Strabo, who about thirty years before the Christian era, says the Ensitanians and Ethiopians used butter instead of oil. And iElian, who lived in the end of the first century, says that the Indians employed but ter to anoint the wounds of their elephants. Plutarch, who was his cotemporary, speaks of a visit paid by a Lacedemonian lady to Berenice the wife of Deintartis, which, according to hint, scents not to have been mutual ly agreeable ; for he says the one smelled so much of butter, and the other of perfume, that neither of them could endure the (Juicy.
Dioscorides (II. C. 33,) is the first author who recmn mends butter as an article of diet, and says it might be melted fresh, and poured over pulse and other vegeta bles instead of oil, and used in pastry. He also recom mends it for medicinal purposes. But Galen, who wrote at Rome about 2kio years later, is much more full on the healing virtues of butter. Ile is surprised that Diosco rides should have said it was made of sheep's and goat's milk, for he himself had seen it made of cow's milk ; and such butter, he affirms, was always the fattest and best, and had front thence, lie believes, derived its name. lie says it may be used instead of oil in mollifying leather, and that in cold countries which did not produce oil, but ter was used in the baths, and was evidently a real fat, because, when poured over burning coals, it readily cau:Ja fire. From all this it is evident, that butter in his time must have been very little known to the Greeks aim Romans.
Strabo, speaking of the ancient Britons, says, that though they had abundance of milk, some of them were so ignorant that they did not know how to make a cheese. But Pliny, on the other hand, affirms, that " the barbar ous nations," by which he usually means the Germans and Britons, not only made cheese, but likewise butter, which they used as a most agreeable food ; and the use of this food was a distinguishing mark betwixt the rich and the poor. To these nations he ascribes the inv.encion of butter, and says they made it from the milk of the goat, the sheep, and the cow ; most commonly from the latter, but that the mill, of the ewe produced the fattest butter. lie likewise describes the form of the vessel employed by the barbarians in making it, which seems to have been not very different from what we now use. It was cover ed, he says, and had holes in the lid. lie is the first
Latin writer who mentions the word butyrizni, though Vossius thinks it is to be found in Columella. Whether Tacitus, by lac concretum, which he affirms to have been the most common rood of the Germans, means cheese or butter, it is impossible to determine.
The Greeks, then, seem to have derived their first acquaintance with butter from the Thracians or the Scy thians, and the Romans from the Germans. Nor did either of them, after learning its nature, employ it as an article of food, but only as an ointment in their baths, and in medicine. Their agricultural writers, who treat largely of milk, cheese, and oil, as food, take no notice of butter, nor is it mentioned by Apicius. The suggestion of Dioscorides, therefore, formerly mentioned, that but ter might be conveniently used in cookery, seems not to have been attended to. Fourcroy thinks, that the effect of agitation in separating butter from milk, must have been accidentally made by the Scythians or other wan dering tribes while transporting their milk from place to place in skins or other vessels.
Sidonius Apollinaris informs us, that the ancient Bur gundians were accustomed to besmear their hair with butter ; and Clemens Alexandrinus says, that the ancient Christians of Egypt burned butter in their lamps at their altars instead of oil; a practice somewhat similar to which has it rt tained by the Abyssinians. In the Roman Catholic churches, it was anciently allowed, during Christmas time, to use butter instead of oil, un account of the great consumption of this in other ways. This accounts lenr the name « butter tower," which w e find in some places, as at Rouen, Notre Dame, and others. In 1500, George d'Amboise, Archbishop of Rouen, finding the oil fail in his diocese during Lent, permitted the use of butter in their lamps, on condition that each person should pay six deniers for the indulgence, with which sum this tower was erected.
From all the accounts of the method of making butter transmitted to its by the ancients, we have reason to think that they were unacquainted with the art of giving it that firmness and consistence which is so valuable a qua lity of modern butter. They always speak of it as a liquid substance. With them it was poured out like oil ; with us it is cut and spread. Their butter was probably much inferior to ours, and its use very limited.