Book 17
8
But when the boy had gone out to buy oil, Taurus, not at all put out by the delay, said: The pot needs oil, and, as I see, is intolerably hot; let us withhold our hands and meanwhile, since the slave has just told us that oil is in the habit of congealing, let us consider why oil congeals often and readily, but wine rarely. And he looked at me and bade me give my opinion. Then I replied that I inferred that wine congealed less quickly because it had in it certain seeds of heat and was naturally more fiery, and that was why Homer called Iliad i. 462, etc. it ai)/qoy, In Homer this word, from ai)qo/s, fire and o)/y, eye, means fiery-looking or sparkling, rather than fiery. Gellius seems to be wrong so far as Homer is concerned, although some other writers used ai)/qoy in the sense of fiery, as applied to persons. and not, as some supposed, on account of its colour.
8
It is indeed, says Taurus, as you say. For it is well known that wine, when we drink it, warms the body. But oil is equally calorific and has no less power of warming the body. Besides, if those things which are warmer are frozen with greater difficulty, it follows that those which are colder freeze more readily. But vinegar is the most cooling of all things and yet it never freezes. Is the reason then for the quicker freezing of oil to be found in its lightness? For those things seem to congeal more readily which are lighter and smoother.
