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In Sicily the only other DOC wine made in significant quantity is the pale white, bone dry Bianco d'Alcamo, which is now part of the broader Alcamo appellation. Moscato di Pantelleria, from the remote isle off the coast of Tunisia, is among the richest and most esteemed of Italian sweet wines in the Naturale and Passito Extra versions. Malvasia delle Lipari, from the volcanic Aeolian isles, is a dessert wine as exquisite as it is rare.

Wine, the second most important food item, was imported in large quantities: a not improbable estimate for ancient Rome, based on the average annual consumption of modern Italy, comes to about 4,000,000 amphoras (27,750,000 gals.). On special days, however, extraordinary demands were made on the city's wine merchants; Lucullus, for example, needed 150,000 amphoras (over 1,000,000 gals.) or his triumphal banquet, and Caesar at triumphal celebrations -- when dictator, after the Spanish victories, and at his third consulship -- distributed amphoras of Falernian and casks of Chian to all banqueters ( Pl., 14, 97). As can be observed from the brands of wine used for these congiaria from the time of Sulla to that of Augustus, native Italian varieties were gradually replacing the imports from Greece and Sicily. A little later Pliny, and then Martial, substantiate this evidence that Alban and Campanian products had gained control of the Roman market.

For the most popular of these native wines during the first century there are three sources of information: the fourteenth book of Pliny, the thirteenth book of Martial, and the sherds of wine amphoras found at Rome. Martial's list is perhaps the most valuable indication of the wines drunk in the city; for Pliny, who has included numerous foreign wines, may have used. Greek sources, some of them quite outof-date. Among the brands named by Martial two of the first nine are from Campania and seven from Latium. Pliny's list of the ranking Italian wines ( 14, 61-64) corresponds very closely with this; though the Setine which Pliny places first ranks fifth with Martial; the Caecuban, eighth for Martial, is Pliny's second; and the Alban wine comes second and fourth with Pliny and Martial respectively. Although relatively few of the amphoras in which the wine was brought to the city have their marks still legible, there are six that are labelled Falernian, five that carried Aminean (grown near Vesuvius: C. I. L., XV, 4510, 4532-4, 5730), four marked Fundanian (4566-9), and one each marked Caecuban (4545), Alban (4531), Signine (4740), Statanan (4672), and Privernan (4587). Other districts from which large producers sent wine to Rome were, according to the existing jars, Beneventum (4544), Veii (4595), and Bruttium (4590-1).

Workable evidence about the details of the wine trade comes only in the second and third centuries when large wholesalers imported consignments from Spain and Gaul. Most of the amphoras from the Alban hills and the farms below the city near Tusculum must have been brought directly to the homes of the well-to-do or to the stalls of the small market dealers in wagons driven by the owners' trustworthy slave or freedman. There is, however, some indication that large contractors from the city went to the large estates and bought the crop as it hung on the vine. The practice existed in Cato's time, and in Pliny's day the crop of Remmius Palaemon near Nomentum was bought by these wholesalers for 400,000 sesterces ($20,000: Pl, 14, 48-50). The method used by these contractors to distribute the wine to the small dealers is wholly a matter of conjecture. Much of the Campanian wine, however, brought to the wine wharves in "tramp" vessels, was undoubtedly sold directly to the Roman vinarii who had come down to the wharves from their shops. Interesting details about this commerce, though on an extraordinary scale, are suggested by Petronius' account ( Satyricon, 76) of Trimalchio's mercantile adventures. For the first enterprise Trimalchio himself built five ships, loaded them with wine (et tune erat contra aurum), hired captains for them, and sent them off to Rome. The boats and the cargo, valued by Trimalchio at $1,500,000, were lost in a storm. Undaunted by this disaster, he prepared a second shipment which, in addition to wine, included bacon and beans from his estates near Capua, slaves, and a quantity of the famous Campanian perfumes. From this deal $10,000,000 were realized, if one wishes to believe Trimalchio.

A further development in the marketing of these Campanian wines is indicated by the inscription C. I. L., XV, 4597: Ve(suvium?) C . . . M. l. et soc(iorum). Here a partnership, perhaps of owners of adjacent small estates, has been formed to provide for shipment of the wine to Rome. Certainly, it is an established fact that two-thirds of the villas in the district about Vesuvius had extensive provisions for producing large quantities of wine and oil: 23,000 gallons of wine and 1,300 of oil could be stored in the dolia in the cellar at Boscoreale. There is the further consideration that about 22 per cent of these large villa-owners were imperial freedmen; they would naturally direct their large trading enterprises to the city.

For this first century there is little evidence for the importation of wines from abroad, although by the time of Augustus Baetica had begun to ship the cheaper brands to Rome. Two jars in the city labelled Baeter (r) (ense) (XV, 4542-3) also testify to some Gallic import at this time, although the current of trade in this commodity ran rather from Italy northward. Cisalpine Gaul exported wine from near Verona ( Str., 4, 6, 8) and the brand stored in urban jars marked Maritimum (4662-3). Raisin wine came from Crete ( Mart., 13, 106), acid wine from Africa ( Pl., 14, 16), and a few fine brands from the East -- Berytus, Tyre, and Clazomenae (14, 73-4). Furthermore, the fragments of a jar from the early empire marked Autocratum (4539) support Pliny's testimony (14, 78) that the importation of Greek wines continued.

By the middle of the second century, however, Spanish wine (and also oil) had captured the Roman market: some indication of the volume of this commerce is given by the mound of many million clay jars behind the ancient docks, known as Monte Testaccio. Fortunately the jars, none of which have remained unbroken, are inscribed with unusually detailed information about the progress of the wine from the private estates in Baetica to the warehouses at Rome. Taking a typical inscription (XV, 3954), we find that the jar when empty weighed 94.5 Roman pounds, and when filled 215.5 pounds; this is about 2.5 times larger than the normal amphora. There is no record in this case of the pottery kiln where the cask was made, but the potter's trade-marks on other jars (see the published handles, XV, 2558 ff.) indicate that many of them were made in Baetica very near the vineyards; some may have been produced on the estates themselves. This same inscription also declares that the cask, worth 24 sesterces (about $1.20), was received at the customs office at Carteia. The receiving clerk here has recorded not only the number of the consignment, the value, and the weight (which he has checked) but also the date, the company of shippers, L. Marius Phoebus and Viator and Restitutus Vibii, and the estate of Attius Cornelius from which the cask was sent. Phoebus and the Vibii, who now own the wine, convey it through Ostia to the Emporium by the Aventine; here the contents of the huge cask are emptied into the smaller amphoras brought hither by the retail vinarii, and the ninety pound jar, whose return journey to Spain would be costly, is broken and discarded.

Since there is considerable variation in the inscriptions, several of the items need further comment. The value of the wine, in this case 24 sesterces, ranges on other jars from 20 to 40 sesterces, somewhat lower than the price of 15 sesterces the amphora (of eighty Roman pounds) which Columella (3, 3, 8) quotes as the wholesale price for ordinary Italian wine. The export tax, however, is another factor which must not be disregarded in comparing prices; for although it does not appear on the inscription under discussion, it can be found on about 90 of the other jars. This tax, ranging from 2 to 4 asses (72 are marked áá and only 1 áááá), is approximately 2.5 per cent of the value of the contents, the normal tax on Spanish goods. This tax, of course, precludes the assumption that the wine came from imperial estates or as tribute in kind from public lands; furthermore, when after 217 A. D. wine is exported to the account of the fiscus, the tax disappears. Mention must also be made of the location of the chief forwarding stations, for Carteia -- even if the restoration on the inscription discussed is correct -- appears very infrequently: Hispalis is named on 96 jars, Corduba on 49, Astigi on 35, and Gades, Malaga, and Portus (Portus Gaditanus) on a smaller number. The wine fleet usually sailed from the ports of Gades and Malaga.

Among the shippers who operated between these ports and Rome was S. Fadius Secundus, a distinguished citizen of Narbo whose name appears on 25 sherds. Although Secundus filled all the official posts in his native city and was able from the profits of his business enterprises to bequeath 16,000 sesterces to the carpenters' guild at Narbo ( C. I. L., XII, 4393: 149 A. D.), his discarded cognomen of Musa would seem to indicate freedman stock. It has also been pointed out that at least half the ship-owners whose names are recorded on the jars were of like origin and the suggestion made that the full freeman's status had been gained as a reward for transporting foodstuffs to the city in accordance with Claudius' decree.

In addition to these Gallic shippers the names of four Spaniards engaged in this trade are known with certainty, and in view of rather numerous inscriptions referring to Spanish merchants at Rome ( C. I. L., VI, 1625b, 1935, 9677, 29722) it is not unlikely that they carried the bulk of this import. Another interesting group mentioned on the fragments are the companies of shippers composed of four or five men, often patrons with their freedmen, who in all prob ability owned and operated a small fleet of wine ships between Spanish ports and Rome. Women too, who had probably inherited ships from fathers or husbands, were encouraged by the profits in Spanish wine to continue their work (XV, 3691, 3729, 3845-7, etc.)

The numerous sherds of wine jars has made it possible to trace the gradual shifting of the city's supply of wine: after the middle of the second century Campanian and Alban brands carried in farm wagons or on small "tramps" were replaced by cheaper Spanish wines brought on larger vessels by wealthy wholesale merchants. Later in this century and especially during the next, organized guilds of wine importers appear on the inscriptions; there are groups operating on the Adriatic ( C. I. L., VI, 9682 and 1101) as well as on the Tyrrhenian Sea (XIV, 131) and guilds specifically designated as bringing wine for the Ostian and Roman markets (XIV, 409, 430, 318). Entire guilds of importers from regions along the Adriatic demand some explanation. Among the wines from these regions that of Pucinum near the Timavus had been brought into favor by the Empress Livia, who declared that she never drank any other ( Pl., 14, 60); perhaps the taste for this wine, stimulated by a desire to endorse the fashion of the imperial house, had grown to such an extent that the demand at Rome was very great. Other brands from the "Upper Sea," however, were highly praised. At Aquileia, where the Pucine wine was certainly brought, there were large groups of dealers engaged in trading with the north as well as with the south; so it is not unlikely that these guilds from the Adriatic carried on a flourishing exchange trade at Ostia with wines from Spain or Campania. To judge from the important positions held by their patrons, the groups were both wealthy and important, but no information can be gained from the inscriptions about their activities. Within a short period, by the middle of the third century, they had become instruments of a government which had gradually assumed the function of the sale of wines.