A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins (Vol. 1&2). Johann Beckmann
found in Arabia, besides hand-mills, some grinding-stones, which differed from those used by us in their consisting not of a flat, but of an oblong hollow stone, or trough, with a pestle, which was not conical, but shaped like a spindle, thick in the middle and pointed at both ends. In this stone the corn, after being soaked in water, was ground to meal and then baked into cakes.
Respecting the figure and construction of the ancient hand-mills, I expected to find some information from engraved stones, and other remains of antiquity; but my researches would have proved fruitless, had not Professor Diez, to whose memory and erudition I am much indebted, pointed out to me the only figure of one remaining. I say the only one remaining with the more confidence, as Heyne tells us also that he remembers no other. Anthony Francis Gori390 has described a red jasper, on which is engraved the naked figure of a man, who in his left-hand holds a sheaf of corn, and in his right a machine that in all probability is a hand-mill. Gori considers the figure as a representation of the god Eunostus, who, as Suidas says, was the god of mills. The machine, which Eunostus seems to exhibit, or to be surveying himself, is, as far as one can distinguish (for the stone is scarcely half an inch in size), shaped like a chest, narrow at the top, and wide at the bottom. It stands upon a table, and in the bottom there is a perpendicular pipe from which the meal, represented also by the artist, appears to be issuing. Above, the chest or body of the mill has either a top with an aperture, or perhaps a basket sunk into it, from which the corn falls into the mill. On one side, nearly about the middle of it, there projects a broken shank, which, without overstraining the imagination, may be considered as a handle, or that part of the mill which some called molile. Though this figure is small, and though it conveys very little idea of the internal construction, one may, however, conclude from it, that the roller, whether it was of wood or of iron, smooth or notched, did not stand perpendicularly, like those of our coffee-mills, but lay horizontally; which gives us reason to conjecture a construction more ingenious than that of the first invention. The axis of the handle had, perhaps, within the body of the mill, a crown-wheel, that turned a spindle, to the lower end of the perpendicular axis of which the roller was fixed. Should this be admitted, it must be allowed also, that the hand-mills of the ancients had not so much a resemblance to the before-mentioned colour-mills as to the philosophical mills of our chemists; and Langelott consequently will not be the real inventor of the latter. On the other side, opposite to that where the handle is, there arise from the mill of Eunostus two shafts, which Gori considers as those of a besom and a shovel, two instruments used in grinding; but as the interior part cannot be seen, it appears to me doubtful whether these may not be parts of the mill itself.
The remains of a pair of old Roman mill-stones were found in the beginning of the last century at Adel in Yorkshire, a description of which was given by Thornsby391, in the Philosophical Transactions. One of the stones was twenty inches in breadth; thicker in the middle than at the edges, and consequently convex on one side. The other was of the same form, but had that thickness at the edges which the other had in the middle, and some traces of notching could be observed upon it.
I shall not here collect all those passages of the ancients which speak of hand- and cattle-mills, because they have been already collected by others, and afford very little information392. Neither shall I inquire to what Ceres the Grecians ascribed the invention of mills393; who Milantes was, to whom that honour has been given by Stephanus Byzantinus394; or how those mills were constructed which were first built by Myletes the son of Lelex, king of Laconia395. Such researches would be attended with little advantage. I shall proceed therefore to the invention of water-mills.
These appear to have been introduced in the time of Mithridates, Julius Cæsar, and Cicero. Because Strabo396 relates that there was a water-mill near the residence of Mithridates, some have ascribed the honour of the invention to him; but nothing more can with certainty be concluded from this circumstance, than that water-mills were at that period known, at least in Asia. We are told by Pomponius Sabinus, in his remarks upon a poem of Virgil called Moretus, that the first mill seen at Rome was erected on the Tiber, a little before the time of Augustus; but of this he produces no proof. As he has taken the greater part of his remarks from the illustrations of Servius, and must have had a much completer copy of that author than any that has been printed, he may have derived this information from the same source397. The most certain proof that Rome had water-mills in the time of Augustus is the description which has been given of them by Vitruvius (lib. x. 10). We learn from this passage, that the ancients had wheels for raising water, which were driven by being trod upon by men. That condemnation to these machines was a punishment, appears from Artemidorus, lib. i. c. 50, and Sueton. Vita Tiber. cap. 51. And the pretty epigram of Antipater; “Cease your work, ye maids, ye who laboured in the mill; sleep now, and let the birds sing to the ruddy morning; for Ceres has commanded the water-nymphs to perform your task: these, obedient to her call, throw themselves on the wheel, force round the axle-tree, and by these means the heavy mill.” This Antipater398, as Salmasius with great probability asserts, lived in the time of Cicero. Palladius399 also speaks with equal clearness of water-mills, which he advises to be built on possessions that have running water, in order to grind corn without men or cattle.
There are also other passages of the ancients which are commonly supposed, but without certain grounds, to allude to water-mills. Among these is the following verse of Lucretius400:
Ut fluvios versare rotas atque haustra videmus.
It appears also that the water-wheels to which Heliogabalus caused some of his friends and parasites to be bound401, cannot be considered as mills. These, as well as the haustra of Lucretius, were machines for raising water, like those mentioned in the before-quoted passage of Vitruvius402. It is however evident that there were water-mills at Rome at this period; and it affords matter of surprise that we do not find mention oftener made of them, and that they did not entirely banish the use of the laborious hand- and cattle-mills. That this was not the case, and that the latter were very numerous for some time after, may be concluded from various circumstances. When Caligula, about twenty-three years after the death of Augustus, took away all the horses and cattle from the mills, in order to transport effects of every kind which he had seized, there arose a scarcity of bread at Rome; from which Beroaldus justly infers that water-mills must have been then very rare403. Nay, more than three hundred years after Augustus, cattle-mills were so common at Rome, that their number amounted to three hundred404. Mention of them, and of the hand-mills always occurs, therefore, for a long time after in the laws. The Jurist Paulus, who lived about the year 240, particularizing the bequest of a baker, mentions asina molendaria and mola, a mill-ass and a mill405. In the year 319 Constantine ordered that all the slaves condemned to the mills should be brought from Sardinia to Rome406. Such orders respecting mill-slaves occur also under Valentinian407. When by the introduction of Christianity, however, the morals of men became improved, slaves were less frequent; and Ausonius, who lived under Theodosius the Great, about the end of the third century, expressly