Chap. 17.] AMTLUM. 29 



fine meal, with the addition of the ingredients already men- 

 tioned, and some millet as well. Barley bread, which was 

 extensively used by the ancients, has now fallen into universal 

 disrepute, and is mostly used as a food for cattle only. 



CHAP. 15. PTISAN. 



With barley, too, the food called ptisan 60 is made, a most 

 substantial and salutary aliment, and one that is held in very 

 high esteem. Hippocrates, one of the most famous writers on 

 medical science, has devoted a whole volume to the praises of 

 this aliment. The ptisan of the highest quality is that which 

 is made at Utica ; that of Egypt is prepared from a kind^of 

 barley, the grain of which grows with two points. 61 In Baetica 

 and Africa, the kind of barley from which this food is made is 

 that which Turranius calls the " smooth " 52 barley: the same 

 author expresses an opinion, too, that olyra * and rice are the 

 same. The method of preparing ptisan is universally known. 



CHAP. 16. TRAGUM. 



In a similar manner, too, tragum is prepared from seed M 

 wheat, but only in Campania and Egypt. 



CHAP. 17. AMYLTJM. 



Amylum is prepared from every kind of wheat, and from 

 winter- wheat w as well ; but the best of all is that made from 

 three-month wheat. The invention of it we owe to the island 

 of Chios, and still, at the present day, the most esteemed kind 

 comes from there ; it derives its name from its being made 

 without the help of the mill. 56 Next to the amylum made 

 with three-month wheat, is that which is prepared from the 

 lighter kinds of wheat. In making it, the grain is soaked in 



50 Similar to our pearl barley, probably. 



81 " Anguli." Dalecharaps interprets this as two rows of grain ; but 

 Fee thinks that it signifies angles, and points. The Polygonum fagopyrum 

 of Linnaeus, he says, buck-wheat, or black-wheat, has an angular gram, 

 but he- doubts whether that can possihly be the grain here alluded to. 



52 There is no barley without a beard ; it is clearly a variety of wheat 

 that is alluded to. 



53 Triticum spelta of Linnaeus. 



54 " Semen," the same as zea, or spelt. 



15 Siligo. 5 



