{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/203/2030202.htm","path":"chr/ecf/203/2030202.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/203/2030202.htm","text":"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 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\u2019s storms are so many and so hard.\nI 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.\nOn the wine of Lesbos cf. Hor. Car. i. 17, \u201cinnocentis pocula Lesbii;\u201d 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 \u1f21\u03b4\u03af\u03c9\u03bd \u1f41 \u039b\u03ad\u03c3\u03b2\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2. Nact. Att. xiii. 5.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. III: The Ecclesiastical History, Dialogues, and Letters of Theodoret.: To Cyrus.","type":"page"}