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198 THE MALLOW, ITS USKS BY THE ANCIENTS.
If the explanation now given be admitted as applicable to
the Molochina of the Periplus, it may throw light upon some
other passages of ancient authors.
Ctesias, in his Indica*, mentions "sheets made from trees."
Strabo's account of the webs, which he calls Serica, an ac-
count derived from the writings of Nearchus, admiral of Alex-
ander the Great, represents those webs as made from fibres,
which were scraped from the bark of trees. This would apply
exactly to the supposed use of the Hibiscus for making cloth.
The bark must have been fiist stript from the tree, and the
fibres then scraped from the inside of the hark.
To the same source we may, we think, trace the idea ol
Arethas {in Aj)oc. c. 57.), that the Byssus, Rev. xix. 8., was
"the bark of an Indian tree rnade into flax. ''^
Although the date of the following inscription, found at
Rome, is uncertain, it may be conveniently brought in here.
It is published by Muratori, Novus Thesaurus Vet. Inscrip-
tionum, torn. ii. p. 939.
P. AVCTIVS P. L. LYSANDER.
VESTIARIVS. TENVIARIVS.
MOLOCHINARIVS. VOT. SOL.
Muratori in his Note says, that " Vestiarius Tenuiarius" was
the man who made thin garments, and " Molochinarius*^ the
man who made such garments of a mallow color.
The authors, next in regard to antiquity, who make mention
of Molochina, are the writers of the Latin Comedy, Statius
Caecilius, who died 169 B. C, and Plautus, who died 184 B. C.
Nonius Marcellus (/. xvi.) quotes the following hne from the
Pansimachus of the former dramatist
Carbasina, molochina, ampelina.t
The passage of Plautus is in the Aulularia {Act iii. Sce7ie v.
/. 40.), where we have a ludicrous enumeration, extending
* Cap. 22. Fragmenta, ed. Balir. p. 253. 326.
t See C. C. Statii Fragmenta, a Leonhardo Spengel, Monachii 1829, p. 35
Statius chiefly copied Menander (Gelliiis, ii. c. 16.) ; but it is not certain that
Menander wrote any play called Pausimachus.
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