ABSTRACT
In the Roman period, which may be taken as meaning roughly the period from 150 BC to AD 150, wine–fermented grape juice and pulp –was a comestible of complex associations. Wine was one of the chief indicators of the elite life style which gave cultural coherence to the systems which we know as Greek and Roman civilization. Beer, on the other hand, fermented from grains, was a characteristic sign of ethnic, geographical and political marginality. Cultivation of the vine and the process of vinification both had a special place in the network of production relations which supported ancient societies. Viticulture belongs in the more general category of Mediterranean arboriculture which, although extremely widespread, represents the careful and labour-intensive production of non-staples for redistribution. The discourse of social morality was not wholly a matter of written literary texts. The decorative panoply of both elite Roman residences and public spaces included comment on and allusion to relevant themes.
