BOOK I. VI. 9-14 



products, such as grain, hay, leaves, chaff, and 

 other fodder, should be stored in lofts. But the 10 

 granaries, as I have said, should be reached by 

 ladders and should receive ventilation through small 

 openings on the north side ; for that exposure is the 

 coolest and the least humid, and both these con- 

 siderations contribute to the preservation of stored 

 grain. The same reason holds true in the placing 11 

 of the wine-room on the ground floor ; and it should 

 be far removed from the baths, oven, dunghill, and 

 other filthy places which give off a foul odour, and 

 no less so from cisterns and running water, from 

 which is derived a moisture that spoils the wine. 



And I am not unaware that some consider the 12 

 best place for storing grain to be a granary with a 

 vaulted ceiling, its earthen floor, before it is covered 

 over, dug up and soaked with fresh and unsalted lees 

 of oil and packed do-wn with rammers as is Signian 

 work." Then, after this has dried thoroughly, it is 13 

 overlaid in the same way with a pavement of tiles 

 consisting of lime and sand mixed with oil lees 

 instead of water, and these are beaten down with 

 great force by rammers and are smoothed off; and all 

 joints of walls and floor are bound together Avith a 

 bolstering * of tile, for usually when buildings develop 

 cracks in such places they afford holes and hiding- 

 places for underground animals. But granaries are 

 also divided into bins to permit the storage of every 

 kind of legume by itself. The walls are coated with 14 

 a plastering of clay and oil lees, to which are added, 

 in place of chaff, the dried leaves of the wild olive 



* I.e., a raised border of the flooring, so called from its 

 resemblance to a pillow or. bolster {pulvinus). 



71 



