ANTIQUITY

Vitis silvestris, a wild Eurasian grape, is older than man and, together with wheat, it is one of the oldest cultivated plants. Its ancestral homeland is thought to be around Mount Ararat, where it grows spontaneously and resembles a species of wild liana (climbing plant). The beginning of its cultivation is associated with Noah, one of the forefathers of humans (Book of Genesis (cap IX vers. 20 and 21). Noah’s first vineyard was planted in Armenia, which can therefore be considered the cradle of both grapevine and viticulture. As he was preparing to plant the vineyard, Satan appeared to Noah, deceiving him, and Noah found out what happens when a person drinks too much wine.

Moses, among the commandments he gave to the Jewish people, wrote that the fruits of the vine should not be harvested during the first three years so that the plant would not be hindered in its development before its final formation and full fertility. Noah had three sons, and from one of them, Shem, the Semitic peoples originate – the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Arameans, and through them the Hebrews, the Arabs, the Jews, and other ancient peoples of the Middle East. The other two sons of Noah were Ham (he had a son, Canaan) and Japheth. They began growing vines in the Transcaucasian region as early as the second part of the sixth millennium BC. Shem’s successors called the vineyard karm, hence the name Carmel for the mountain of the prophet Elijah in Palestine. The Order of the Carmelites founded in the 12th century also got its name by wine. Pelasgians (1,600 years BC) and the Etruscans (especially in its central part), peoples who came from Asia Minor, the homeland of viticulture, introduced grapevine culture to Italy. The south of Italy was particularly suitable for vines, and the Semites also taught viticulture to the Greeks.

In the epic of Gilgamesh (a real character who ruled around 2600 BC), which is considered to be the oldest literary work so far found, written around 1700 BC, in the ancient Babylonian language, on twelve clay tablets, wine is also mentioned. Gilgamesh was the king of Uruk, who was two-thirds god and one-third man, and his friend was also the magnificent Enkidu, who drank as many as seven baskets of wine on one occasion. After Enkidu’s death, the people were offered wine with bread.

Homer’s heroes also enjoyed wine – Odysseus drank wine from the islands where he met seductive beauties, which helped him forget his faithful Penelope. The wine helped him intoxicate the cyclops Polyphemus, who imprisoned Odysseus and his companions in a cave. Odysseus gave him undiluted wine to make him drunk. To thank him for the wine, Polyphemus said he would eat him last. When the giant fell asleep drunk, Odysseus and his men turned the pine into a large spear and blinded him.

On the hill of Nisa, Dionysus discovered wine, which is why he is most celebrated today. This ancient god of fertility, enjoyment, intoxication and wine, the son of Zeus and Semela, was a protector of the nymphs on the hill of Nisa. Getting drunk with the juice of the vine, he gave people its seedlings and taught them to make a potion, which – as it was believed – stimulates creative forces, sociability, love, fun. He set off, crowned with laurel and ivy, on a journey to distant lands, accompanied by immoral semi-divine beings: mermaids, satires, maenads, thyias and nymphs. On his triumphant journey, symbolising the spread of the cult of wine, he reached all the way to India.

Grapevine in Croatia
It was believed that the grapevine was brought to Croatian lands by Thracians from Asia Minor and Celts from the West, and Greeks in Dalmatia. This theory was, however, disputed, when the researchers found moulds for casting bronze objects, clay statues and remains of grapevine from the Bronze Age in the settlement of Ripač on Una near Bihać. Thrace and Greece were also connected to our coast by intensive trade. The findings of Puglia ceramics found near Vrpolje confirm that. The assumption that the Illyrians produced wine is supported by a number of circumstantial evidence, and according to the writings of ancient writers, they were also great lovers of alcohol. In the book of Philippicus (preserved in the book of Athenaeus – Feast of the Scholars), the Greek historian Theopompus of Chios described an event from 395-358 BC, when the Celts defeated the Illyrian tribes of the Ardiaei who inhabited the Neretva region by a war trick. In the work of the same name, Athenaeus quotes the Greek writer Agatharchides, who lived in the 2nd century BC, who claims that the island of Vis produces the best wine. There, the cult of the god Dionysus was celebrated, who was the god of fertility and wine, and his figure was also found on the money from Issa. Greek colonisers came to the Dalmatian coast at the beginning of the 4th century BC, when Dionysius of Syracuse built the city-state of Issa on the island of Vis, and he also helped the inhabitants of the Greek island of Paros to found the settlements of Pharos, Starigrad, on Hvar in the 4th century BC. The Greeks from the island of Vis soon began to establish new settlements – Stobreč, Trogir and Solin, so that already in the 2nd century BC grapevine cultivation and viticulture in Dalmatia were an important economic branch. The inhabitants of the city-state of Issa on the island of Vis also founded a new colony of Korkyra Melaina on the island of Korčula near Lumbarda.