Book 17
1.14
The lake Mareia, which extends as far as this place, is more than 150 stadia in breadth, and in length less than 300 stadia. It contains eight islands. The whole country about it is well inhabited. Good wine also is produced here, and in such quantity that the Mareotic wine is racked in order that it may be kept to be old.The Mareotic wine is erroneously stated by Athenaeus (p. 55. Bohn’s Classical Library) to have obtained its name from a fountain called Marea. The fountain and town derived their name from Maro, who was one of the companions of Bacchus. The wine is praised by Horace, Odes I.xxxvii. 14: Mentemque lymphatam Mareotico Redegit in veros timores. Virgil, Geor. ii. 91, calls a vine by this name: Sunt Thasiae vites, sunt et Mareotides albae.
