Caecuban wine - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Caecuban wine came from a small territory, ager Caecubus, at Amyclae in coastal Latium

Latium

Lazio is one of the 20 administrative regions of Italy, situated in the central peninsular section of the country. With about 5.7 million residents and a GDP of more than 170 billion euros, Lazio is the third most populated and the second richest region of Italy...

. (In the modern day area known as the Pontine Marshes

Pontine Marshes

thumb|250px|Lake Fogliano, a coastal lagoon in the Pontine Plain.The Pontine Marshes, termed in Latin Pomptinus Ager by Titus Livius, Pomptina Palus and Pomptinae Paludes by Pliny the Elder, today the Agro Pontino in Italian, is an approximately quadrangular area of former marshland in the Lazio...

) Varro

Varro

Varro was a Roman cognomen carried by:*Marcus Terentius Varro, sometimes known as Varro Reatinus, the scholar*Publius Terentius Varro or Varro Atacinus, the poet*Gaius Terentius Varro, the consul defeated at the battle of Cannae...

, around 70 BC, already regarded this district as a place of legendary wealth. Strabo

Strabo

Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...

detailed the area's reputation for wine as he described the location "The Caecuban Plain borders on the Gulf of Caietas; and next to the plain comes Fundi

Fundi

Fundi can refer to:* The plural form of fundus in anatomy, referring to the bottom or the lowest part of a hollow organ; that part which is the farthest from the opening* Fundi in politics; fundamentalist greens, notably in Germany...

, situated on the Appian Way

Appian Way

The Appian Way was one of the earliest and strategically most important Roman roads of the ancient republic. It connected Rome to Brindisi, Apulia, in southeast Italy...

. All these places produce exceedingly good wine; indeed, the Caecuban and the Fundanian and the Setinian belong to the class of wines that are widely famed, as is the case with the Falernian and the Alban and the Statanian.” (Geography V.3.6)

Characteristics

To many in the 1st century BC, Caecuban was the best of all wines, smoother than Falernian wine

Falernian wine

Falernian wine was produced from Aglianico grapes on the slopes of Mt. Falernus near the border of Latium and Campania, where it became the most renowned wine produced in ancient Rome. Considered a "first growth" or "cult wine" for its time, it was often mentioned in Roman literature, but has...

, fuller than Alban wine

Alban wine

Alban wine is a notable wine of Ancient Rome that was grown in the Colli Albani region, Southeast of Rome, at the foot of Mt. Albus. The area is now occupied by the modern day papal residence of Castelgandolfo...

, strong and intoxicating. It was a white wine which turned fire-coloured as it aged. Dioscorides describes it as glykys "sweet". Athenaeus

Athenaeus

Athenaeus , of Naucratis in Egypt, Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourished about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century AD...

describes it as overpowering and strong, maturing only after many years time (Deipnosophistae

Deipnosophistae

The Deipnosophistae may be translated as The Banquet of the Learned or Philosophers at Dinner or The Gastronomers...

, I.27a).

Occurrences in Horace Odes

As a testament to its popularity, Caecuban wine makes several appearances in the odes of Horace

Horace

Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...

. In Ode 1.20, Horace gives Caecuban a greater stature then Falernian as he invites his prominent friend, Maecenas to drink with him.

Then thou shalt drink Caecuban and the juice

of grapes crushed by Cales' presses; my cups

are flavoured neither with the product of

Falernum's vines nor of the Formian hills.

Horace mentions Caecuban often in connection with celebrating particularly momentous occasions, such as Octavian

Augustus

Augustus ;23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.The dates of his rule are contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian...

’s defeat of Antony

Mark Antony

Marcus Antonius , known in English as Mark Antony, was a Roman politician and general. As a military commander and administrator, he was an important supporter and loyal friend of his mother's cousin Julius Caesar...

and Cleopatra.(Odes 1.37.5) and in Ode IX where he speaks again to Maecenas,

When, O happy Maecenas, shall I,

overjoyed at Caesar’s being victorious,

drink with you under the stately dome (for so it pleases Jove
JOVE
JOVE is an open-source, Emacs-like text editor, primarily intended for Unix-like operating systems. It also supports MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows. JOVE was inspired by Gosling Emacs but is much smaller and simpler, lacking Mocklisp...

)

the Caecuban reserved for festal entertainments,

while the lyre plays a tune, accompanied with flutes,

that in the Doric, these in the Phrygian measure?

Decline and disappearance

The popularity of Caecuban seemed to have hit its apex in Horace’s time. Following the ascension of Augustus to power, Setinum was declared the Imperial wine-namely (according to Pliny) because it did not cause him indigestion and it rose in popularity accordingly (Natural History XIV.61). Pliny noted that the vineyard was starting to fall into neglect when Nero

Nero

Nero , was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and succeeded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death....

tore up the area, under the pretence of a planned ship canal across the land, in order to undertake excavations to find the legendary treasure of Dido which was supposed to have been buried there. The destruction of Caecuban’s single vineyard extinguished the wine completely; but in Martial

Martial

Marcus Valerius Martialis , was a Latin poet from Hispania best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan...

’s time, if his words can be relied on, Caecuban wine was still maturing in cellars at Amyclae. Galen

Galen

Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus , better known as Galen of Pergamon , was a prominent Roman physician, surgeon and philosopher...

is the last person on record to have tasted Caecuban wine, nearly a century after it ceased to be made.

Characteristics

Occurrences in Horace Odes

Decline and disappearance

Further reading