Mare’s milk, or that of the ass, makes an excellent cheese, but much inferior to that procured from the camel, for which an epicure could not pay too dearly. Cow-milk cheese, although more fat and unctuous, was only considered as third-rate.[XVIII-43] The Phrygians made exquisite cheese by artistically mixing the milk of asses and mares. The Scythians only employed the former; the Greeks imitated them.[XVIII-44] The Sicilians also mixed the milk of goats and ewes.[XVIII-45] The Romans smoked their cheeses, to give them a sharp taste; they possessed public places expressly for this use, and subject to police regulations which no one could evade.[XVIII-46] In the time of Pliny, little goat cheeses, which were much esteemed, were sent every morning to the market for the sale of dainties, from the environs of Rome.[XVIII-47] With the addition of a little bread, they formed the breakfast of sober and delicate persons. Asia Minor, Tuscany, the Alps, Gaul, and Nîmes especially, furnished very good ones for the tables of the Romans,[XVIII-48] who sought in preference certain sweet and soft qualities. The greater part of barbarous nations esteemed only the strong cheese.[XVIII-49] The Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans, always kept some of these last for the provision of their armies, and it was among them a military aliment.[XVIII-50] The Athenians fed their wrestlers with it,[XVIII-51] and it was the sole treat of the shepherds of Italy.[XVIII-52] The lower classes and country people prepared with cheese and various salted substances a dish they thought most relishing, and which epicureans only mentioned with horror. This was called _tyrotarichus_, and Cicero often employs this word to designate a frugal style of cookery.[XVIII-53] Besides those countries celebrated for the goodness of cheeses already mentioned, there is Tromelia, in Achaia,[XVIII-54] and the Island of Cythnus, where they represented their cheeses on their money, an ingenious manner of making them known, which succeeded wonderfully well; and lastly, Salonia, a city of Bithynia, renowned for its rich pastures, where numerous herds of cows were kept, and whose milk furnished an exquisite kind known by the name of Salonite cheese.[XVIII-55] It appears to have been often served to the Emperor Augustus, who ate it with brown bread, little fish, and fresh figs.[XVIII-56]