BOOK XI. xcvi. 238-xcvn. 24 



to contribute soniething to the whiteness in women's 

 skin ; at all events Domitius Nero's vvife Poppaea 

 used to drag five hundred she asses with foals about 

 Avith her everywhere and actually soaked her whole 

 body in a bath-tub with ass's milk, believing that 

 it also smoothed out wrinkles. All milk is made 

 thicker by fire and turned into whey by cold. 

 Cow's milk makes more cheese than goat's milk, 

 almost as much again from the same quantity. 

 Animals with more than four dugs are not serviceable 

 for cheese, and those with two are better. 



The curds of the roebuck, hare and goat are 

 praised, but that of the rabbit is the best, and is even 

 a cure for diarrhoea — the rabbit is the only animal 

 with teeth in both jaws that has this property. It 

 is remarkable that the foreign races that hve on 

 milk for so many centuries have not known or have 

 despised the blessing of cheese, at most condensing 

 their milk into agreeable sour curds and fat butter. 

 Butter is a foam of milk of thicker and stickier sub- 

 stance than what is called whey ; it must be added 

 that it possesses the quality of oil and is used fof 

 anointing by all foreigners and by ourselves in the 

 case of children. 



XCVII. Of cheese from the provinces the most Cheese 

 highly praised at Rome, where the good things of 

 all nations are estimated at first hand, is that of 

 the district of Nimes, coming from the villages of La 

 Loz^re and Gevaudan ; but it only wins approval for 

 a short time and when fresh. The Alps prove the 

 value of their pastures by two kinds of cheese : the 

 Dalmatian Mountains send the Docleate and the 

 Tarentaise the Vatusic. A larger number belong 

 to the Apennines : these send Coebanum cheese 



583 



