It seems to me quite unnecessary to enter into an account of the various kinds of bread that are made. Some kinds, we find, receive their names from the dishes with which they are eaten, the oyster-bread,[221] for instance: others, again, from their peculiar delicacy, the artolaganus,[222] or cake-bread, for example; and others from the expedition with which they are prepared, such as the “speusticus,”[223] or “hurry-bread.” Other varieties receive their names from the peculiar method of baking them, such as oven-bread,[224] tin-bread,[225] and mould-bread.[226] It is not so very long since that we had a bread introduced from Parthia, known as water-bread,[227] from a method in kneading it, of drawing out the dough by the aid of water, a process which renders it remarkably light, and full of holes, like a sponge: some call this Parthian bread. The excellence of the finest kinds of bread depends principally on the goodness of the wheat, and the fineness of the bolter. Some persons knead the dough with eggs or milk, and butter even has been employed for the purpose by nations that have had leisure to cultivate the arts of peace, and to give their attention to the art of making pastry. Picenum still maintains its ancient reputation for making the bread which it was the first to invent, alica[228] being the grain employed. The flour is kept in soak for nine days, and is kneaded on the tenth with raisin juice, in the shape of long rolls; after which it is baked in an oven in earthen pots, till they break. This bread, however, is never eaten till it has been well[229] soaked, which is mostly done in milk mixed with honey. CHAP. 28.—WHEN BAKERS WERE FIRST INTRODUCED AT ROME. There were no bakers at Rome until[230] the war with King Perseus, more than five hundred and eighty years after the building of the City. The ancient Romans used to make their own bread, it being an occupation which belonged to the women, as we see the case in many nations even at the present day. Plautus speaks of the artopta, or bread-tin, in his Comedy of the Aulularia,[231] though there has been considerable discussion for that very reason among the learned, whether or not that line really belongs to him. We have the fact, too, well ascertained, in the opinion of Ateius Capito, that the cooks in those days were in the habit of making the bread for persons of affluence, while the name of “pistor”[232] was only given to the person who pounded, or “pisebat,” the spelt. In those times, they had no cooks in the number of their slaves, but used to hire them for the occasion from the market. The Gauls were the first to employ the bolter that is made of horse-hair; while the people of Spain make their sieves and meal-dressers of flax,[233] and the Egyptians of papyrus and rushes. CHAP. 29.—ALICA.