Ceres taught the Greeks how to cultivate corn; they learned from Megalarte and Megalomaze how to knead flour and bake it in ovens.[IV-23] The gratitude of the Bœotians erected statues and altars to their memories, and shortly after, Greece could boast of having obtained the most skilful bakers in the world. The bread of Athens and Megara had a well deserved reputation: its whiteness dazzled the eye, and its taste was exquisite.[IV-24] This voluptuous and fickle nation very soon began to tire of so intelligent and simple a manipulation, and must needs mix with the paste a host of ingredients which greatly altered its flavour: and seventy-two different sorts of bread[IV-25] took birth from the scientific association of milk, oil, honey, cheese, and wine with the best flour.[IV-26] All these varieties were called by the generic name of _artos_, bread; to which was added an epithet which prevented the mistaking of one kind for another. The bread-market at Athens was very amusing; women (for the fair sex busied themselves with this trade) waited, seated, by the side of their baskets until Mercury should send them customers, and woe to those who came late, or whose evil genius led them to find fault with either the quality, quantity, or price of the goods. Have you ever heard the ladies of Billingsgate playing off their pleasant jokes on a timid countryman, or a foreigner, whose accent had betrayed him? It is a running fire of puns and crude picturesque expressions which nothing can resist; our Greek market-women would have been more than a match for them--can we bestow upon them greater praise?[IV-27] Some of them sold _azumos_, a delicate sort of biscuit, but rather tasteless, prepared without leaven;[IV-28] others--irresistible syrens--invited children to taste of the relishing _artolaganos_, in which a renowned baker had the talent of introducing wine, pepper, oil, and milk.[IV-29] Here the sparkling eyes of a rich epicurean were on the look out for some _escarites_, a very light paste, seasoned with new sweet wine and honey,[IV-30] and which was relished even by fatigued appetites at the close of a repast.[IV-31] The poorer people made their choice among heaps of _dolyres_, or _typhes_: they were coarse compounds of rye and barley;[IV-32] the ladies of fashion (_petites maitresses_) preferred the puff cakes called _placites_,[IV-33] or the sweet _melitutes_, whose exquisite and perfumed flour was delicately kneaded with the precious honey of Mount Hymettus.[IV-34] Lastly, the robust workman of the Pyræus bought the _tyrontes_, bread mixed with cheese,[IV-35] which the higher classes of society in Athens abhorred, and which even the middling classes excluded from their tables.