The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous ... - Cd3wd.com

PASTORAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS. 287
But for thy favor, Meliboeus, sent
Where Bcetis' waves the w^estern plains indent,
Plains at the earth's extremest verge, expos'd
To the fierce Moors, which Geryon once inclos'd.
There had I now been doom'd to tend for hire
Iberian flocks, or else of want expire
In vain I might liave tun'd my seven-fold reed
Mid thickets vast no soul my strains would heed :
Not even Pan on that far-distant shore
Would lend his vacant ear, or bo my solace more.
Juvenal in his Twelfth Satire {I. 37-42.) describes a mer-
chant overtaken by a dreadful storm, and to save the ship
throwing his most valuable goods into the sea. It will be ob-
served, that the poet attributes the excellence and fine natural
color of the woollen cloth of Ba^tica to three causes, the rich
herbage, the occult properties of the water, and those of the air.
" Over with mine," he cries ;
:
" be nothing spar'd ;"
To part with all his richest goods prepar'd
His vests of Tyrian purple, fit to please
The softest of the silken sons of ease.
And other robes, which took a native stain
From air and water on the Boetic plain.
;
:
Owen''s Translation.
Strabo (iii. 144. p. 385. ed. Sieb.) gives the following account
of the wool of Turdetania.
IloXXi) il xaX ca9!]i KpSrepov i'lp^ero' fCi/ Ic. xal tpta ^aX\ov riSv Ktij5a|ajr, Kal vTTcpffoXfj
Tif fffri Tov KaWovi' ra\avTiaiovi yovv wvuvvrat rovi npiovs di ris o^eiai, irrtp/JoXi) 6i koI
TtSv X«?rraiv ti^ao'^druJ', aircp o'l HaXTirJTai KaraaKCVa^ovaty.
" Much cloth used formerly to come from this countrj". Now also fleeces com©
from it more than from the Coraxi ; and they are exceedingly beautiful, so that
rams for breeding are sold for a talent each. Also the fine webs are very famous,
which Jire made by the Saltiatce."
—
Yatcs^s Translation.
The reader will please to remark, that this is the passage of
Strabo, formerly referred to as containing evidence respecting
the Coraxi.
Martial, a Spaniard by birth, frequently alludes to the sheep
of Beetica and especially to the various natural colors of their
wool, which were so much admired, that it was manufactured
without dyeing. Two of his epigrams (iv. 28. and viii. 28.)