GRAPES. if he gather them on a neighbour's estate; but if he take them from any other place, two-thirds of a mina. But whoever chooses to gather the grapes ([Greek: tên staphylên]), which are now called the noble grapes, or the figs called the noble figs, if he gather them from his own trees, let him gather them as he pleases, and when he pleases; but if he gathers them from the trees of any one else without having obtained the leave of the owner, then, in accordance with the law which forbids any one to move what he has not placed, he shall be invariably punished." These are the words of the divine Plato; but I ask now what is this noble grape ([Greek: gennaia]), and this noble fig that he speaks of? And you may all consider this point while I am discussing the other dishes which are on the table. And Masurius said—
But let us not postpone this till to-morrow,
Still less till the day after.
When the philosopher says [Greek: gennaia], he means [Greek: eugenê], generous, as Archilochus also uses the word—
Come hither, you are generous ([Greek: gennaios]);
or, perhaps, he means [Greek: epigegenêmena]; that is to say, grafted. For Aristotle speaks of grafted pears, and calls them [Greek: epembolades]. And Demosthenes, in his speech in defence of Ctesiphon, has the sentence, "gathering figs, and grapes ([Greek: botrys]), and olives." And Xenophon, in his Œconomics, says, "that grapes ([Greek: tas staphylas]) are ripened by the sun." And our ancestors also have been acquainted with the practice of steeping grapes in wine. Accordingly Eubulus, in his Catacollomenos, says—
But take these grapes ([Greek: botrys]), and in neat wine pound them,
And pour upon them many cups of water.
Then make him eat them when well steep'd in wine.
And the poet, who is the author of the Chiron, which is generally attributed to Pherecrates, says—
Almonds and apples, and the arbutus first,
And myrtle-berries, pastry, too, and grapes
Well steep'd in wine; and marrow.
And that every sort of autumn fruit was always plentiful at Athens, Aristophanes testifies in his Horæ. Why, then, should that appear strange which Aethlius the Samian asserts in the fifth book of his Samian Annals, where he says, "The fig, and the grape, and the medlar, and the apple, and the rose grow twice a-year?" And Lynceus, in his letter to
