Note 560 — ANCIENT ROMAN MEDICINE-STAMPS.
Reading edition
Thus Plautus, in his Miles Gloriosus, act iii. sec. ii. v. 11, speaks of wine mixed and flavoured with the perfume of Nard—
Demisit Nardini unam amphoram cellarius.
Horace, in one of his odes addressed to Virgil (Carmina, lib. iv. c. 12), invites his brother poet to a drinking-party, provided Virgil will earn his wine by bringing some spikenard; and he declares that a small box of the perfume shall draw a whole cask of wine from the storehouses of Sulpicius.
Nardo vina merebere. Nardi parvus onyx eliciet cadum Que nunc Sulpiciis accubat horreis.
The onyx, or alabaster box, mentioned in these lines of Horace, was made of a kind of gypsum, and was used for containing the more precious ointments, under the belief, as we are told by Pliny (lib. xxxv. cap. 12), that this material prevented the fragrance of the ointments from being dissipated (quoniam optime servare incorrupta dicitur). In explanation of the great use of ointments among the Romans, it is to be remembered that they then formed their only vehicle for the enjoyment of perfumes, the art of distillation being altogether unknown to them.