[81] It should be noted
that the trade of the baker included the grinding of the corn; there
were no millers at Rome. This can be well illustrated from the
numerous bakers' shops which have been excavated at Pompeii.[82] In
one of these, for example, we find the four mills in a large apartment
at the rear of the building, and close by is the stall for the donkeys
that turned them, and also the kneading-room, oven, and store-room.
Small bakeries may have had only hand-mills, like the one with which
we saw the peasant in the _Moretum_ grinding his corn; but the donkey
was from quite early times associated with the business, as we know
from the fact that at the festival of Vesta, the patron deity of all
bakers, they were decorated with wreaths and cakes.[83]
The baking trade must have given employment to a large number of
persons. So beyond doubt did the supply of vegetables, which were
brought into the city from gardens outside, and formed, after the
corn, the staple food of the lower classes. We have already seen
in the _Moretum_ the countryman adding to his store of bread by a
hotch-potch made of vegetables, and the reader of the poem will have
been astonished at the number mentioned, including garden herbs for
flavouring purposes.
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