I am not surprised, then, that for these many ages there have been invented almost innumerable varieties of artificial wines, of which I shall now make some mention; they are all of them employed for medicinal purposes. We have already stated in a former Book how omphacium,[1403] which is used for unguents, is made. The liquor known as “œnanthinum” is made from the wild vine,[1404] two pounds of the flowers of which are steeped in a cadus of must, and are then changed at the end of thirty days. In addition to this, the root and the husks of the grapes are employed in dressing leather. The grapes, too, a little after the blossom has gone off, are singularly efficacious as a specific for cooling the feverish heat of the body in certain maladies, being, it is said, of a nature remarkable for extreme coldness. A portion of these grapes wither away, in consequence of the heat, before the rest, which are thence called solstitial[1405] grapes; indeed, the whole of them never attain maturity; if one of these grapes, in an unripe state, is given to a barn-door fowl to eat, it is productive of a dislike to grapes for the future.[1406] CHAP. 19.—SIXTY-SIX VARIETIES OF ARTIFICIAL WINE. The first of the artificial wines has wine for its basis; it is called “adynamon,”[1407] and is made in the following manner. Twenty sextarii of white must are boiled down with half that quantity of water, until the amount of the water is lost by evaporation. Some persons mix with the must ten sextarii of sea-water and an equal quantity of rain-water, and leave the whole to evaporate in the sun for forty days. This beverage is given to invalids to whom it is apprehended that wine may prove injurious. The next kind of artificial wine is that made of the ripe grain of millet;[1408] a pound and a quarter of it with the straw is steeped in two congii of must, and the mixture is poured off at the end of six months. We have already stated[1409] how various kinds of wine are made from the tree, the shrub, and the herb, respectively known as the lotus. From fruit, too, the following wines are made, to the list of which we shall only add some necessary explanations:—First of all, we find the fruit of the palm[1410] employed for this purpose by the Parthians as well as the Indians, and, indeed, throughout all the countries of the East. A modius of the kind of ripe date called “chydææ”[1411] is added to three congii of water, and after being steeped for some time, they are subjected to pressure. Sycites[1412] is a preparation similarly made from figs: some persons call it “palmiprimum,”[1413] others, again, “catorchites:” if sweetness is not the maker’s object, instead of water there is added the same quantity of husk juice[1414] of grapes. Of the Cyprian fig[1415] a very excellent vinegar, too, is made, and of that of Alexandria[1416] a still superior.