Bread Making

The Profession of Baker:
A bakers' guild was founded around 168 BC. The guild (collegium) was called the Collegium Pistorum. Once in the guild, a baker was not only a member for life, he also passed membership to his sons. Bakers were usually freedmen. A baker was also cautioned to avoid contamination of ordinary people by associating with actors or gladiators. One was also forbidden from the performances in the arena or theatres.

Bakers were respected and wealthy because of the desire for bread and the shortages of ovens. An example of a wealthy baker is Eurysaces who gained his fortune by supplying bread for the public ration. Thusly, he built a tomb for himself and his wife near the Aurelian Wall at the Porta Maggiore. On the plain band between the upper and lower zone an inscription repeated on each side declares: est hoc monimentum marcei vergilei eurysacis pistoris, redeptoris apparet

Bakers were often involved in politics as well. In Pompeii, election graffiti were found that said Par in panem imperium non habet.. An equal in bread the empire does not have. G. Iulium Polybium aedilem ora vos faciatis. Panem bonum fert. Pray that you may make G. Julius Polybius aedile. He makes good bread.

Bread indeed was a powerful and demanded commodity. Historical Evidence: Romans imported their wheat from throughout the Empire. They liked white bread. Pliny wrote in 70 AD: 'The wheat of Cyprus is swarthy and produces a dark bread, for which reason it is usually mixed with the white wheat of Alexandria'. Pliny disagreed with Plato who had written in 400 BC that the ideal state where men would like to an old age was that in which whole grain bread was made from local wheat. All Greeks did not agree with Plato. Socrates considered whole grain bread to be pig food. Pliny also wrote of the different types of bread which the Romans enjoyed over the centuries: I can't find thorough descriptions so add my own 'guesses' as to what these are:

• a bread to eat primarily with oysters - perhaps some sort of cracker artolaganus
• cakebread - similar to a coffee cake speusticus
• hurry bread - most likely an unleavened bread oven bread - what we consider an Italian or French bread
• tin bread - bread cooked over an open fire in a 'tin' can. Today we use cake mix and 'bake' it in a #10 can over an open fire when camping
• Parthian bread - a flat bread
• rich breads - made with milk, eggs and butter bread made of rye, acorns or millet (millet is a annual grass grown for grain in the mideast and for hay in the US)
• crusty bread - baked in a brick oven hearth
• baked bread - baked on the hot stones of the hearth bread baked with cheese

Other breads described by various authors are:

• panis sordidus - made of coarse grain and the cheapest bread
• panis secundus - a bread of somewhat better quality
• siligineus - very white, very expensive
• sweet bread
• picenian bread was similar to a biscuit
• libae were smaller rolls

From excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum there is evidence of at least ten kinds of Roman bread. Even dog biscuits were made. Standard loaves were flat, about 2 inches thick and the backs marked with 6 or more notches to ease breaking the bread.

Gladiator helmet - Museum (Hadrian's Tomb)
Photo by Joan Jahnige 1997

Theatre masks - theatre at Beneventum Italy
Photo by Joan Jahnige 1998

Charred bread discovered in an oven in Pompeii
From "A Taste of Ancient Rome"
by IIaria Gozzini translated by Ana Herklot 1992