From milk, too, butter is produced; held as the most delicate food among barbarous2265 nations, and one which distinguishes2266 the wealthy from the multitude at large. It is mostly made from cows’ milk, and hence its name;2267 but the richest butter is that made from ewes’ milk. There is a butter made also from goats’ milk; but previously to making it, the milk should first be warmed, in winter. In summer it is extracted from the milk by merely shaking it to and fro in a tall vessel, with a small orifice at the mouth to admit the air, but otherwise closely stopped, a little water2268 being added to make it curdle the sooner. The milk that curdles the most, floats upon the surface; this they remove, and, adding salt to it, give it the name of “oxygala.”2269 They then take the remaining part and boil it down in pots, and that portion of it which floats on the surface is butter, a substance of an oily nature. The more2270 rank it is in smell, the more highly it is esteemed. When old, it forms an ingredient in numerous compositions. It is of an astringent, emollient, repletive, and purgative nature.