SENECA - College of Stoic Philosophers

EPISTLE XC.
upright warp keeps the threads stretched by means
of hanging weights ; then, how the inserted thread
of the woof, which softens the hard texture of the
web which holds it fast on either side, is forced
by the batten to make a compact union with the
warp. He maintains that even the weaver's art was
discovered by wise men, forgetting
that the more
complicated art which he describes was invented in
later days the art wherein
The web is bound to frame ;
asunder now
The reed doth part the warp. Between the threads
Is shot the woof by pointed shuttles borne ;
The broad comb's well-notched teeth then drive it home. a
Suppose he had had the opportunity of seeing the
weaving of our own day, which produces the clothing
that will conceal nothing, the clothing which affords
I will not say no protection
to the body, but
none even to modesty !
Posidonius then passes on to the farmer. With
no less eloquence he describes the ground which is
broken up and crossed again by the plough, so that
the earth, thus loosened, may allow freer play to the
roots ;
then the seed is sown, and the weeds plucked
out by hand, lest any chance growth or wild plant
spring up and spoil the crop. This trade also, he
declares, is the creation of the wise, just as if
cultivators of the soil were not even at the present
day discovering countless new methods of increasing
the soil's fertility! Furthermore, not confining his
attention to these arts, he even degrades the wise
man by sending him to the mill. For he tells us
how the sage, by imitating the processes
of nature,
began to make bread. " The grain,"
b
he says,
"once taken into the mouth, is crushed by the
flinty teeth, which meet in hostile encounter, and
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