Thus we find that the philosophers Menedemos and Asclepiades, when young and poor, earned their subsistence, and were enabled to pursue the study of philosophy, by working at night in a mill.[428] As few persons knew this circumstance, and they were observed all day among the learned in the schools, some one brought against them an accusation of idleness, for which they were cited before the senate of Areopagos. In order to prove that they gained their livelihood in an honest way, the miller for whom they worked was brought forward. His testimony confirmed their statement; and he added, moreover, that he paid to each of them two drachmas per night. The Areopagites were so pleased with this proof of their industry and passion for philosophy, that, on pronouncing their acquittal, they at the same time made them a present of two hundred drachmas.[429] But these mills were not always put in motion by the hand of man. Yoked to beams projecting from the upper millstone, oxen and asses, moving about in a circle, blindfold, as at present, when similarly employed, sometimes turned the mill instead of slaves.[430] Upon the construction of these machines little exact information was possessed before the laying open of the ruins of Pompeii, where, in a baker’s shop, four mills, still almost perfect, have been discovered. They consist of a round stone basement with a rim, from the centre of which springs a blunt cone: this is the nether millstone. The upper one consists of an imperfect cylinder, hollowed out within, like an hour-glass, one part of which fits like a cap upon the cone below, while the other expands its bell-mouth above. Into this the corn was poured, and, descending through four small apertures upon the nether stone, was, by the turning round of the upper one thereon, reduced to meal, which passed gradually down, fining as it went, and fell out upon the stone basement below. The corn having been ground, the next operation was, to sever the flour from the bran, though sometimes bread was made from it in the rough,[431] and regarded, moreover, as extremely wholesome. First, and most simple of these contrivances, was the sieve,[432] made with slender rushes, which separated the coarse bran and produced a meal sufficiently cleansed for household bread. A much superior sieve was manufactured with linen threads, by which the flour was bolted to a great degree of fineness. When it was required of still superior purity and whiteness, the bolter would seem to have been bottomed with threads of woollen, which, being woven close, allowed nothing but particles of the utmost tenuity to pass.[433] All the above operations were supposed to be placed under the superintendence of a particular deity named Eunostos,[434] of whom no mention, I believe, is made in modern systems of mythology. ----- Footnote 428: Cleanthes, the disciple of Zeno, earned his subsistence by drawing water during the night. Suidas, in v. t. i. p. 1467. b. Footnote 429: