BOOK XVIII. \.\ii. 96-.\xiii. 99 



it in Asia and Greece is erysimum, and the grain 

 called with us irio " would be identical with it were it 

 not that that is more iilled out, and is to be reckoned 

 as a drug rather than a cereal. Of the same nature 

 is also the grain'' called in Greece horminum, though 

 it resembles cuniniin ; it is sown with giiigelly. No 

 animal will eat either this or irio while green. 



XXIII. Not all grains are easy to crush, in fact iiethoiUoj 

 Etruria pounds the ears of emmer, after it has been "" '""■ 

 roasted, with a pestle shod with iron at the end, in a 

 handmill that is serrated and denticulated inside 

 with grooves radiating from a centre, so that if 

 people put their weight into it wliile pounding the 

 grains are only sphntered up and the iron is broken. 

 The greater part of Italy uses a bare pestle, and also 

 wheels turned by moving water, and a millstone. 

 As to the actual method of pounding corn we will 

 put forward the opinion of Mago : he says that 

 wheat should be steeped in a quantity of water 

 beforehand, and afterwards shelled of husk and then 

 dried in the sun and well pounded in a mortar ; and 

 barley should be treated in a similar way ; of the 

 latter, he says, 20 sixteenths should be wetted 

 with two sixteenths of water. Lentils must be 

 roasted first and then mixed with bran and hghtly 

 pounded, or with a fragment of unbaked brick and 

 half a peck of sand added to each 20 sixteenths. 

 Chickhng to be treated in the same ways as lentils. 

 Sesame to be steeped in warm water and spread out, 

 and then rubbed well and dipped in cokl water so 

 that the chaff may float to the top, and again spread 

 out in the sun on a Unen sheet ; and if this is not 

 done very quickly it turns musty with a Uvid colour. 

 Also there are various methods of pounding the 



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