Note 528 — Chapter III · FOOD OF HOMERIC TIMES—MEAT, FISH, ETC.

Iliad. ε. 196, et 341. The scholiast on this verse, observes that, before the invention of mills, men used to eat the raw grain. (Cf. on Iliad. α. 449, and Etym. Magn. v. οὐλόχυται, 641, 29.) But this is merely an absurd conjecture; for they could, at least, have roasted the young ear as in the East they still do, while it is full of juice, and have eaten it thus with salt, when it is both pleasant and nutritive. Besides, some means of reducing the grain to meal appears to have been known almost from the beginning.