Mills of God
![Roman-era depiction of an animal-driven flour mill.[1]](/Images/godic/202502/15/Urn_holder_of_Publius_Nonius_Zethus_01_-_Vatican_museum3301.jpg")
![An edge mill with two millstones. Katherine Maltwood portrayed a similar arrangement in her bronze, The Mills of God (1918/9), which was inspired by the suffering of the Great War.[2]](/Images/godic/202502/15/Hacienda_La_Laguna-Museo_del_Olivar_Y_del_Aceite-Molino_antiguo-20110918-096183301.jpg")
The proverbial expression of the mills of God grinding slowly refers to the notion of slow but certain divine retribution.
Plutarch (1st century AD) alludes to the metaphor as a then-current adage in his Moralia (De sera numinis vindicta "On the Delay of Divine Vengeance"):