Those cannot properly be termed wines, which by the Greeks are known under the name of “deuteria,”[1377] and to which, in common with Cato, we in Italy give the name of “lora,”[1378] being made from the husks of grapes steeped in water. Still, however, this beverage is reckoned as making one of the “labourers’”[1379] wines. There are three varieties of it: the first[1380] is made in the following manner:—After the must is drawn off, one-tenth of its amount in water is added to the husks, which are then left to soak a day and a night, and then are again subjected to pressure. A second kind, that which the Greeks are in the habit of making, is prepared by adding one-third in water of the quantity of must that has been drawn off, and after submitting the pulp to pressure, the result is reduced by boiling to one-third of its original quantity. A third kind, again, is pressed out from the wine-lees; Cato gives it the name of “fæcatum.”[1381] None of these beverages, however, will keep for more than a single year. CHAP. 13. (11.)—AT WHAT PERIOD GENEROUS WINES WERE FIRST COMMONLY MADE IN ITALY. While treating of these various details, it occurs to me to mention that of the eighty different kinds throughout the whole earth, which may with propriety be reckoned in the class of generous[1382] wines, fully two-thirds[1383] are the produce of Italy, which consequently in this respect far surpasses any other country: and on tracing this subject somewhat higher up, the fact suggests itself, that the wines of Italy have not been in any great favour from an early period, their high repute having only been acquired since the six hundredth year of the City. CHAP. 14. (12.)—THE INSPECTION OF WINE ORDERED BY KING ROMULUS. Romulus made libations, not with wine but with milk; a fact which is fully established by the religious rites which owe their foundation to him, and are observed even to the present day. The Posthumian Law, promulgated by King Numa, has an injunction to the following effect:—“Sprinkle not the funeral pyre with wine;” a law to which he gave his sanction, no doubt, in consequence of the remarkable scarcity of that commodity in those days. By the same law, he also pronounced it illegal to make a libation to the gods of wine that was the produce of an unpruned vine, his object being to compel the husbandmen to prune their vines; a duty which they showed themselves reluctant to perform, in consequence of the danger which attended climbing the trees.[1384] M. Varro informs us, that Mezentius, the king of Etruria, succoured the Rutuli against the Latini, upon condition that he should receive all the wine that was then in the territory of Latium.