Bakers were unknown in Rome till the year of the city 850, or about 200 years before the Christian era. The Roman bakers, according to Pliny, came from Greece with the Macedonian army. Before this period, the Romans were often distinguished by the appellation of _eaters of pap_. At the time of Augustus, there were upwards of 300 baking houses in Rome, almost the whole of which were occupied by Greeks. The bakers enjoyed in ancient Rome great privileges. The public granaries were entrusted to their care; they formed a corporation, or kind of college, from which neither they nor their children were permitted to withdraw. They were exempted from guardianships and public services, which might interfere with their occupation. They were eligible to become Senators; and those who married the daughters of bakers, became members of the college. From the establishment of bakers in Rome, the art of making loaf, or fermented bread, spread amongst the ancient Gauls; but its progress in the northern countries of Europe was slow, and in some northern districts, the luxury of eating fermented, or loaf-bread, is at this day not in general use. Some of the modern Italians consume the greatest part of their bread-flour in the state of _macaroni_ and _vermicelli_, and in other forms of _polenta_, or soft pudding; and even at present millions of people neither sow nor reap, but content themselves with enjoying the spontaneous productions of the earth. Bread Corn, Properly so called, of which loaf-bread is chiefly made among cultivated nations, comprehends the seeds of the whole tribe of (_cerealia_), or gramineous plants; for they all contain a farinaceous substance, of a similar nature, and chiefly composed of starch. Those of the _cerealia_ in common use are the following: Wheat _Triticum hybernum._ Barley _Hordeum vulgare._ Rye _Secale cereale._ With us, wheat is chiefly employed for the fabrication of bread. It is, in fact, the only grain of which light porous bread can be made; but rye and barley are also used as bread-corn. The farina of the other _cerealia_ afford also a nutritive and wholesome bread; though their flour is not so susceptible of the panary fermentation, it cannot be made into the white texture of the wheaten loaf. The bread formed from them is consequently much inferior to that prepared from wheat. The following seeds are chiefly employed to make a species of bread: Oats _Avena Sativa._ Maize _Zea Mays._ Rice _Oriza Sativa._ Millet _Panicum milliaceum._ Oats are used in the north of Europe for making a kind of bread, called oatmeal-cake, and particularly by the inhabitants of Scotland. Maize is frequently employed as bread-corn in North America.