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

402 ON pliny's natural history.
and Baetica those ruddy varieties called Erythrean ; Canusium a sandy-colored*
wool ; and Tarentum one of a dark shade peculiar to that locality. New-sliorn
greasy wools have all a medicinal virtue. The wool of Istria and Libumia being
more like hair than wool, is unsuitable for making the cloths which have a long
nap. This is also the ceise with the wool of Salacia in Lusitania ; but the cloth
made from it is recommended by its plaided pattern. A similar kind is pro-
duced about PiscencB (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 ill 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 to-
gether by themselves^. 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 in-
vention 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 gatisapa 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 gausnpa. 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 Csecilia, in the temple of Sangus ;
and that there re-
mained in the temple of Fortime 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 origin-
ally one of the most admired ; from it was derived the soriculateX. Fenestrella
writes, that scraped and Phryxian togas came into favor about the end of the
* This term is adopted as the best translation of the Latin fulvus, which, as
well as the corresponding Greek adjective ^avOds, 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.
t See Appendix C.
t 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. So-
riculata may have been changed into sororiculata by repeating or at the begin-
ning of the word.