The nomenclature which the Romans have left us of their various kinds of corn is so obscure and uncertain, that some modern writers are continually contradicting each other, and, by these means, have raised doubts which render our task more difficult, instead of enlightening us on the subject.

We shall do all in our power to avoid the censure which we take the liberty of passing upon them.

“Triticum,” wheat, or corn; “BlÉ,” from the ancient Latin word “Bladus,” which signifies fruit or seed. The botanist Michaux has discovered in Persia, on a mountain four days’ journey from Hamadan, the place where wheat (a species known as spelt, from the Latin spelta) is indigenous to the soil, from which we may presume that wheat has its origin in that country, or some part of Asia not far from Persia. This grain was more cultivated formerly than it is now; nevertheless, it is still gathered in Italy, Switzerland, Alsace, in the Limousin and in Picardy, to make bread, with spelt, a greater quantity of leaven, and, above all, a little salt. This bread is white, light, savoury, and keeps moist for several days.—Parmentier.

Robus, a variety of corn heavier than triticum, and remarkable for its brilliant polish.

Every year, on the 25th of April, an appeal was made to the god Robigus, to prevent the mildew from corrupting this fine specimen of corn. This festival was founded by the great king, Numa Pompilius.[II_1]

Siligo, a beautiful quality of wheat, of great whiteness, but lighter in weight than the preceding kind.[II_2]

Trimestre, a kind of siligo, sown in Spring, and which was ready for reaping three months afterwards.

Granea, the grain merely deprived of its husk: it was boiled in water, to which milk was added.[II_3]

Hordeum, barley.[II_4] The flour of this corn was the food of the Jewish soldiers.[II_5] It was, with the Athenians, a favourite dish, but among the Romans an ignominious food. Augustus threatened the cohorts that, should they not fight bravely, he would punish every tenth man with death, and give the remainder barley for food.[II_6] This corn was certainly in use among the Egyptians in the time of Moses, since one of the plagues which afflicted that people was the loss of the barley in the ear before it came to maturity.[II_7]

Panicum, panic grass.[II_8] Certain inhabitants of Thrace and of the borders of the Euxine, or Black Sea, preferred this to all other food.[II_9]

Millium, millet, was used for making excellent cakes.[II_10]

Secale, rye.[II_11] Pliny thinks this grain detestable, and only good to appease extreme hunger.[II_12]

Avena, oats.[II_13] Virgil had but very little esteem for this grain.[II_14] The Romans cut it in the spring for the cattle to eat green; and the Germans, in the time of Pliny, took great care in its cultivation, and made a pulp of it which they thought excellent.[II_15]

Oryza, rice. Pliny[II_16] and Dioscorides[II_17] class it with the wheats; whereas Galen, on the contrary, places it among vegetables.

Rice was rather scarce in Greece at the time when Theophrastus lived: it had lately been brought from India, 286 years before Christ.

The ancients considered it most nutritious and fattening.[II_18]

Zea, spelt, or rice wheat,[II_19] equally esteemed by Greeks and Latins.[II_20]

Sesamum, sesame. Pliny classes this among the seeds sown in March,[II_21] and Columella places it among the vegetables.[II_22] The Romans knew how to prepare this corn in a manner at once wholesome and agreeable. They made it into very dainty cakes, which were served at dessert,[II_23] whence sprang the saying sesame cakes, which was applied to those sweet and flattering expressions called honied words (in French, paroles sucrÉes).[II_24]

A people so restless and unmanageable as were the Greeks and Romans, when pressed by hunger, required that the greatest care should be exercised for the supply of corn, and the easy sale of this precious provision. Hence nothing could be wiser than their regulations on this subject.

One of the laws of the twelve tables punished with death the individual who had premeditatedly set fire to his neighbour’s corn; and inflicted a fine or the whip on any one who caused so great a calamity by his imprudence.[II_25]

In Greece, a special magistrate, the “Sitocome,” was charged with the inspection of the corn; and various officers, such as the sitones, the sitophylaces, and the sitologes, were appointed to watch over its purchase.

And lastly, public distributors, under the names of siturches and sitometres, were exclusively occupied with the allotment of corn;[II_26] they prevented any one from purchasing a greater quantity than was actually necessary for his wants. The law forbad the delivery of more than fifty measures to one individual.[II_27] The Roman government was so convinced that abundance of bread was one of the best means of maintaining public tranquillity,[II_28] that Julius CÆsar created two prÆtors, and two ediles or magistrates, to preside over the purchase, conveyance, storing, and gratuitous distribution of wheat.[II_29] For we know that this people of kings, powerful but frivolous, and careless of the morrow, submitted to the incredible follies of their rulers on the sole condition of being well fed and amused by them.[II_30] In the time of Demosthenes the common price of wheat in Greece was about 3s. 11d. the four bushels.[II_31] In Rome, during the republic, wheat was distributed to 60,000 persons.[II_32] Julius CÆsar desired that 320,000 plebeians should enjoy this bounty; but this number was afterwards reduced to 150,000,[II_33] or perhaps, according to Cassius, to 160,000.[II_34] Augustus fed, at first, 200,000 citizens, then only 120,000.[II_35] Nero, who always went to extremes either in good or evil, gave corn throughout the empire to 220,000 idle people, including the soldiers of the prÆtorian guard.[II_36] Adrian added to this list all the children of the poor: the boys to the age of 18, and the girls to that of 14. Finally, this liberality, more politic than generous, and so foreign to our present manners, was carried, under the Emperor Severus, to 75,000 bushels per day.[II_37] The bushel weighed twenty pounds of twelve ounces each.[II_38]

The Greeks esteemed highly the corn of Boeotia, Thrace, and Pontus. The Romans preferred that of Lombardy, the present duchy of Spoletta, Sicily, Sardinia, and a part of Gaul. Sardinia, Sicily, and Corsica, supplied them every year with 800,000 bushels of twenty-one pounds weight, which made them call those islands “the sweet nurses of Rome.”[II_39] Africa furnished 40,000,000 of bushels; Egypt 20,000,000, and the remainder came from Greece, Asia, Syria, Gaul, and Spain.[II_40]

The erudite are not agreed as to the aboriginal country of corn: some say it is Egypt, others Tartary, and the learned Bailly, as well as the traveller Pallas, affirm that it grows spontaneously in Siberia. Be that as it may, the Phocians brought it to Marseilles before the Romans had penetrated into Gaul. The Gauls ate the corn cooked, or bruised in a mortar; they did not know for a long time how to make fermented bread.

The Chinese attribute to Chin-Nong, the second of the nine emperors of China who preceded the establishment of the dynasties (more than 2,207 years B.C.), the discovery of corn, rice, and other cereals.

We find in the Black Book of the Exchequer, that in the reign of Henry I., when they reduced the victuals (for the king’s household) to the estimate of money, a measure of wheat to make bread for the service of one hundred men, one day, was valued only at one shilling.[II_41]

But in the reign of Henry III., about the 43rd year, the price was mounted up to fifteen and twenty shillings a quarter.[II_42]

The ancients, as well as the moderns, caused wheat to undergo certain preparations to enable it to be transformed into bread, we shall enumerate in the following chapter the different processes by which they obtained flour, the essential foundation of the food of man.

Cereals.—This name has been given to all plants of the gramineous family, the fundamental base of the food of man. The cereals, properly speaking, are limited to wheat, rye, barley, and oats; however, there are others, such as canary grass, Indian corn, millet, rice, &c., &c. The immediate and most abundant principle of all these plants is the fÉcule, or flour, and the vegeto-animal matter of which bread is made, and other preparations for food, and fermented liquors; these cereals are given green or dry to cattle as forage; their straw covers houses, and serves as litter and manure.

Cereals was also the name given to a feast in honour of Ceres, instituted at Rome by the edile Mumonius, and celebrated every year on the 7th of April. The ladies of Rome appeared clothed in white, and holding torches in remembrance of the travels of that divinity. Cakes sprinkled with salt and grains of incense, honey, milk, and wine, were offered to that goddess. Pigs were sacrificed to her. The cereals of the Romans were the thesmophories with the Greeks.