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Wine that puts drinkers to sleep for three days
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How through wine one might work upon those who have drunk, so they sleep for three days. Enviable is the man who is not without such a drug: for if he will have the means to prepare wine from this, those who have used this drink sleep, so that those who have drunk are even caught by the enemy sleeping up to three days. They will rise if someone should anoint their nostrils with vinegar.
The preparation of this is as follows. Two parts of Theban opium, as in a dose: pound these smooth with one part of henbane juice, and pound the dirt from the right ear of a donkey, and throw it into the wine.
Greek 2.1 Πῶς δι' οἴνου κατεργάσαιτ'
ἄν τις τοὺς πεπωκότας πρὸς τὸ τρεῖς ἡμέρας κοιμᾶσθαι Ζηλωτὸς ὁ τοιούτου μὴ
λειπόμενος φαρμάκου· εἰ γὰρ εὐπορήσει οἶνον ἐκ τούτου σκευάζειν, κοιμῶνται μὲν
οἱ τούτῳ χρησάμενοι τῷ ποτῷ, ὡς καὶ καταληφθῆναι τοὺς πεπωκότας ὑπὸ τῶν
πολεμίων κοιμωμένους μέχρι τριῶν ἡμερῶν· ἀναστήσονται δὲ εἰ ὄξος χρίσοιτό τις
αὐτῶν τοὺς μυκτῆρας. Ἡ δὲ τούτου σκευασία ἐστὶν αὕτη· ὀπίου Θηβαϊκοῦ ὡς ἐν
θέματι μέρη βʹ· ταῦτα λειώσας μετὰ χυλοῦ ὑοσκυάμου μέρους ἑνὸς ῥύπον τε τὸν ἐξ
ὠτὸς ὄνου τοῦ δεξιοῦ λειώσας, ἔμβαλε τῷ οἴνῳ.
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About this text Sextus Julius Africanus, Christian chronographer and encyclopedist, early third century. This page is part of the fragment, not the whole Cesti.
Julius Africanus's Miscellanies: history, science and craft, in the fragments that survive, with books 7, 2 and 3 in full and parts of books 4, 8, 9 and 13.
This volume gathers the translated fragments, drawn from books 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, and 13: poisons and antidotes, veterinary charms, military stratagems, and the farm and household lore of the ancient world.
Julius Africanus (c. 160–c. 240) was a Christian scholar of the early third century, best known for the Chronographiai — the first Christian attempt at a universal chronology from creation to his own day. He wrote from Emmaus in Palestine and moved in the highest Roman circles.
The Cesti ("embroidered girdles") were his wide-ranging miscellany of curiosities, spanning military science, farming, medicine, and natural marvels. Only fragments survive, quoted by later Byzantine writers.
Fresh English from PG 10 Greek of the Cesti fragmenta through 9.5.
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Translated from PG 10 Cesti fragmenta We have not yet re-checked this work against its source. We made this study translation with AI help. No scholar has yet certified it as faithful and complete. Open Greek on any section to see the source text. It is not a critical edition.
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