The ancients were scarcely more agreed respecting the intoxicating properties of wine than they were as to the powers of the cabbage in counteracting them. Old Cato the Censor, who was in the practice “of warming his virtue with wine,” describes the following method of cooling it: “Si voles in convivio multum bibere cænareque, ante cæenam esto crudam brassicam quantum voles ex aceto, et item ubi cænaveris comesto aliqua V. folia, reddent te quasi nihil ederis, biberisque, bibesque quantum voles.” (De R. R. 156.) See a long dissertation on this property of the cabbage in Athenæus (Deipnos. i, _ad finem_); also Pliny (Hist. Nat. xx, 34); Pseudo-Dioscorides (Euporist. i, 24); Nonnius (14); Simeon Seth (in voce Brassica); Geopon. (xii, 17); Avicenna, Rhases, and Serapion give the same character of it. Plutarch affirms that almonds also are a preservative from intoxication. (Quæst. vi.) Before quitting this subject, we must notice certain peculiar modes of preparing wine. The _mustum_ was wine newly made, or the fresh juice of the grape. The _protropum_ was the juice which runs from grapes without pressing. The _mulsum_ was a preparation of wine and honey. Dioscorides recommends two parts of wine to one of honey; but there does not appear to have been any fixed proportion. The _sapa_, called by the Greeks _hepsema_ and _siræum_, according to Pliny, is must boiled to a third; and the _defrutum_ the same reduced to a half. They are now called robs, a term borrowed from the Arabians. The _carenum_, according to Isidorus, is must reduced to two thirds. The _passum_ was a sweet wine prepared from grapes which had been much dried in the sun. The _passum creticum_, which is much praised by Pliny and Athenæus, and is often mentioned by our author, the learned Andreas Baccius and Nonnius believe to have resembled the modern malmsey. We have already mentioned a peculiar species of wine prepared with salt water. The ancients also gave artificial qualities to wine by adding rosin, pitch, and other substances to the casks in which it was deposited. See ‘Geoponica’ (vii.) Dioscorides gives receipts for preparing a great variety of vinous tinctures. These were used only for medicinal purposes. (Mat. Med. v.)