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CUPS AND THEIR CUSTOMS.
13
and tlie Bomans kept their wine in large earthenware
jars, made with narrow necks, swollen bodies, and
pointed at the bottom, by which they were fixed into
the earth; these vessels, called Amphorae, though
generally of earthenware, are mentioned by Homer as
being constructed of gold and of stone. Among the
Botnans it was customary, at the time of filling their
wine-vessels, to inscribe upon them the name of the
consul under whose office they were filled, thus supply-
ing them, with a good means of distinguishing their
vintages and pointing out the excellence of particular
ones, much in the same way as we now speak of the
vintages of *20,
J
34, or '41. Thus, Pliny mentions a
celebrated wine which took its name from Opimius, in
whose consulate it was made, and was preserved good
to his time (a period of nearly 200 years). The vessel
used for carrying the wine to the table was called
Ampulla, being a small bulging bottle covered with
leather and having two handles, which it would be fair
to consider the original type of the famous
"
leathern
bottel/
J
the inventor of which is so highly eulogized in
the old song,'—•
((
I wish that his soul in heaven may dwell,
Whofirst invented the leathern bottel."
The wine was frequently cooled by keeping the
vessels in snowj and it was brought to the table in
flasks, which, instead of being corked, had a little fine
oil poured into the necks to exclude the air.
Although the ancients were well acquainted with the
excellence of wine, they were not ignorant ofthe dangers