A Roman Mill

A Roman mill from Pompeii Reg. VI Ins.3.3, House of the Baker or Casa del Forno. Another picture of a bakery (in Ostia) can be found in this post.

The text from today is from a book called Metamorphoses (sometimes The Golden Ass) where we find the hero, which has been turned into an ass, just as he has been sold to a bakery where he is to turn the mill.

"the next day following I was tyed to the mill betimes in the morning with my face covered, to the end in turning and winding so often one way, I should not become giddy, but keepe a certaine course, but although when I was a man I had seen many such horsemills and knew well enough how they should be turned, yet feigning my selfe ignorant of such kind of toile, I stood still and would not goe, whereby I thought I should be taken from the mill as an Asse unapt, and put to some other light thing, or else to be driven into the fields to pasture, but my subtility did me small good, for by and by when the mill stood still, the servants came about me, crying and beating me forward, in such sort that I could not stay to advise my selfe, whereby all the company laughed to see so suddaine a change."

Apuleius - Metamorphoses IX
Translated by Adlington 1566, ed. by M. Guy 1996