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DRINKS.
29
Pramnian
wine
with
grated
cheese,
perhaps
a
sort
of
Gruyere,
and
flour.
The
most
popular
of
these
com-
pound
beverages
was
the
olvoixeXi^
(mulstim),
or
honey
wine,
said
by
Pliny
(xiv.
4)
to
have
been
invented
by
Aristaeus.
Greek
wines
required
no
long
time
to
ripen.
The
wine
drank
by
Nestor
[Odyss.
iii.
391)
of ten
year
old
is
an
exception.
The
sweet
wines
of
the
Greeks
(the
produce
of
various
islands
on
the
^gean
and
Ionian
Seas)
were
probably
something
like
modern
Cyprus
and
Con-
stantia,
while
the
dry
wines,
such
as
the
Pramnian
and
Corinthian,
were
remarkable
for
their
astringency,
and
were
indeed
only
drinkable
after
being
preserved
for
many
years.
Of
the
former
of
these
Aristophanes
says
that
it
shrivelled
the
features
and
obstructed
the
digestion
of
all
who
drank
it,
while
to taste
the
latter
was
mere
torture.
^
This
is
probably
the
murrhina
of
Plautus
{Fseudol.
ii.
4,
50)
2
This
drink
must
not
be
confounded
with
vSpo/AcAt,
honey
and
water,
our
mead,
or
vSpofxrfXov,
our
cider