-berries,[539] pitch, and larchtree-cones.[540] Almost every other aromatic plant, shrub, and tree, was in like manner, employed to communicate a flavour, or an odour, to wine, chiefly, however, for medicinal purposes; and among these was the hyssop, whose leaves were used in the following manner: a pound of them, having been well bruised, were tied up in a sort of gauze, and by the weight of a few intermingled pebbles sunk to the bottom of the amphora. Here they were permitted to remain forty days, after which the wine was racked.[541] Of these wines that which was tinctured with rose-leaves was commonly drunk after dinner to promote digestion.[542] That which, about the Propontis and Thrace, was flavoured with wormwood, people destined for their summer drink, considering it favourable to health.[543] ----- Footnote 523: Id. v. 35. Footnote 524: Id. v. 59. Footnote 525: Χαμαίδρυς. Id. v. 51. Footnote 526: Dioscor. v. 75. Footnote 527: Id. v. 33. Footnote 528: Id. v. 49. Footnote 529: Id. v. 54. Footnote 530: Id. v. 62. Footnote 531: Id. v. 26. Footnote 532: Id. v. 37. Footnote 533: Id. v. 38. Footnote 534: Id. v. 39. Footnote 535: Id. v. 42. Footnote 536: Id. v. 44. Footnote 537: Id. v. 47. Footnote 538: Id. v. 45. Footnote 539: Id. v. 46. Footnote 540: Id. v. 45. Footnote 541: Dioscor. v. 50. Footnote 542: Id. v. 35. Footnote 543: Id. iii. 27. ----- The greatest enemies of the vintners[544] were the physicians who, by dwelling on the pernicious qualities of wine, deterred the reasonable part of the world from a too frequent use of it. Old wine, they maintained, shatters the nerves and produces headache; new wine is the parent of horrible dreams. That which is middling, however, for example, about seven years old, is liable to fewer objections, and may upon the whole be drunk with some degree of safety. White wine, too, according to their opinion, is better than red, since it corroborates the stomach, and is, probably, that kind which, when of a proper age, produces pleasant dreams.[545] Pure wine, in general, moreover, was admitted to improve the health and beautify the complexion; and Pindar, whom most persons will allow to have been a good judge, though he could not, like Anacreon, dispose of a cask at a sitting,[546] declares in favour of old wine and new songs. ----- Footnote 544: Id. v. 7. Footnote 545: Athen. i. 47. Footnote 546: This achievement the Teian celebrates in one of his own odes, a fragment of which has been preserved by Athenæus, xi. 45.