In support of the antiquity of grinding corn, we may go as for back as the days of the patriarch Abraham, who, we are informed in Genesis xviii. 6, “hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said, Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth.” To this we may add, that it appears in a subsequent text, Numbers xi. 8, that manna was ground like corn. The earliest instrument for this purpose seems to have been the mortar, which was retained long after the introduction of mills, properly so called: because they were most probably at first very imperfect. In process of time the mortar was made ridged, and the pestle notched at the bottom, by which means the grain was rather grated than pounded.
A passage in Pliny, which has not as yet had a satisfactory interpretation, renders this conjecture probable. In time a handle was added to the top of the pestle, that it might be more easily driven round in a circle, whence this machine at first was called mortarium, by this means assuming the name of a hand-mill. Such a mill was so called from rubbing backwards and forwards; and varied but little from those used by our colour-grinders, apothecaries, potters, and other artisans. From expressions in the sacred volume, we may rationally infer that it was customary to have a mill of this sort in every family. Moses having forbidden to take such instruments for a pledge; for that, says he, “No man shall take the nether or the upper millstone to pledge: for he taketh a man’s life.” It is observed by Michaelis, on this passage, that a man could not then grind, consequently could not bake the necessary daily bread for the family.
Grinding was then the employment of the women, particularly of female slaves, as at present in those countries which are uncivilised: the portion of strength required for the operation, therefore, could not have been great; but afterwards the mills were driven by bondsmen, whose necks were placed in a circular machine of wood, so that they could not put their hands to their mouths or eat of the meal. This must have been an interesting link between the hand and the horse-mill.
In course of time shafts were added to the mill, that it might be driven by cattle, which were then blindfolded. The first cattle mills were called molae jumentaria, which had, probably, only a heavy pestle like the hand-mill; but it is conjectured, that it must have been soon remarked, that the labour would be more easily accomplished, if, instead of the pestle a large heavy cylinder was employed. A competent judge has, however, believed that the first cattle mills had not a spout or trough as ours have; at least those hand-mills Tournefort saw at Nicaria, consisted only of two stones; but the meal issued through an opening in the upper one, and fell upon a board or table, on which the lower one rested.
The upper millstone they called meta, or turbo; and the lower one catillus: the name of the first also signified a cone with a blunt apex, whence it has been thought by some, that corn was first rubbed into meal, by rolling one stone upon another, as painters now grind colours with a muller. This is not improbable, as present practice among barbarous people fully proves. It is also apparent that the upper millstone was substituted for the pestle, which action may have lent it a name, when they called it meta.
Professor Beckmann has followed Gori in his description of an antique gem, engraved on red jasper, upon which appears “the naked figure of a man, who in his left hand holds a sheaf of corn, and in the right a machine that in all probability is a hand-mill. Gori considers the figure as a representation of the god Eunostus, who 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, also represented 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 call mobile. Though this figure is small, and though it gives 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 where the handle is, there arise from the mill of Eunostus two shafts, which Gori considers as those of a besom and 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.”
In the commencement of the last century, the remains of a pair of Roman millstones were found at Adel, in Yorkshire. One of these stones, twenty inches in breadth, is thicker in the middle than at the edge, consequently one side is convex; the other was of the same size, but as thick at the sides as the other was in the centre; the traces of notching were discoverable.
Enough, may, perhaps, have been said concerning this original invention; therefore this article will not be encumbered with quotations of all those passages relative to mills, which are found in ancient authors, as they would afford but little additional information. Neither will mythological records be disturbed to inquire to which deity or hero the invention was originally attributed; or to ascertain the descent of Milantes, whom Stephanus distinguishes by that honour, or how those millstones were constructed which are alleged to have been built by Myletes, son of Lelex, King of Laconia; but we shall proceed to the invention of Water-Mills.
These appear to have been introduced about the period of Mithridates, contemporary with Cæsar and Cicero. Strabo, relating that there was a water-mill near the residence of the Pontian king, that honour has been ascribed to him; but so far is this remote from certainty, that nothing can be inferred from thence, other than that water-mills at that period were known in Asia. Pomponius Sabinus informs us, that the first water-mill seen at Rome was erected on the banks of the Tiber, a little before the time of Augustus; but of this there is no other proof than his simple assertion: he having taken the greater part of his remarks from the illustrations of Servius, he must have had a more perfect copy of that author than any now remaining, and from these his information might have come.
The most certain proof we have that Rome had water-mills in the time of Augustus, is, that Vitruvius has told us so; but those mills were not corn-mills, they were hydraulic engines, which he describes in his works. From whence we learn that the ancients had wheels for raising water, which were driven by being trod upon by men; the usual employment for criminals, as may be learnt from Artemidorus. Also from a 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.” Antipater lived at the period of Cicero. Palladius, also, with equal clearness, speaks of water-mills, which he advises to be built on estates where is running water, in order to grind corn without men or cattle.