40 plikt's NATUEAL HISTOET. [Book XVIII. 



prepared, such as the *' speusticus,"'^ or '' hurry-bread." Other 

 varieties receive their names from the peculiar method of 

 baking them, such as oven-bread,'^ tin-bread,'^ and mould- 

 bread.'** It is not so very long since that we had a bread in- 

 troduced from Parthia, known as water- bread,'^' from a method 

 in kneading it, of drawing out the dough by the aid of water, 

 a process which renders it remarkably light, and full of holes, 

 like a sponge : some call this Parthian bread. The excellence 

 of the finest kinds of bread depends principally on the goodness 

 of the wheat, and the fineness of the bolter. Some persons 

 knead tlie dough with eggs or milk, and butter even has been 

 employed for the purpose by nations that have had leisure to 

 cultivate the arts of peace, and to give their attention to the 

 art of maldng pastry. Picenum still maintains its ancient 

 reputation for making the bread which it was the first to in- 

 vent, alica ^° being the grain employed. The flour is kept in 

 soak for nine days, and is kneaded on the tenth with raisin 

 juice, in the shape of long rolls; after which it is baked in an 

 oven in earthen pots, till they break. This bread, however, is 

 never eaten till it has been welP^ soaked, which is mostly done 

 in milk mixed with honey. 



CHAP. 28. WHEN BAKERS WERE FIRST INTRODUCED AT ROME. 



There were no bakers at Rome until ^- the war with King; 

 Perseus, more than five hundred and eighty years after thei 

 building of the City. The ancient Romans used to make their' 

 own bread, it being an occupation which belonged to the wo- 

 men, as we see the case in many nations even at the present, 

 day. Plautus speaks of the artopta, or bread- tin, in hisi 

 Comedy of the Aulularia,^^ though there has been considerable 

 discussion for that very reason among the learned, whether or 



" From (TTTivdu), to hiisten. A sort of crumpet, probably. 



" Furnaccus. 27 Artopticeus. 



2^ " CHbanis." The cUbanus was a portable oven or mould, broader at 

 the bottom tban the top. 



« Aquaticus. so ggg cc. 10 and 29 of this Book. 



It woiiUl appear to be somewhat similar to our rusks. 



^- Which eiultd A.u.c. 586. 



3'' A. ii. 8. 9, 1. 4. "E{,'o hinc artoptara ex proxumo utcndam peio." 

 It IB thoiijjht by some commentators, that the word used by Pliny here 

 was, in reality, " Artoptasia," a female baker ; and thab he alludes to a 

 passage in the Aulularia, which has now perished* 



