Wine in Ancient Rome and Book Review
Book Review: Spartacus the Gladiator
by Ben Kane
This is an excellent historical by Ben Kane. He has become a master of stories from ancient Rome, especially, the Republican era.
In Spartacus the Gladiator, using what limited information that is available (a total of approximately 4,000 written words from ancient writings) and produces in a very logical and methodical order about the life of this famous gladiator and rebel. The characters of Spartacus, his wife, the Dionysian Priestess, Ariadne, Crixus, the vicious Gallic gladiator, and Carbo, the dispossed Roman who voluntarily became a gladiator are believeable.
Unlike the tv mini-series, Spartacus, Blood in the Sand, which really stretches factual history, Ben Kane remains true or at least trie to in telling what probably happened
This is the first volume in which we see Spartacus returning to Thrace after spending eight years as an auxiliary cavalryman. He learns that his father and brother had been murdered by a usurper Thracian king, Kotys. He himself is betrayed and sold into slavery and sent to Rome to be trained as a gladiator. Ariadne follows him and what many readers don't realize is that women sometime did follow their men into this type of captivity.
Carbo contracts himself to become a gladiator after his parents lose there farm and cannot repay their loan to Marcus Licinius Crassus, Rome's richest man.
Most of us know that ultimately Spartacus and the gladiators rebel and subsequently flee to Vesuvius where they hold off and defeat several Roman legions. I won't go into all the details, but Ben Kane follows very closely what is known about this time and does an excellent job of filling in the gaps.
The first volume ends when the slave army defeats a Counselor army of two legions in Northern Italy. Will Spartacus and his slaves be able to leave Italy? That remains to be seen.
This is a great novel and I look forward to reading the next volume.
Wine in Ancient Rome
Just as France and Italy today are famous for their fine wines, not to mention its consumption, Ancient Rome was no different. According to the ancient saying, "...every Roman has his wine."
However, the Romans did consume other beverages made from wheat and barley, and also from fermented quince juice. For daily purposes beer and distilled liquors (e.g. Syrian whiskey) never appeared at Italian banquets. Cider was sometimes drunk, and little so-called "wine" made from mulberries; but the enormous vineyards existing in every part of Italy testified to the importance of ordinary grape wine.
Vintners stalls were almost as common along Rome's streets as bakeries (in some instances' there were more). The drink was sold in jars, skins, or small flagons and sometimes decidedly resinous after the Greek fashion (e.g. modern Retsina), and in any case was extremely sour, so that a large admixture of honey was often required to make the favorite sweet mulsum. Anybody who would drink their wine undiluted were considered nothing less than sheer barbarians by the Romans. They considered that any really good wine could stand as much as eight parts of water to one without losing too much flavor.
There were as many varieties of wine as there were regions around the Mediterranean. Each produced a vintage that was tolerable and some highly select. Your average poor plebeian could get a large jug of palatable stuff for a sesterce (4 cents). The wealthy would think nothing of paying heavily for an amphorae (tall jars) of a choice old Setinian (the best wine in Italy), or for Falernian, Albania, or Massic which counted next among the Italian vintages. If however, a Roman gave a formal dinner party, etiquette dictated that at least one imported drink was to be served. It made an excellent impression on the guests to bring in Chian, Thasian, or Lesbian from the Aegean, or even Mareotian from Alexandrian, Egypt, or the exotic Chalybonium from Damascus, the delight of Mid-Eastern Kings.
During the summer the wines were drunk cold, and at luxurious banquets they were even chilled with snow water. In the winter, a kind of bronze samovar, heated by charcoal, was used for preparing calda, warm water and wine, heavily charged with spices; and at the cheap eating houses the calda counter was often thronged, especially on chilly afternoons.
Common soldiers, slaves, and plebeians of the lowest class had a special beverage all their own, namely posca, which was simply vinegar mixed with enough water to make it palatable. It probably formed a really refreshing drink to those who could acquire a taste for it. Posca was more than likely the drink in which the sponge was steeped, that was extended to Jesus as He hung on the cross.
In every great house the wine cellar retained a number of web-covered and dirty glass jars carefully sealed with gypsum, and with labels showing that they were laid away perhaps a hundred years before.
As for the undesirability of wine-drinking, that idea hardly crossed any person's mind. The poet, Horace, in Cesar Augustus's day voiced a universal thought when he sang that good wine, "Made the wise confess their secret lore; brought hope to anxious souls, and gave the poor strength to lift up his horn."
by Ben Kane
This is an excellent historical by Ben Kane. He has become a master of stories from ancient Rome, especially, the Republican era.
In Spartacus the Gladiator, using what limited information that is available (a total of approximately 4,000 written words from ancient writings) and produces in a very logical and methodical order about the life of this famous gladiator and rebel. The characters of Spartacus, his wife, the Dionysian Priestess, Ariadne, Crixus, the vicious Gallic gladiator, and Carbo, the dispossed Roman who voluntarily became a gladiator are believeable.
Unlike the tv mini-series, Spartacus, Blood in the Sand, which really stretches factual history, Ben Kane remains true or at least trie to in telling what probably happened
This is the first volume in which we see Spartacus returning to Thrace after spending eight years as an auxiliary cavalryman. He learns that his father and brother had been murdered by a usurper Thracian king, Kotys. He himself is betrayed and sold into slavery and sent to Rome to be trained as a gladiator. Ariadne follows him and what many readers don't realize is that women sometime did follow their men into this type of captivity.
Carbo contracts himself to become a gladiator after his parents lose there farm and cannot repay their loan to Marcus Licinius Crassus, Rome's richest man.
Most of us know that ultimately Spartacus and the gladiators rebel and subsequently flee to Vesuvius where they hold off and defeat several Roman legions. I won't go into all the details, but Ben Kane follows very closely what is known about this time and does an excellent job of filling in the gaps.
The first volume ends when the slave army defeats a Counselor army of two legions in Northern Italy. Will Spartacus and his slaves be able to leave Italy? That remains to be seen.
This is a great novel and I look forward to reading the next volume.
Wine in Ancient Rome
Just as France and Italy today are famous for their fine wines, not to mention its consumption, Ancient Rome was no different. According to the ancient saying, "...every Roman has his wine."
However, the Romans did consume other beverages made from wheat and barley, and also from fermented quince juice. For daily purposes beer and distilled liquors (e.g. Syrian whiskey) never appeared at Italian banquets. Cider was sometimes drunk, and little so-called "wine" made from mulberries; but the enormous vineyards existing in every part of Italy testified to the importance of ordinary grape wine.
Vintners stalls were almost as common along Rome's streets as bakeries (in some instances' there were more). The drink was sold in jars, skins, or small flagons and sometimes decidedly resinous after the Greek fashion (e.g. modern Retsina), and in any case was extremely sour, so that a large admixture of honey was often required to make the favorite sweet mulsum. Anybody who would drink their wine undiluted were considered nothing less than sheer barbarians by the Romans. They considered that any really good wine could stand as much as eight parts of water to one without losing too much flavor.
There were as many varieties of wine as there were regions around the Mediterranean. Each produced a vintage that was tolerable and some highly select. Your average poor plebeian could get a large jug of palatable stuff for a sesterce (4 cents). The wealthy would think nothing of paying heavily for an amphorae (tall jars) of a choice old Setinian (the best wine in Italy), or for Falernian, Albania, or Massic which counted next among the Italian vintages. If however, a Roman gave a formal dinner party, etiquette dictated that at least one imported drink was to be served. It made an excellent impression on the guests to bring in Chian, Thasian, or Lesbian from the Aegean, or even Mareotian from Alexandrian, Egypt, or the exotic Chalybonium from Damascus, the delight of Mid-Eastern Kings.
During the summer the wines were drunk cold, and at luxurious banquets they were even chilled with snow water. In the winter, a kind of bronze samovar, heated by charcoal, was used for preparing calda, warm water and wine, heavily charged with spices; and at the cheap eating houses the calda counter was often thronged, especially on chilly afternoons.
Common soldiers, slaves, and plebeians of the lowest class had a special beverage all their own, namely posca, which was simply vinegar mixed with enough water to make it palatable. It probably formed a really refreshing drink to those who could acquire a taste for it. Posca was more than likely the drink in which the sponge was steeped, that was extended to Jesus as He hung on the cross.
In every great house the wine cellar retained a number of web-covered and dirty glass jars carefully sealed with gypsum, and with labels showing that they were laid away perhaps a hundred years before.
As for the undesirability of wine-drinking, that idea hardly crossed any person's mind. The poet, Horace, in Cesar Augustus's day voiced a universal thought when he sang that good wine, "Made the wise confess their secret lore; brought hope to anxious souls, and gave the poor strength to lift up his horn."
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