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| To Cyrus.
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XIII. To
Cyrus.
I had heard of the island of
Lesbos, and its cities Mitylene, Methymna, and the rest; but I was
ignorant of the fruit of the vine cultivated in it.1628
| 1628 On the wine of Lesbos cf. Hor. Car. i. 17, “innocentis
pocula Lesbii;” Aulus Gellius tells the story how Aristotle,
when asked to nominate his successor, and wishing to point out the
superiority of Theophrastus to Menedemus, called first for a cup of
Rhodian, and then of Lesbian, and after sipping both, exclaimed
ἡδίων ὁ
Λέσβιος.
Nact. Att. xiii. 5. | Now, thanks to your diligence, I have
become acquainted with it, and I admire both its whiteness and the
delicacy of its flavour. Perhaps time may even improve it, unless it
turns it sour; for wine, like the body, and plants, and buildings, and
other things made by hand, is damaged by time. If, as you say, it makes
the drinker longlived, I am afraid it will be of little use to me, for
I have no desire to live a long life, when life’s storms are so
many and so hard.
I was however much pleased to
hear of the health of the monk. Really my anxiety about him was quite
distressing, and I wrongly blamed the doctors, for his complaint
required the treatment they gave. I have sent you a little pot of honey
which the Cilician bees make from storax flowers. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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