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

376 ANCIENT HISTORY OF
general application. But the use of the term in this manner
by a single writer, or even, if they cowld be produced, by several
writers of so late an age as Philostratus, would be of little
weight in opposition to the evidence, which has been brought
forward to prove, that Bocaoi properly meant flax only.
II. Forster produces a passage from the EUaca of Pausanias*
from which he argues, that pvaaoi was not flax, because Pausanias
here distinguishes it from flax as well as from hemp.
But we know, that all plants undergo great changes by cul-
tivation and in consequence of the varieties of soil and climate.
What can be more striking than the innumerable tuhps derived
from the original yellow tulip of Turkey, or all the varieties of
pinks and carnations from a single species ? To iiaake all the
descriptions of cloth from the coarsest canvass or *ail-cloth to
the most beautiful lawn or cambric, there must have been, as
there now are, great differences in the living plant. The best
explanation therefore of the language of Pausanias seems to be,
that he used XiVoi/ to denote the common kind of flax, and fiUcriTos
to signify a finer varietyt. In another passage, where he
speaks of the Elean Byssus, his language shows, that its pecu-
liar excellence consisted both in its fineness and in its beautiful
yellow color ; for after expressing the admiration, to which this
substance was entitled, as growing nowhere else in Greece, he
says, that '• in fineness it was not inferior to that of the He-
brews, but was not equally yellowt."
It may further be remarked in opposition to the idea, that
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