used an alkali ( nítron) and wine yeast as leavening agents. Dough loaves were baked at home in a clay oven ( ipnós) set on legs. Bread wheat, difficult to grow in Mediterranean climates, and the white bread made from it, were associated with the upper classes in the ancient Mediterranean, while the poor ate coarse brown breads made from emmer wheat and barley. A simpler baking method involved placing lighted coals on the floor and covering the heap with a dome-shaped lid ( pnigeús); when it was hot enough, the coals were swept aside, and dough loaves were placed on the warm floor. The lid was then put back in place, and the coals were gathered on the side of the cover. The stone oven did not appear until the Roman period. Solon, an Athenian lawmaker of the 6th century BC, prescribed that leavened bread be reserved for feast days. By the end of the 5th century BC, leavened bread was sold at the market, though it was expensive. Barley Barley was easier to grow than wheat, but more difficult to make bread from. Barley-based breads were nourishing but very heavy. Because of this, it was often roasted before being milled into coarse flour ( álphita). Barley flour was used to make maza, the basic Greek dish. Maza could be served cooked or raw, as a broth, or made into dumplings or flatbreads. Like wheat breads, it could also be augmented with cheese or honey. In Peace, Aristophanes employs the expression , literally "to eat only barley", with a meaning equivalent to the English "diet of bread and water". Millet Millet was growing wild in Greece as early as 3000 BCE, and bulk storage containers for millet have been found from the Late Bronze Age in Macedonia and northern Greece. Hesiod describes that "the beards grow round the millet, which men sow in summer." Millet is listed along with wheat in the 3rd century BCE by Theophrastus in his "Enquiry into Plants" Emmer Black bread, made from emmer (sometimes called "emmer wheat"), was cheaper (and easier to make) than wheat; it was associated with the lower classes and the poor. Legumes Legumes were essential to the Greek diet, and were harvested in the Mediterranean region from prehistoric times: the earliest and most common being lentils - which have been found in archeological sites in Greece dating to the Upper