Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Butyrum

Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary, and Greek Lexicon (Rich, 1849)

BU'TYRUM (βούτυρον). Butter; an article which does not appear to have been either of Greek or Roman invention, but to have come to the former people from the Scythians, Thracians, and Phrygians, and to the latter from the nations of Germany. After they had become acquainted with the manner of making it, it was only used as medicine, or as an ointment in the baths, but not as an article of food, nor in cookery; and it would moreover appear that they were unable to make it of the same firmness and consistency as we do, or to work it beyond an oily or almost liquid state, for in all the passages in which the word occurs it is spoken of as something fluid and to be poured out. Columell. vi. 12. 5. Plin. H. N. xi. 96. Id. xxviii. 35. Beckman, History of Inventions, vol. i. p. 504 — 7. London, 1846.