Food

Ancient Roman Breadmaking

The Baker

The tomb of Eurysaces (north side)
(from Oxford Archaeological Guides - Rome
by Amanda Claridge, with contributions by
Judith Toms and Tony Cubberly, 1998

The Profession of Baker

A bakers' guild was founded around 168 B.C. in Rome. 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 (libertus). 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. Consequently, he built a tomb for himself and his wife near the Aurelian Wall at the Porta Maggiore in Rome. 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 illustrated the importance of bread and the profession of baking:

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 Gaius Julius Polybius aedile. He makes good bread)

Bread indeed was a powerful and demanded commodity. The Romans imported their wheat from throughout the Empire. They liked white bread in particular, as Pliny wrote in 70 A.D.:

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 B.C., namely that the ideal state where men would like to be in 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 (actual descriptions of these are few and far between, so guesses have been inferred):

artolaganus - a bread to eat primarily with oysters, perhaps some sort of cracker
cakebread - similar to a coffee cake
speusticus - 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.
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.

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