At a very distant period, when gods, not over edifying in their conduct, descended at times from the heights of Olympus to enliven their immortality amongst mortals, we are told that a divine aliment charmed the palate of Jupiter and that of his quarrelsome wife; nay, of all those who inhabited the celestial abode. We are ignorant of the hour at which the table of the god of thunder was laid; but we know well that he breakfasted, dined, and supped on a delicious ambrosia—a liquid substance, it may be presumed, since it flowed for the first time from one of the horns of the goat AmalthÆa, and of rather an insipid taste, if we are to believe Ibicus,[III_1] who describes it as nine times sweeter than honey. The gods have disappeared; we would forgive them for leaving us, had they left behind them the recipe of this marvellous substance; but its composition and essence remain unknown, and man, not skilful enough to appropriate to his use the inexhaustible treasures of culinary science, began his hard gastrophagic apprenticeship by devouring acorns which grew in the forests.[III_2] This is assuredly very mortifying to our feelings; but you may believe it on the authority of a poet, for we well know that a poet never tells an untruth.[III_3] Besides, fabulous antiquity adds new weight to the fact, by informing us that the Arcadian Pelasgus[III_4] deserved that altars should be erected to his memory, for having taught the Greeks to choose in preference the beech-nut, as the most delicate of this class of comestibles, according to the tender Virgil, who, however, only judged of it by hearsay.[III_5]

There is a great degree of probability in the supposition that the different races of the north, each inhabiting a country covered with immense forests, lived for a long time on the fruit of these different kinds of oak which they possessed in such abundance. The great respect they had for the tree, the pompous ceremony with which the high priest of the Druids came every year to cut away the parasitical plant which clings to it, the very name of the Druids—derived from a celtic word signifying oak—all seem to point out the first food of our ancestors. The oak furnished the primitive aliment of almost every nation, in their original state of barbarism. Some of them had even preserved a taste for the acorn after they became civilized. Among the Arcadians and the Spaniards, the acorn was regarded as a delicious article of food. We read in Pliny that, in his time, these latter had them served on their tables at dessert, after they had been roasted in the wood-ashes to soften them. According to Champier, this custom still subsisted in Spain in the 16th century.

The regulation made by Chrodegand, Bishop of Metz, about the end of the 8th century, for the canons, says expressly[III_6] that if, in an unfavorable year, the acorn or flour should fail, it will be the duty of the bishop to provide it.

When, animated by the most praiseworthy zeal and courage, Du Bellay, Bishop of Mans, came, in 1546, to represent to Francis I. the frightful misery of the provinces, and that of his diocese in particular, he assured the king that in many localities the people had nothing to eat but bread made of acorns.

But mankind, who soon get tired of every thing, even of acorns and beech-nuts, began to dislike this wholesome and abundant food, when Ceres, the ancient Queen of Sicily, came just À propos to give a few lessons in the art of sowing the earth.[III_7] Corn once brought into fashion acquired a surprising repute, and the ancient food was given up to the animal which it fattens; and if this last were eaten, it was no doubt in gratitude for the fruit mankind had formerly so much loved.

The good Ceres did not stop there; it was very well to have corn, but to know how to grind it was also requisite; and the human race was then so lamentably backward, that one might have gone round the world without meeting a miller, or even the shadow of the meanest little mill.

The Queen of Sicily then invented grinding-stones,[III_8] but, as the most useful discoveries require time to be known and improved upon, the way of grinding corn with stones did not become uniform everywhere. The inhabitants of Etruria (now called Tuscany) pounded the grain in

mortars.[III_9] The early Romans adopted the same means, and gave the name of Pistores, grinders, to those persons who followed this occupation.[III_10] Pliny relates that one of the ancient families of Rome took the surname of Piso, having descended, as they believed, from the inventor of the art of bruising wheat with pestles.[III_11]

Down to the latest days of the Roman republic the corn was bruised after being roasted. The pestle used for this purpose was somewhat pointed, and suspended by the aid of a ring to the extremity of a flexible lever, supported by an axle.[III_12]

From the time of Moses the Hebrews used grinding-stones: several passages of the Holy Scripture clearly indicate this. Among others: “No man shall take the nether or the upper millstone to pledge; for he taketh a man’s life to pledge.”[III_13] Another text shows that the Egyptians used grinding-stones with handles, at about the same period.[III_14] The Israelites, when in the Desert, employed the same means to pound manna,[III_15] and after their settlement in the Promised Land, these utensils served to grind corn.

The Greeks, following faithfully the system from which they had but slightly deviated, have honoured King Miletus as the inventor of grinding-stones;[III_16] the upper part was of wood, and armed with heads of iron nails. A passage of Homer would seem to lead us to believe that the grain was first crushed with rollers on stone slabs, which operation would naturally lead to the crushing of it between grinding-stones.[III_17] However this may be, these last were no doubt still scarce in the heroic times, since the same poet does not fail to inform us that one was to be seen in the gardens of Alcinous, chief of the PhÆacians.[III_18] This kind of decoration would but very little please the taste of our modern horticulturists.

Nearly two centuries before our era, in the year of Rome 562, the Romans, victorious in Asia, brought with them handmills.[III_19] This conquest of industry soon made an immense stride, and to the labour of man succeeded by degrees the obedient aid of horses and asses. Hence the two kind of mills so often mentioned—by hand, manuales; by animal, iumentariÆ[III_20]

Delighted with a discovery which supplied an important necessity of life, the Romans invented a divinity to whom they might show their gratitude, and Olympus was honoured with a new inmate: the goddess Mola, protectress and patroness of mills and millstones.[III_21]

Now Mola was one of a large family; she had several charming sisters, like herself, who could not endure living among the commoners, while Ganymede served ambrosia to their elder sister, or poured out for her the nectar of the gods. Besides, it cost so little to be made a goddess! A few grains of incense, more or less, who would grudge such a trifle? The Flamine of Jupiter, whom they consulted, was at first rather refractory. He feared the crowding of Olympus; he doubted whether polite intercourse could ever be established between gods of high birth and little divinities covered with flour; but when at last the high priest had ceased speaking, the deputation removed all scruples by a reasonable bribe, and the sisters of Mola were forthwith enrolled in the list of immortals, under the designation of well-beloved daughters of the god of war.[III_22] Mars was rather ungentlemanly on the occasion, but the high priest undertook to bring him to reason.

This took place about the end of May, and the Romans resolved to celebrate, from the 9th of the following June, the festival of the patroness of Roman millers, and of her sisters, the newly elected divinities; the ceremony was worthy of those for whose apotheosis it was instituted, and every year, on the same day, new rejoicings consecrated this great event.[III_23]

The mills ceased to turn and to grind, a profound silence reigned in the mills; the asses, patient and indefatigable movers of an incessant rotation, took a lively part, whether or no, in the festivals of which they became the principal actors. These honest creatures’ heads[III_24] were crowned with roses, and necklaces of little leaves encircled their necks and fell gracefully on their chests;[III_25] we need not add that, on this day, the thick bandages which generally covered the eyes of these useful labourers were removed.[III_26]

Independently of this annual solemnity, the asses, turners of the mills, had sometimes their windfalls,—that is to say, hours of holiday, during which they could freely graze on the neighbouring thistles. This happened when an awkward slave performed badly the duties of fanning his master, or spilt carelessly a few drops of Falernian wine when filling his cup. The unfortunate creature was immediately condemned to work at the mill;[III_27] he was deprived of his name, and received in lieu that of the quadruped he replaced—Asinus;[III_28] and the instrument of his sufferings, by a refinement of strange irony, was called his manger.[III_29]

It sometimes happened that a free man, reduced to extreme

indigence, had recourse to this hard occupation, in order to earn a living. Plautus was obliged to work at it, and we know that he wrote some of his comedies during the short moments of leisure allowed him by his master the miller.[III_30]

An important modification was subsequently made in the mechanism of mills: we mean hydraulic mills, whose introduction into Italy is of uncertain date, although Pomponius Sabinus asserts (but without proof), that this discovery took place in the reign of Julius CÆsar. They were known in Rome at the time of the Emperor Augustus, and Vitruvius mentions them.[III_31] More than sixty years afterwards, Pliny speaks of them as rare and extraordinary machines.[III_32]

Some writers have thought that hydraulÆ, or hydromilÆ, watermills, were invented by Vitruvius, and that this celebrated architect made experiments with them, which were forgotten or neglected after his death.[III_33] Curious readers, who are not afraid of the venerable dust with which time has covered many useful though despised books, will consult with benefit the learned treatise of Goetzius on the mills of the ancients, printed in the year 1730.[III_34]

Strabo, who flourished under the Emperor Augustus, tells us a watermill was to be seen near the town of Cabire and the palace of Mithridates.[III_35]

Nevertheless, this useful invention, which we could not now dispense with, made so little progress during four centuries that princes thought it a duty to protect, by several laws, those establishments, still rare, but which people began to appreciate. Honorius and Arcadius decreed, in 398, that any person who turned the water from mills for his own profit, should be punished by a fine of five pounds weight in gold; and that any magistrate encouraging such an act should pay a like sum.[III_36] The Emperor Zeno[III_37] maintained this law, and rendered it still more stringent by adding, that the edifices or land into which the water had been turned should be confiscated.[III_38]

It is to be regretted that the precise origin of the miller’s profession cannot be traced; but, alas! in almost all the arts which tend to preserve life, we discover the same uncertainty: we are ignorant of the period of their discovery, and it frequently happens that but few traces of their development remain. On the contrary, the dates of battles, or scourges which have decimated the human race, are certain enough: the stain of blood leaves an impression which can never be effaced.

In the midst of the conflicting opinions of the writers of antiquity, what appears most probable is, that watermills were invented in Asia Minor, and that they were not really used in Rome till the reign of Honorius and Arcadius.

Under the rule of the Emperor Justinian, when the Goths besieged the Roman city,[III_39] the celebrated Belisarius thought of constructing some on the Tiber. The means which he employed were simple and ingenious. Two boats firmly fixed, at two feet distance from each other, caused the stream to give a rapid motion to the hydraulic wheel, suspended by its axle between these lateral points of support; and this wheel turned the mills.[III_40] This system differed but little from that of Vitruvius, which he described more than five centuries before, and is explained in a few words. A little wheel, fixed to the axle of the hydraulic wheel, turned a third wheel, adhering to the axle of the upper grindstone, and the corn fell between the two stones in passing from the hopper placed above.[III_41]

These grindstones were made of a kind of porous lava, which retained its roughness, or rather, its roughness was renewed, by the continual friction.[III_42]

The introduction of watermills, however, did not prevent the use of those worked by hand, which habit, cheapness, and facility of removal recommended: these antique mills of the Hebrews, the Egyptians, and the Greeks of the heroic times, were only five feet high. Each family was supplied with as many as they might require. In the residence of Ulysses, that great king of little Ithaca, there were as many as twelve. Women turned the mills, and were obliged to deliver a certain quantity of flour before leaving the task imposed on them.[III_43]

Corn was at first ground in a portative hand mill; by the Britons, women and young girls were employed in this kind of labour.[III_44]

It is, however, probable that watermills were known at a very early period in England. Strutt cites a passage from a charter by Ulfere, in 664, which warrants the supposition.[III_45]

It would be difficult to point out the precise date of the first employment of mills; nevertheless, Somner informs us, in his “Antiquities of Canterbury,”[III_46] that the Anglo-Normans of that place ground their corn. “There was,” says he, “sometime a windmill standing neare the nonnery without Ridingate, which the hospitall held by the grant of the nonnes there: the conditions mutually agreed upon, at the time of the grant, were that the nonnes, bearing the fourth part of the charge of the mill, should reap the fourth part of the profit of it, &c. * * * and this about the reign of King John.”

The bran was separated from the flour by means of a sieve; the dough was made, and sent to the bakers to be baked. The poor contented themselves with cakes baked under the ashes.[III_47]

Something remains to be said of windmills. We will say but little on the subject: this aerial mechanism—which the knight-errant, Don Quixote, of imperishable memory, thought it necessary to fight with sword and lance—was unknown before the Christian era in any nation whose writers have transmitted to us the least traces of their civilisation; but nothing proves that windmills were unknown to others. This opinion seems to be well-founded, from a passage of the chronicler Winceslaus, who relates, in his “History of Bohemia,” that the first watermill raised in that country was in the year of Christ 718, and that no other was in use before (antea) but mills built on the summit of mountains, which were put in motion by the wind.[III_48] It appears, then, that there is some untruth in the assertion, that this sort of mill was introduced into Europe, about the year 1040, by the first Crusaders, on their return from the East.[III_49] At all events this question is no doubt very deserving the laborious search of the learned; it has but a secondary interest for the gastrophilist. It matters little to him whether he owes the grinding of his corn to the breath of a zephyr or to the slimy source of a river; all he requires is good flour, because it enters into a great number of culinary preparations—and, first of all, bread is made from it.