Book 11
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Accordingly, men being delighted with this mixture, celebrated Bacchus in their songs, dancing and invoking him under the names of Euanthes, and Dithyrambus, and Baccheutes, and Bromius." And Theophrastus, in hi treatise on Drunkenness, says—The nymphs are really the nurses of Bacchus; for the vines, when cut, pour forth a great deal of moisture, and after their own nature weep. On which account Euripides says that one of the Horses of the Sun is Aethops, who with his fervent heat doth ripen Th' autumnal vines of sweetly flow'ring Bacchus, From which men also call wine Aethops (αἴθοπα οἶνον). And Ulysses gave Twelve large vessels of unmix'd red wine, Mellifluous, undecaying, and divine, Which now (some ages from his race conceal'd) The hoary sire in gratitude reveal'd. Such was the wine, to quench whose fervent steam Scarce twenty measures from the living stream To cool one cup sufficed; the goblet crown'd, Breathed aromatic fragrancies around.Odyss. xi. 209. And Timotheus, in his Cyclops, says— He fill'd one cup, of well-turn'd iv'ry made, With dark ambrosial drops of foaming wine; And twenty measures of the sober stream He poured in, and with the blood of Bacchus Mingled fresh tears, shed by the weeping nymphs.
