upon the innocent, and spent the money thus unjustly obtained upon wine, which they quaffed in the house of their gods; as Dathe renders: "])ecunias hominibus innocentibus extortas compotationibus absunnint in templis deorum suorum."
Mixed wine is often spoken of in Scripture. This was of different kinds. Sometimes it was mixed with witter to take it down (Isa. i, 22) ; sometimes with milk (Cant. V, 1) ; and sometimes, by lovers of strong drink, with spices of various kinds, to give it a richer flavor and greater potency (Isa. v, 22; Psa. Ixxv, 8). Both the Greeks and Romans were in the hal)it of flavoring their wines with spices, and such preparations were de- scribed by the former as wine t^ apw/tdrwi' KaraaKtiia- Z^'i^tvoq (Athen. i, 31 e), and by the latter as aromalites (Pliny, xiv, 19, 5). The authority of the JMishna may be cited in favor both of water and of spices, the former being noticed in Berach. vii, 5; Pesach. vii, 13; and the latter in Shen. li, 1.
The " royal wine," literally wine of the kingdom, n^app 'i'l'^ (Esth.i, 7), denotes most probably the best wine, such as the king of Persia himself was accustomed to drink. " Wine of Lebanon" is referred to in such a way as to indicate its peculiar excellence — " the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon" (Hos. xiv, 7). Hence it is thought to have been distinguished by its grateful smell. But "iS'T means, as th§ margin renders it, memorial, and includes odor, flavor, and refreshing in- fluence. Modern travellers attest the excellence of the wine of Lebanon. The " wine of Helbon, or Chalybon," is mentioned as one of the importations of Tyre (Ezek. xxvii, 18), and was very famous. It was greath' valued by the Persian monarchs (Strabo, xv, 735), as it still is bv the residents of Damascus (Porter, Damascus, i, 333).
The wines of modern Palestine are represented by travellers as being of excellent quality. The sweet wines are particularly esteemed in the East, because they are grateful to the taste, very exhilarating, and some of them will keep for a long time. They were therefore preferred by those who were addicted to drinking, and commonh' selected for the tables of kings. Their inebriating quality is alluded to by the prophet Isaiah : " I will feed them that oppress you with their own flesh, and they shall be drimken as with sweet wine" (Isa. xlix, 26). "The testimony of travellers respecting the spirituous nature of the wines of Palestine accords with that of the sacred writers. , . . It is observed by Thevenot that the people of the Levant never mingle water with their wine at meals, but drink by itself what water they think proper for abating its strength. While the Greeks. and Romans by mixed wine understood wine united and lowered with water, the Hebrews, on the contrary, meant by it wine made stronger and more inebriating by the addition of pow- erful ingredients. . . . The wines of Palestine are gen- erally kept in bottles made of leather, or goat -skins, sewed or pitched together. In these the process of fermentation took place, and the wine acquired its proper degree of strength. In absence of anything like chemical analysis, these are the data from which we must draw our conclusions concerning the nature of the wines referred to by the sacred writers. Some of them are represented to have been sweet wines, which, if not the strongest, are known to have been very strong. The grapes from which they were produced were re- markable for their richness and excellence ; the climate of the country being such as to favor the growth and development of those principles which, during fermen- tation, were converted into alcohol. As the grapes of that country' are now known to furnish very rich and spirituous wines, we may infer that the ancient were similar in their character; since there is abundant evi- dence that the climate has not suffered any material change for three thousand years. We should not omit, in confirmation of this view of the spirituous nature of
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the wines of Palestine, to advert to the modes in which tliev were kept. It is now well known that when mixt- nres of alcohol and water are ]nit into bladders, tlie wa- ter evaporates and leaves the alcohol in a more concen- trated form. It is asserted that wine which has been ke|)t in bottles closed by pieces of bladder firmly tied over the mouth, in a few weeks acquire the strength and flavor which would be imparted to it only by sev- eral vears' jjreservation in the ordinary way. Now, it is probable that the leather bags into which these wines are put would produce a similar effect ujion the liiiuor, which, after the process of fermentation had ceased, would soon attain its comjilete and ajipropriate alco- holic character" (Prof. Silliman, A met: Jour, of Science and Arts, lS3i).
" The wine was generally contained in large ox-skins ranged round the store-room, and quite distended with liipior. The larger skins seem to have answered to casks; the smaller goat and kid skins, to barrels and kegs in the comparison, to be chiefly used in conveying to customers the smallest quantities required. Individ- uals rarely keep large stores of wine in their houses, but get a small supply of a goat-skin or two from the wine- store. This seems also to have been the case with the ancient Jews, for Nehcmiah, although holding the rank of governor, had no store of wine, for we read he had a su|iply every ten days (Neh. v, 18). The large skins in tiie wine-store we have mentioned are sup])orted above the floor on frames of wood" (Kitto, Pict. Bible, note on Job xxxii, 19). Similar methods of storing and keep- ing wine were common to the Greeks and Romans. See Smith, Lie/, of Class. A ntiq. s. v. " A'inum."