Zosimus

On the preparation of zythum (beer)

Fragment.

An ornamental horizontal rule featuring a central elongated diamond shape flanked by decorative tapered lines and small dots.

On the preparation of zythum.
Take clean, good barley and steep it in water for one day; then spread it out and place it in a place sheltered from the wind, until...

On the preparation of zythum.
Take clean, good barley, and steep it (in water) for one day, and spread it out, and place it in a place sheltered from the wind...

1. The word katharios for katharos is read in DU FRESNE, Glossarium mediae et infimae Graecitatis, p. 533.

2. i.e., one day. REINESIUS, in a fragment of ISIS, reads: apothou ss le (store for 35 days); until it rots, let it be for 18 days. In shadow to rot, according to EUGENIUS: leiōson oxei ss 3 en th (triturate with vinegar for 3 days in the sun). Regarding the word sē, see HEMSTERHUIS on ARISTOPHANES, Plutus 246.

3. This meaning is not found in the ancient Greeks and lexicographers. According to the celebrated WEIGEL (Neugriechisch-teutsch-italienisches Wörterbuch, Leipzig 1796, p. 8), anaspō means "I pull, I tear out," as in anaspō ta geneia ("I pull out my beard"); nor does ALESSIO DA SOMAVERA’s Tesoro della Lingua Greca Volgare ed Italiana (Paris, 1704) differ. I, however, thought it should be translated as "spread out" (disperge), because brewers of beer are accustomed to expose barley, once sprinkled with water and steeped, to the air, and to agitate it from time to time, so that it does not become heated and spoil.

4. REINESIUS has anēnemō ("windless"), and ZOSIMUS himself in another place has: "the room inside, where the tools are kept, should be windless, having lights facing East or South." Perhaps it could be read as aneimenō ("open/permeable to the wind"), and this seemed more suitable to the late SUCCOVIUS, who wrote thus: "The first period shows the method of preparing air-malt, and it pleases me very much that, through repeated maceration, the oily-saline parts of the barley are unlocked in a slower and not violent manner, thereby..."