26 PLINY'S NATUKAL HISTOKT. [Book XYIIL 



Of the various kinds of wheat which are imported at the 

 present day into Eome, the lightest in weight are those which 

 come from Gaul and Chersonnesus ; for, upon weighing them, 

 it will be found that they do not yield more than twenty 

 pounds to the modius. The grain of Sardinia weighs half a 

 pound more, and that of Alexandria one- third of a pound more 

 than x that of Sardinia ; the Sicilian wheat is the same in 

 , weight as the Alexandrian. The Boeotian wheat, again, weighs 

 a whole pound more than these last, and that of Africa a pound 

 and three quarters. In Italy beyond the Pad us, the spelt, to 

 my knowledge, weighs twenty-five pounds to the modius, and, 

 in the vicinity of Clusium, six-and-twenty. We find it a 

 rule, universally established by Nature, that in every kind of 

 commissariat bread 30 that is made, the bread exceeds the weight 

 of the grain by one- third ; and in the same way it is generally 

 considered that that is the best kind of wheat, which, in 

 kneading, will absorb one congius of water. 31 There are some 

 kinds of wheat which give, when used by themselves, an ad- 

 ditional weight equal to this ; the Balearic wheat, for instance, 

 which to a modius of grain yields thirty-five pounds weight of 

 bread. Others, again, will only give this additional weight 

 by being mixed with other kinds, the Cyprian wheat and the 

 Alexandrian, for example ; which, if used by themselves, will 

 yield no more than twenty pounds' to the modius. The wheat 

 of Cyprus is swarthy, and produces a dark bread ; for which 

 reason it is generally mixed with the white wheat of Alexan- 

 dria ; the mixture yielding twenty-five pounds of bread to the 

 modius of grain. The wheat of Thebais, in Egypt, when 

 made into bread, yields twenty-six pounds to the modius. To 

 knead the meal with sea- water, as is mostly done in the mari- 

 time districts, for the purpose of saving the salt, is' extremely 

 pernicious ; there is nothing, in fact, that will more readily 

 predispose the human body to disease. In Gaul and Spain, 

 where they make a drink 32 by steeping corn in the way that 

 has been already described they employ the foam 33 which 

 thickens upon the surface as a leaven : hence it is that 

 the bread in those countries is lighter than that made else- 

 where. 



30 Panis militaris. si To the modius of wheat. 



He alludes to beer, or sweet- wort. See B. xiv. c. 29. 

 33 He alludes to yeast. See B. xxii. c. 82. 



