I recently finished reading The Commentaries by Caesar and there was something odd that struck me. Multiple times in the book Caesar mentions different tribes of Gauls and Celts harvesting, storing and eating corn. From what I understand corn/maize came from the new world after the Colombian exchange. So my question is, was there an ancient type of corn that I don’t know about? Or was this a strange translation of some other ancient grain?
here is a comment from 2017 responding to the same question.
TLDR: Caesar is likely using the Latin word "frumento" or perhaps its plural, "frumenti," to refer to wheat or another grain crop.