Note 1660 — BOOK IV.

Lucilius probably refers to some rich, strong, full-bodied wine, which these epicures drank unmixed, contrary to the usual custom. Defusum seems to be the better reading, which implies "pouring from a larger vessel, as the crater, into the cyathus or drinking-cup." Diffusum is applied "to racking the wine from the wine-vat or cask into the amphora," when it was sealed down. Cf. Hor., i., Ep. v., 4, Orell. Juv., v., 30. For the use of snow in cooling wine, see note to Juv., v., 50. This wine has lost none of its strength by mixing it with snow, and none of its flavor from having been filtered through the strainer. (Cf. Plin., H. N., xiv., 27. Hor., ii., Sat. iv., 51, seq.) A great difficulty with the ancients seems to have been to clear their wine of the lees; some of the methods are mentioned in the passage of Horace just quoted. Eggs were also used for the same purpose. Besides this, the wine was poured through a colum and saccus vinarius. The former was a kind of metal sieve, of which numbers have been found at Pompeii. The latter was a filter-bag of linen. (Hence "integrum perdunt lino vitiata saporem." Hor., u. s.) The usual plan was to fill both the colum and saccus with snow, and then to pour the wine over it; and with this view the snow was carefully preserved till summer, as is still done at Naples. (Hence "æstivæ nives." Mart., v., Ep. lxiv., 2.) Nero's invention of using water that had been boiled and afterward frozen, as a substitute for snow, has been already alluded to. This process also served to moderate the intoxicating power of the stronger wines; hence the phrases "castrare, frangere, liquare, vina." (Cf. Plin., H. N., xix., 4,19; xiv., 22; xxiv., 1, 1. Mart., xii., Ep. lx., 9, "Turbida sollicito transmittere Cæcuba sacco." xiv., Ep. ciii. and civ.; ix., Ep. xxiii, 8; xci., 5.)