In earlier times, of baked bread was wanted it would first be necessary to grind grains of wheat into flour at home. It was a laborious job and in Roman republic, the women had of the household had to grind out flour.
They did it very simply; by spreading wheat grains on a large flat or slightly concave stone and rubbing them over with a smaller stone which might either be round, long and narrow like a roller. Romans called it ‘thrusting mill’.
The Romans were no longer satisfied with this: in order to supply the growing urban population with flour they ground the corn on cone mills – massive, heavy structures turned by slaves or animals. By the first century Romans were producing flour with water mills.
Later they applied gearing so that a vertical water-wheel could drive a horizontal stone. A Roman mill of sixteen water-wheels capable of producing up to nine tones of flour per day is known.
The construction of machines for such mills was described by Vitruvius, architect and engineer in his Ten Books of Architecture around 25 BC.
The largest complex of the Roman Empire appears to have been at Barbegal, near Arles, and it was estimated that it could produce twenty-five tons of flour a day.
During the later Republic and throughout the Empire most middle and lower class Romans relied upon commercial bakeries for their bread. Some bakeries used their own mills to grind grain into flour.
The History of flour in Romans times
