Were there bakers in ancient Rome?

Answer 1

Yes, beakers were very important in Rome and could become rich. This is because the masses of the poor could only afford to eat bread, focaccia-like doughs and lagana, and deep-fried sheets of pasta without eggs.

The Romans had several kinds of bread: leavened and unleavened loaves; loaves made from the best wheat flour, with groats, or rye, and some with acorns and millet. There were crusty loaves, and bread mixed with cheese, The Lentaculum, was a flat, round loaf made of emmer, (a cereal grain closely related to wheat flour). There were also 'artolaganus' or cakebread; 'speusticus' or 'hurry bread', Parthian (Persian) bread and the Roman Style Slipper Loaf, which slightly wetter dough, which gives it a wheaty flavour and good crumb structure. The favourite bread of the rich was white bread made from wheat. The wealthy could also afford fortified breads with added milk, eggs and butter, and oyster bread (to be eaten with oysters).

Baking flourished from as early as 300 BC. In 168 BC the first Bakers Guild was formed. Within 150 years there were more than 300 specialist pastry chefs in Rome. The whole craft was incorporated in a guild of bakers - collegium pistorum - and was of so high repute in the affairs of the state that one of its representatives had a seat in the Senate.

Roman bakeries were usually mills-bakeries. Only in later antiquity can we make a distinction between the milling and baking came only in Late Antiquity, after the introduction of water mills. The grain was poured into the top of the mill, which was turned by a slave. The flour was then sifted and kneaded with water, salt and yeast. It was baked in charcoal heated ovens surrounded by chambers which held the heat. At the front there was the shop which sold bread, rolls and cakes sweetened with honey.

The bakers also supplied the thermpolium (plural thermopolia) which was the Roman equivalent of a takeout. The word was Greek and meant a place where (something) hot is sold. It sold ready to eat food and it has been considered the forerunner of restaurant (the Romans did not have restaurants). The food they served had been compared to today's fast food. It served the poor who did not have a private kitchen. It had a counter at the front with recesses for heat efficient containers. Many had dining areas at the back. However, most people eat their food on benches along the sidewalk.


Most Romans lived on the upper floors of the insulae (apartment blocks four to seven floors high) which had small and overcrowded rooms with no running water, cooking facilities or toilets. People went there only to sleep and lived outdoors. They went to outdoors public toilets and to the public baths and eat outdoors. Bread and other grain based foods were all that the poor could afford. Therefore, the bakeries and the thermopolia were the places where the food they ate and sold. They were extremely busy and, due to the masses of customers, people ate sitting on outdoors benches. The thermopolia were scorned by the upper classes who had a kitchen in their domus (detached house).