Greek viticultural history began, so to speak, with a fling of the supreme god Zeus with the beautiful Seméle (daughter of Harmonia, goddess of concord), which led to the birth of Dionysus, the god of wine, joy, grapes, fertility and ecstasy. Ancient Greece, or rather the island of Crete in particular, due to archaeological findings, is considered one of the "cradles of European wine culture". Already in the Mycenaean culture in the 16th century B.C. (Mycenae = northeastern Peloponnese) there was viticulture, as indicated by the amphorae found. Wine was an important part of the drinking culture of everyday life. The Greeks were among the very first to use wine as a valuable trading commodity. Already the poet Homer (8th century B.C.) reports in the Iliad about wine as the domestic drink of the described heroes. Furthermore, the historians Hesiod (~750-680 B.C.), the philosopher Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), the naturalist Theophrastos (370-287 B.C.) and the physician Galen (129-216) dealt with wine and viticulture.