Chapter XLV: Appendix: A

ON PLINY’S NATURAL HISTORY.

Sheep and wool--Price of wool in Pliny’s time--Varieties of wool and where produced--Coarse wool used for the manufacture of carpets--Woollen cloth of Egypt--Embroidery--Felting--Manner of cleansing--Distaff of Tanaquil--Varro--Tunic--Toga--Undulate or waved cloth--Nature of this fabric--Figured cloths in use in the days of Homer (900 B. C.)--Cloth of gold--Figured cloths of Babylon--Damask first woven at Alexandria--Plaided textures first woven in Gaul--$150,000 paid for a Babylonish coverlet--Dyeing of wool in the fleece--Observations on sheep and goats--Dioscurias a city of the Colchians--Manner of transacting business.

LIB. VIII. c. 47s. 72. 50s. 76.[569]

[569] The edition here followed is that of Sillig, Lipsiæ, 1831-6, 5
vols., 12mo.

“We are also much indebted to sheep both in sacrifices to propitiate the gods, and in the use of their fleeces. As oxen produce by cultivation the food of men, so we owe to sheep the protection of our bodies.... There are two principal kinds of sheep, the _covered_ and the _common_. The former is softer, the latter more delicate in feeding, inasmuch as the covered feeds on brambles. Its coverings are chiefly of Arabic materials.

“The most approved wool is the Apulian, and that which is called _the wool of Greek sheep_ in Italy, and _the Italic wool_ in other places. The third kind in value is that obtained from Milesian sheep. The Apulian wools have a short staple, and are only celebrated for making pænulas. They attain the highest degree of excellence about Tarentum and Canusium. In Asia wools of the same kind are obtained at Laodicea. No white wool is preferred to those which are produced about the Po, nor has a pound ever yet exceeded a hundred sesterces (about $3,60.). Sheep are not shorn everywhere: in certain places the practice of pulling off the wool continues. There are various colors of wool, so that we want terms to denote all. Spain produces some of those varieties which we call _native_; Pollentia, near the Alps, furnishes the chief kinds of black wool; Asia and Bætica those ruddy varieties called _Erythrean_; Canusium a sandy-colored[570] wool; and Tarentum one of a dark shade peculiar to that locality. New-shorn greasy wools have all a medicinal virtue. The wool of Istria and Liburnia being more like hair than wool, is unsuitable for making the cloths which have a _long_ nap. This is also the case with the wool of Salacia in Lusitania; but the cloth made from it is recommended by its _plaided pattern_. A similar kind is produced about Piscenæ (i. e. _Pezenas_), in the province of Narbonne, and likewise in Egypt, the woollen cloth of which country, having been worn by use, is _embroidered_ and lasts some time longer. The _coarse wool with a thick staple was used in very ancient times for carpets_: at least Homer (900 B. C.) speaks of the use of it. _The Gauls have one method of embroidering these carpets, and the Parthians another._ Portions of wool also make cloth _by being forced together by themselves_[571]. With the addition of vinegar these also resist iron, nay even fires, which are the last expedient for purging them; for, having been taken out of the caldrons of the polishers, they are sold for the stuffing of beds, an invention made, I believe, in Gaul, certainly in the present day distinguished by Gallic names: for in what age it commenced I could not easily say, since the ancients used beds of straw, such as are now employed in camps. The cloths called _gausapa_ began to be used within the memory of my father; those called _amphimalla_ within my own, (See Part First, p. 30,) as well as the shaggy coverings for the stomach, called _ventralia_. For the tunic with the laticlave is now first beginning to be woven after the manner of the _gausapa_. The black wools are never dyed. Concerning the dyeing of the others we shall speak in their proper places, in treating of sea-shells or the nature of herbs.

“M. Varro says, that the wool continued to his time upon the distaff and spindle of Tanaquil, also called Caia Cæcilia, in the temple of Sangus; and that there remained in the temple of Fortune a royal undulate toga made by her, which Servius Tullius had worn. Hence arose the practice of carrying a distaff with wool upon it, and a spindle with its thread, after virgins who were going to be married. She first wove the straight tunic, such as is worn by tiros together with the _toga pura_, and by newly-married women. The _undulate_ or waved cloth was originally one of the most admired; from it was derived the _soriculate_[572]. Fenestrella writes, that _scraped_ and _Phryxian_ togas came into favor about the end of the reign of the Divine Augustus. The _thick poppied_ togas are of remoter origin, being noticed even so far back as by the poet Lucilius in his Torquatus. The _toga prætexta_ was invented among the Etruscans. I find evidence that kings wore the _striped toga_[573], that figured cloths were in use even in the days of Homer; and that these gave rise to the _triumphal_. To produce this effect with the needle was the invention of the Phrygians, on which account cloths so embroidered have been called _Phrygionic_. In the same part of Asia king Attalus (see Part I. p. 88.) discovered the art of inserting a woof of gold: from which circumstance the _Attalic_ cloths received their name. Babylon first obtained celebrity by its method of _diversifying the picture with different colors_, and gave its name to textures of this description. But to weave with a great number of leashes, so as to produce the cloths called _polymita_ (i. e. damask cloths), was first taught in Alexandria; to divide by squares (i. e. plaids) in Gaul. Metellus Scipio brought it as an accusation against Cato, that even in his time Babylonian coverlets for triclinia were sold for 800,000 sesterces ($30,000), although the emperor Nero lately gave for them no less than 4,000,000 sesterces (about $150,000). The _prætexta_ of Servius Tullius, covering the statue of Fortune which he dedicated, remained until the death of Sejanus, and it is wonderful that they had neither decayed of themselves nor been injured by the worms of moths through the space of 560 years. We have, moreover, seen the fleeces of living sheep dyed with purple, with the coccus, or the murex, in pieces of bark _a foot and a half long_, luxury appearing to force this upon them as if it were their nature.

“In the sheep itself the excellence of the breed is sufficiently shown by the shortness of the legs and the clothing of the belly. Those which have naked bellies used to be called _apicæ_, and were condemned. The tails of the Syrian sheep are a cubit broad, and in that part they bear a great quantity of wool. It is thought premature to castrate lambs before they are five months old. In Spain, but especially in Corsica, there is a race of animals called musmons, resembling sheep, except that their covering is more like goats’-hair. The ancients called the mixed breed of sheep and musmons _Umbri_. _Sheep have a very weak head_, on which account they are obliged to turn from the sun in feeding. _They are most foolish animals._ Where they have been afraid to enter, they follow one dragged along by the horn. They live ten years at the longest, but in Æthiopia thirteen years. Goats live there eleven years, and in other countries eight at the most.... In Cilicia and about the Syrtes, goats have a shaggy coat, which admits of being shorn.”

[570] This term is adopted as the best translation of the Latin
_fulvus_, which, as well as the corresponding Greek adjective
ξανθὸς, denoted a light yellowish-brown. Hence it was so commonly
applied to the light hair, which accompanies a light complexion and
often indicates mental vivacity, and which has consequently been
always considered beautiful. Hence also it was used to denote the
appearance of the Tiber and other rivers, when they were rendered
turbid by the quantity of sand suspended in their waters.--See
Fellows’s _Discoveries in Lycia_.

[571] See Appendix C.

[572] It is probable that _soriculate_ cloth was a kind of velvet, or
plush, so called from its resemblance to the coat of the
field-mouse, _sorex_, dim. _soricula_. _Soriculata_ may have been
changed into _sororiculata_ by repeating or at the beginning of the
word.

[573] The toga worn by the kings and other supreme magistrates among
the Romans was called _trabea_ from the stripes, which were
compared to the joists or rafters of a building (_trabes_).

LIB. VI. c. 5.

“The remaining shores are occupied by savage nations, as the Melanchlæni and Coraxi, Dioscurias, a city of the Colchians, near the river Anthemus, being now deserted, although formerly so illustrious, that Timosthenes has recorded that three hundred nations used to resort to it, speaking different languages; and that business was afterwards transacted on our part through the medium of one hundred and thirty interpreters.”