Ancient Rome and wine

The beginnings of domestic viticulture and winemaking on the Italian Peninsula are uncertain. Neolithic people groups exploited grapes in Italy, but it is not clear whether they experimented with fermentation. It is possible that the Mycenaean Greeks had some influences through early settlements in southern Italy, but the earliest evidence of Greek influence dates to 800 BC. Before this, viticulture was widely entrenched in Etruscan civilization, which was centered around the modern winemaking region of Tuscany. The ancient Greeks saw wine as a staple of domestic life and a useful trade commodity. Their colonies were encouraged to plant vineyards for local use and trade with Greek city-states. Southern Italy's abundance of indigenous vines provided an ideal opportunity for wine production, giving rise to the Greek name for the region: Oenotria ("land of vines"). The southern Greek colonies probably also brought their own wine pressing methods with them and influenced Italian production methods. In the Republican era, the culture of Roman winemaking was influenced by the viticultural skills and techniques of allies, and of regions conquered in Rome's expansion. The Greek settlements of southern Italy were brought under Roman control by 270 BC. The Etruscans, who had long-established, mostly maritime trade routes into Gaul, were largely Romanised by the 1st century BC. The Punic Wars with Carthage had a particularly marked effect on Roman viticulture. The Carthaginians practised advanced viticultural techniques, described in the work of the Carthaginian writer Mago. Rome ransacked and burned the libraries of Carthage but the 26 volumes of Mago's agricultural treatise survived intact. They were subsequently translated into Latin and Greek in 146 BC. Although this work did not survive to the modern era, it has been extensively quoted in the influential writings of Romans Pliny, Columella, Varro and Gargilius Martialis. along the Po in what are now the modern-day regions of Lombardy and Venice respectively; Praetutium (not related to the modern Italian city of Teramo, historically known as Praetutium) along the Adriatic coast near the border of Emilia-Romagna and Marche; and Lunense in modern-day Tuscany. Around Rome itself were the estates of Alban, Sabinum, Tiburtinum, Setinum and Signinum. Southward to Naples were the estates of Caecuban, Falernian, Caulinum, Trebellicanum, Massicum, Gauranium, and Surrentinum. In Sicily was the first-growth estate of Mamertinum. Pompeii (shrine) depicting Mercury (god of commerce) and Bacchus (god of wine) in Pompeii, in one of the hot-food establishments (thermopolia) that served the city prior to its destruction. One of the most important wine centres of the Roman world was the city of Pompeii, located south of Naples, on the Campanian coast. An expanse of farms and vineyards covered the slopes of nearby Vesuvius, exploiting its exceptionally fertile soil to produce some of the best wines available to the Italian mainland, Rome and the Provinces. The Pompeians themselves developed a widespread reputation for their wine-drinking capacity. The worship of Bacchus, the Roman god of wine, is attested by his image on frescoes and archaeological fragments throughout the region. Amphoras stamped with the emblems of Pompeian merchants have been found across the modern-day remnants of the Roman empire, including Bordeaux, Narbonne, Toulouse and Spain. Evidence in the form of counterfeit stamps on amphoras of non-Pompeian wine suggests that the popularity and reputation of Pompeian wine may have given rise to early wine fraud. The 79 AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius had a devastating effect on Campana's well-established, long-distance maritime export and trade. Ports, vineyards, and the warehouses that stored the 78 AD vintage were destroyed. Prices rose sharply, making wine unaffordable to all but the most affluent, at a time when wine-drinking habits and demand had percolated down to the less affluent majority. The wine shortage, and the potential for increased profits, led to the hurried planting of new vineyards nearer to Rome and the replanting of existing grain fields with grapevines. The subsequent wine surplus created by successful efforts to relieve the wine shortage caused a depression in price, and in the medium term, damage to the interests of wine producers and traders. The loss of grain fields now contributed to a food shortage for the growing Roman population. In 92 AD, Roman Emperor Domitian issued an edict that not only banned new vineyards in Rome but ordered the uprooting of half of the vineyards in Roman wine-producing provinces. Although there is evidence to suggest that this edict was largely ignored in the Roman provinces, wine historians have debated the effect of the edict on the infant wine industries of Spain and Gaul. The intent of the edict was that fewer vineyards would result in only enough wine for domestic consumption, with little or no surplus for foreign trade. While vineyards were already established in these growing wine regions, the ignoring of trade considerations may have suppressed the spread of viticulture and winemaking in these areas. Domitian's edict remained in effect for nearly two centuries until Emperor Probus repealed it in 280 AD. ==Expansion of viticulture==

Among the lasting legacies of the ancient Roman empire were the viticultural foundations laid by the Romans in lands that would become world-renowned wine regions. Through trade, military campaigns and settlements, Romans brought with them a taste for wine and the impetus to plant vines. Trade was the first and farthest-reaching arm of their influence, and Roman wine merchants were eager to trade with enemy and ally alike—from the Carthaginians and peoples of southern Spain to the Celtic tribes in Gaul and Germanic tribes of the Rhine and Danube. During the Gallic Wars, when Julius Caesar brought his troops to Cabyllona in 59 BC, he found two Roman wine merchants already established in business trading with the local tribes. In places like Bordeaux, Mainz, Trier and Colchester where Roman garrisons were established, vineyards were planted to supply local need and limit the cost of long-distance trading. Roman settlements were founded and populated by retired soldiers with knowledge of Roman viticulture from their families and life before the military; vineyards were planted in their new homelands. While it is possible that the Romans imported grapevines from Italy and Greece, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that they cultivated native vines that may be the ancestors of the grapes grown in those provinces today. As the republic grew into empire beyond the peninsula, wine's trade and market economy echoed this growth. The wine trade in Italy consisted of Rome's sale of wine abroad to settlements and provinces around the Mediterranean Sea, yet by the end of the 1st century AD, its exports had competition from the provinces, themselves exporters to Rome. The Roman market economy encouraged the provinces' exports, enhancing supply and demand. Hispania Rome's defeat of Carthage in the Punic Wars brought the southern and coastal territories of Spain under its control, but the complete conquest of the Iberian Peninsula remained unaccomplished until the reign of Caesar Augustus. Roman colonization led to the development of Tarraconensis in the northern regions of Spain (including what are now the modern winemaking regions of Catalonia, the Rioja, the Ribera del Duero, and Galicia) and Hispania Baetica (which includes modern Andalusia) Montilla-Moriles winemaking region of Cordoba and the sherry winemaking region of Cádiz. , the oldest surviving liquid wine, discovered in Carmona, Spain in 2019 (1st century AD) While the Carthaginians and Phoenicians were the first to introduce viticulture to Spain, Rome's influential wine technology and the development of road networks brought new economic opportunities to the region, elevating grapes from a private agricultural crop to an important component of a viable commercial enterprise. Spanish wine was in Bordeaux before the region produced its own. French historian Roger Dion has suggested that the balisca vine (common in Spain's northern provinces, particularly Rioja) was brought from Rioja to plant the first Roman vineyards of Bordeaux. In 2019, the oldest surviving liquid wine, dating to the 1st century, was discovered in the city of Carmona, Spain, part of Hispania Baetica, its contents were identified as a type of Sherry. Gaul There is archaeological evidence to suggest that the Celts first cultivated the grapevine in Gaul. Grape pips have been found throughout France, pre-dating the Greeks and Romans, with some examples found near Lake Geneva dated to 10,000 BC. The extent to which the Celts and Gallic tribes produced wine is not clearly known, but the arrival of the Greeks near Massalia in 600 BC certainly introduced new types and styles of winemaking and viticulture. The limit of Greek viticultural influence was planting in regions with Mediterranean climates where olives and fig trees would also flourish. The Romans looked for hillside terrain in regions near a river and an important town. Their knowledge of the sciences included the tendency for cold air to flow down a hillside and to pool in frost pockets in the valley. As these are poor conditions under which to grow grapes, they were avoided in favor of sunny hillsides that could provide sufficient warmth to ripen grapes, even in northerly areas. When the Romans seized Massalia in 125 BC, they pushed farther inland and westward. They founded the city of Narbonne in 118 BC (in the modern-day Languedoc region) along the Via Domitia, the first Roman road in Gaul. The Romans established lucrative trading relations with local tribes of Gaul, despite their potential to produce wine of their own. The Gallic tribes paid high prices for Roman wine, with a single amphora worth the value of a slave. The first mention of Roman interest in the Bordeaux region was in Strabo's report to Augustus that there were no vines down the river Tarn towards Garonne into the region known as Burdigala. The wine for this seaport was being supplied by the "high country" region of Gaillac in the Midi-Pyrénées region. The Midi had abundant indigenous vines that the Romans cultivated, many of which are still being used to produce wine, including—Duras, Fer, Ondenc and Len de l'El. The location of Bordeaux on the Gironde estuary made it an ideal seaport from which to transport wine along the Atlantic Coast and to the British Isles. Bordeaux soon became self-sufficient with its own vineyards to export its own wine to Roman soldiers stationed in Britain. In the 1st century AD, Pliny the Elder mentions plantings in Bordeaux, including the Balisca grape (previously known in Spain) under the synonym of Biturica after the local Bituriges tribe. Ampelographers note that corruption of the name Biturica is Vidure, a French synonym of Cabernet Sauvignon, perhaps pointing to the ancestry of this vine with the Cabernet family that includes Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Petit Verdot. Germania of Trier crosses the river Mosel. The Romans found that planting vines on the steep banks along the river provided enough warmth to ripen wine grapes. Although wild V. vinifera vines have existed along the Rhine since prehistory, the earliest evidence of viticulture dates to the Roman conquest and settlement of the western territories of Germania. Agricultural tools, such as pruning knives, have been found near Roman garrison posts in Trier and Cologne, but the first definitive record of wine production dates to the 370 AD work by Ausonius titled Mosella, wherein he described vibrant vineyards along the Mosel. A native of Bordeaux, Ausonius compared the vineyards favorably to those of his homeland and seems to indicate that viticulture had long been present in this area. The reasons for planting Rhineland were to cater to the growing demand of Roman soldiers along the Limes Germanicus (German frontier) and the high costs associated with importing wine from Rome, Spain or Bordeaux. The Romans briefly considered building a canal that would link the Saône and Mosel rivers in order to facilitate waterway trading. The alternative was to drink what Tacitus described as an inferior beer-like beverage. Though evidence of V. vinifera vines in the British Isles dates to the Hoxnian Stage when the climate was warmer than it is now, British interest in wine production greatly increased following the Roman conquest of Britain in the 1st century AD. Amphoras from Italy indicate that wine was regularly transported to Britain at great expense by sea, around the Iberian Peninsula. The development of wine-producing regions in Bordeaux and Germany made supplying the needs of local Roman colonists much easier and cheaper, but in Britain, no certain evidence of an early local or provincial wine industry has been found, possibly because climate and soil conditions have not favoured its preservation. Remnants of amphora production at Brockley Hill, in Middlesex, have been dated to 70–100 AD, and may be explained as a sign of short-lived local wine production, brought to an end by Domitian's edict against vine cultivation during a widespread grain famine. The edict was rescinded by Probus in 270 AD. Investigations of the Nene Valley and pollen analysis by Brown et al confirm several viticulture sites, at least from that date. More than 400 artifacts depicting Bacchus have been found throughout Britain, evidence of his widespread cult as a wine-god. They include the great silver dish of the Mildenhall Treasure, showing the rites of Bacchus' procession and his triumph over Hercules in a drinking contest. In Colchester, the early capital of Roman Britain, excavations have uncovered containers identifying over 60 different types of wines from Italy, Spain, the Rhine and Bordeaux. ==Growers and traders==

Roman attitudes to wine were complex, especially among the equestrian and senatorial classes; the latter were supposed to have no interest in personal profits. Equestrian entrepreneurs often acted as agents and negotiators for landowners of the senatorial class, whose estates, large or small, were traditionally used to provide grain, olives and other food staples, not ingredients for luxuries such as wine production. Viticulture involved a very different set of skills, practices, abilities and landscapes than traditional agriculture, and a deal of expense at harvest-time, for picking, pressing and storage. The yields were notoriously unpredictable. For a large estate, a bad season's losses could be enormous, or the profits exceed what was considered proper for an aristocratic farmer-citizen. Very large wine estates were therefore quite rare, and the lowest risk investment strategy was an exchange of small, specialist properties already in production, along with the equipment, knowledge and skills that came with them, a ready-made wine estate. Considering the disinhibiting, even disabling effects of alcohol, any investment in commercial-scale wine production by Rome's ruling class was also of doubtful morality. Purcell suggests that for these reasons, Rome's upper classes were committed to refinement and high quality, and had only marginal open involvement in high volume wine production and the wine trade until the Imperial era. Roman writings on wine Works of classical Roman writers—most notably Cato, Columella, Horace, Palladius, Pliny, Varro and Virgil—shed light on the role of wine in Roman culture as well as contemporary winemaking and viticultural practices. Cato was an early advocate for hygiene in winemaking, recommending, for example, that wine jars be wiped clean twice a day with a new broom every time; thoroughly sealing the jars after fermentation to prevent the wine from spoiling and turning into vinegar; and not filling the amphoras to the top but leaving some head space, allowing a degree of oxidation. Cato's manual was fervently followed, becoming the standard textbook of Roman winemaking for centuries. Columella describes the boiling of grape must in a lead vessel to concentrate sugars and at the same time allow the lead to impart sweetness and desirable texture to the wine, a practice that may have contributed to lead poisoning. He presents precise details on how a well-run vineyard should operate, from the optimum breakfast for slaves to the yield of grapes from each jugerum of land and the pruning practices to ensure those yields. Many modern elements of vine training and trellising are evident in Columella's description of best practices. In his ideal vineyard, vines are planted two paces apart and fastened with willow withies to chestnut stakes about the height of a man. He also describes some of the wines of Roman provinces, noting the potential of wines from Spain and the Bordeaux region. Columella extols the quality of wines made from the ancient grape varieties Balisca and Biturica, believed by ampelographers to be ancestral to the Cabernet family. Pliny was a strong advocate for training vines up trees in a pergola, noting that the finest wines in Campania all derived from this practice. Due to the dangers in working on and pruning vines trained this way, however, he advised not using slaves, who were costly to buy and maintain, but rather vineyard workers hired with a stipulation in their contract to cover grave and funeral expenses. He described some contemporary varieties, recommending Aminean and Nomentan as the best. Some modern ampelographers believe that two white wine varieties mentioned, Arcelaca and Argitis, may be early ancestors to the modern grape Riesling. This is not a commendation on Pliny's part: he regrets that the "excessive candour" of drunkards can lead to serious breaches of etiquette, and thoughtless disclosure of matters best kept private. Other writers Marcus Terentius Varro, whom the rhetorician Quintilian called "the most learned man among the Romans," wrote extensively on such topics as grammar, geography, religion, law and science, but only his agricultural treatise De re rustica (or Rerum rusticarum libri) has survived in its entirety. While there is evidence that he borrowed some of this material from Cato's work, Varro credits the lost multi-volume work of Mago the Carthaginian, as well as the Greek writers Aristotle, Theophrastus and Xenophon. Varro's treatise is written as a dialogue and divided into three parts, the first of which contains most of the discussion on wine and viticulture. He defines old wine as one removed from its vintage by at least a year; nonetheless, he notes that while some wines are best consumed young, especially fine wines such as Falernian are meant to be consumed much older. The poetry of Virgil recalls that of the Greek poet Hesiod in its focus on the morality and virtue of viticulture, particularly the austerity, integrity and hard work of Roman farmers. The second book of the didactic poem Georgics deals with viticultural matters. Virgil advises leaving some grapes on the vine until late November when they become "stiff with frost." This early version of ice wine would have produced sweet wines without the acidity of wine made from grapes harvested earlier. Virgil's contemporary Horace wrote often of wine, though no single work is devoted entirely to the subject. He espoused an Epicurean view of taking life's pleasures, including wine, in moderation. Among the earliest recorded examples of deliberately choosing a wine for a specific occasion, Horace's Odes included serving a wine from the birth-year vintage at a celebration of an honored guest. He writes of serving simple wines for everyday occasions and saving celebrated wines such as Caecuban for special events. Horace answered the question posed by the Alexandrian poet Callimachus as to whether water or wine was the preferred drink of poetic inspiration by enthusiastically siding with Cratinus and the wine drinkers. His affinity for wine was such that while contemplating his death, he expressed more dread at the thought of departing from his beloved wine cellar than his wife. ==Roman winemaking==

The process of making wine in ancient Rome began immediately after the harvest with treading the grapes (often by foot), in a manner similar to the French pigeage. The juice thus expressed was the most highly prized and kept separate from what would later come from pressing the grape. If grape pressing was used, an estate would press the skins one to three times. Since juice from later pressings would be coarser and more tannic, the third pressing normally made wine of low quality called lora. After pressing, the grape must was stored in large earthenware jars known as dolia. With a capacity of up to several thousand liters, these jars were often partially buried into the floors of a barn or warehouse. Fermentation took place in the dolium, lasting from two weeks to a month before the wine was removed and put in amphoras for storage. Small holes drilled into the top allowed the carbon dioxide gas to escape. To enhance flavor, white wine might age on its lees, and chalk or marble dust was sometimes added to reduce acidity. Wines were often exposed to high temperatures and "baked," a process similar to that used to make modern Madeira. To enhance a wine's sweetness, a portion of the wine must was boiled to concentrate the sugars in the process known as defrutum and then added to the rest of the fermenting batch. (Columella's writings suggest that the Romans believed boiling the must acted as a preservative as well.) Lead was also sometimes used as a sweetening agent, or honey could be added, as much as recommended to sweeten of wine to Roman tastes. Another technique was to withhold a portion of the sweeter, unfermented must and blend it with the finished wine, a method known today as süssreserve. ==Wine styles==

(pictured) was used to make lora, a low-quality wine commonly drunk by Roman slaves. As in much of the ancient world, sweet white wine was the most highly regarded style. Wine was often diluted with warm water, occasionally seawater. Its name suggests an archaic Etruscan origin; in Rome's distant past, temetum might have been an alcoholic drink brewed from Rowan fruits. Well below that was posca, a mixture of water and sour wine that had not yet turned into vinegar. Less acidic than vinegar, it still retained some of the aromas and texture of wine and was the preferred wine for the rations of Roman soldiers due to its low alcohol levels. Posca's use as soldiers' rations was codified in the Corpus Juris Civilis and amounted to around a liter per day. Still lower in quality was lora (modern-day piquette), which was made by soaking in water for a day the pomace of grape skins already pressed twice, and then pressing a third time. Cato and Varro recommended lora for their slaves. Both posca and lora were the most commonly available wine for the general Roman populace and probably would have been for the most part red wines, since white wine grapes would have been reserved for the upper class. Grape varieties depicting the vintage (from Cherchell, present-day Algeria, Roman Africa The writings of Virgil, Pliny and Columella offer the most detail about the grape varieties used in the production of wine in the Roman empire, many of which have been lost to antiquity. While Virgil's writings often do not distinguish between a wine's name and the grape variety, he made frequent mention of the Aminean grape variety, which Pliny and Columella ranked as the best in the empire. Pliny described five sub-varieties of the grape that produced similar but distinct wines, declaring it to be native to the Italian peninsula. While he claimed that only Democritus knew of every grape variety that existed, he endeavored to speak with authority on the grapes he believed were the only ones worthy of consideration. Pliny described Nomentan as the second-best wine-producing grape, followed by Apian and its two sub-varieties, which were the preferred grape of Etruria. The only other grapes worthy of his consideration were Greek varieties, including the Graecula grape used to make Chian wine. He remarked that the Eugenia had promise, but only if planted in the Colli Albani region. Columella mentioned many of the same grapes but noted that the same grape produced varied wines in different regions and could even be known under different names, making it hard to track. He encouraged vine growers to experiment with different plantings to find the best for their areas. Ampelographers debate these descriptions of grapes and their possible modern counterparts or descendants. The Allobrogica grape that was used to produce the Rhone wine of Vienne may have been an early ancestor of the Pinot family. Alternative theories posit that it was more closely related to Syrah or Mondeuse noire—two grapes that produce vastly different wines. The link between these two is the Mondeuse noire synonym of Grosse Syrah. The Rhaetic grape that Virgil praised is believed to be related to the modern Refosco of northeastern Italy. ==Wine in Roman culture==

, Pan and a Satyr; Dionysos holds a rhyton (drinking vessel) in the shape of a panther, 170–180 AD In its early years, Rome probably imported wine as a somewhat rare and costly commodity, and its native wine-god, Liber pater, was probably a fairly minor deity. Rome's traditional history has its first king, Romulus, offer the gods libations of milk, not wine, and approve the execution of a wife whose husband caught her drinking wine. The writer Aulus Gellius claims that in those earlier times, women were forbidden to drink wine, "for fear that they might lapse into some disgraceful act. For it is only a step from the intemperance of Liber pater to the forbidden things of Venus". He cites the much respected arch-conservative Cato the elder as his source, but Cato's own writings make no mention of this. The claimed prohibition and the consequences of its subversion have parallels in the myths pertaining to the "Women's goddess" Bona Dea, the nature deities Faunus and Fauna, and the founding of ancient Latium. Modern literature suggests that if there ever was such a prohibition it did not apply to wine and women in general, but to women of the elite classes and "particular types of [strong] wines" used in sacrifice, such as temetum. Women of the elite were expected to set the best possible example of female chastity and purity. Drunkenness could easily lead to adultery, but women who committed adultery could be lawfully punished by fines, loss of dowry or exile, at most. Wine played a major role in ancient Roman religion and Roman funerary practices, and was the preferred libation for most deities, including one's deified ancestors, whose tombs were sometimes fitted with a permanent, usually stoppered "feeding tube". The invention of wine was usually credited to Liber or his Greek equivalents, Bacchus (later Romanised) and Dionysus, who promoted the fertility of human and animal semen, and the "soft seed" of the vine. Ordinary, everyday, mixed wines were under the protection of Venus, but were considered profane (vinum spurcum), and could therefore not be used in official sacrifice to deities of the Roman State. A sample of pure, undiluted strong wine from the first pressing was offered to Liber/Bacchus, in gratitude for his assistance in its production. The undiluted wine, known as temetum, was customarily reserved for Roman men and Roman gods, particularly Jupiter, king of the gods. It was an essential element of the secretive, nocturnal and exclusively female Bona Dea festival, during which it was freely consumed but referred to euphemistically, as "milk" or "honey". Outside of this context, ordinary wine (that is, Venus' wine) tinctured with myrtle oil was thought particularly suitable for women; myrtle was sacred to Venus. Venus' long association with wine reflects the inevitable connections between wine, intoxication and sex, expressed in the proverbial phrase sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus (loosely translated as "without food and wine, Venus freezes"). It was employed in various forms, notably by the Roman playwright, Terence, and well into the Renaissance. The major public festivals concerning wine production were the two Vinalia. At the Vinalia prima ("first Vinalia") of 23 April, ordinary men and women sampled the previous year's vintage of ordinary wine in Venus' name, while the Roman elite offered a generous libation of wine to Jupiter, in the hope of good weather for the next year's growth. The Vinalia Rustica of 19 August, originally a rustic Latin harvest festival, celebrated the grape harvest, and the growth and fertility of all garden crops; its patron deity may have been Venus, or Jupiter, or both. Early Roman culture was strongly influenced by the neighbouring Etruscans to the north, and the ancient Greek colonists of Southern Italy (Magna Graecia) both of whom exported wine, and held viticulture in high esteem. Though Rome was still probably very "dry" by Greek standards, Roman attitudes to wine were drastically changed by the establishment and growth of empire. Wine had religious, medicinal and social roles that set it apart from other ingredients of Roman cuisine. Wine might be watered by more than half its volume, possibly for taste or purification. Excessive drinking of undiluted wine was thought barbaric and foolish; on the other hand, undilute wine was thought to be beneficial and "warming" for old men. Throughout Rome's Republican and Imperial eras, the offering of good wine to guests at banquets was a mark of the host's generosity, wealth and prestige. During the mid-to-later Republic, wine was increasingly treated as a necessity of everyday life rather than simply a luxury enjoyed by the elite. Cato recommended that slaves should have a weekly ration of 5 liters (over a gallon), though this should be sour or otherwise inferior wine. Should slaves become old, or sick and unproductive, Cato advised halving their rations. Cult initiates employed music, dance and copious amounts of wine to achieve ecstatic religious possession. The Roman Senate perceived the cult as a threat to its own authority and Roman morality, and suppressed it with extreme ferocity in 186. Of some seven thousand initiates and their leaders, most were put to death. Thereafter the Bacchanalia continued in much diminished form, under the supervision of Rome's religious authorities, and were probably absorbed into Liber's cult. Despite the ban, illicit Bacchanals persisted covertly for many years, particularly in Southern Italy, their likely place of origin. Judaism and Christianity As Rome assimilated more cultures, it encountered peoples from two religions that viewed wine in generally positive terms—Judaism and Christianity. Grapes and wine make frequent literal and allegorical appearances in both the Hebrew and Christian Bibles. In the Torah, grapevines were among the first crops planted after the Great Flood, and in exploring Canaan following the Exodus from Egypt, one of the positive reports about the land was that grapevines were abundant. The Jews under Roman rule accepted wine as part of their daily life, but regarded negatively the excesses that they associated with Roman "impurities". The 2nd-century CE Greco-Roman physician Galen provided several details concerning wine's medicinal use in later Roman times. In Pergamon, Galen was responsible for the diet and care of the gladiators, and used wine liberally in his practice, boasting that not a single gladiator died in his care. Wine served as an antiseptic for wounds and an analgesic for surgery. When he became Emperor Marcus Aurelius's physician, he developed pharmaceutical concoctions made from wine known as theriacs. Superstitious beliefs concerning theriacs' "miraculous" ability to protect against poisons and cure everything from the plague to mouth sores lasted until the 18th century. In his work De Antidotis, Galen noted the trend in Romans' tastes from thick, sweet wines to lighter, dry wines that were easier to digest. The Romans were also aware of the negative health effects of drinking wine, particularly the tendency towards "madness" if consumed immoderately. Lucretius warned that wine could provoke a fury in one's soul and lead to quarrels. Seneca the Elder believed that drinking wine magnified the physical and psychological defects of the drinker. Drinking wine in excess was frowned upon and those who imbibed heavily were considered dangerous to society. The Roman politician Cicero frequently labeled his rivals drunkards and a danger to Rome—most notably Mark Antony, who apparently once drank to such excess that he vomited in the Senate. The ambivalent attitude of the Romans is summarized in an epitaph: {{Poem quote|text=balnea vina Venus corrumpunt corpora nostra sed vitam faciunt balnea vina Venus "Baths, wine, and sex corrupt our bodies, but baths, wine, and sex make life worth living." ==See also==