through more than ten lines, of all the persons concerned in the manufacture or sale of garments.

Solearii astant, astant molochinarii.

All the lexicographers and commentators explain Molochinarius to be one who dyes cloth of the color of the mallow. Lanarius was a woollen-draper; Coactiliarius, a dealer in felts, a hatter; Lintearius a linen-draper; and Sericarius a silk-mercer. According to the same analogy, Molochinarius would mean a dealer in Molochina, i. e. in all kinds of cloth made from mallows.

The class of writers, which will now be produced as affording testimony respecting the use of the mallow for weaving, are Greek authors, and who instead of the common Greek terms employ the Attic term Apopyòs and its derivatives.

Apoyos has been explained by some of the lexicographers to be a kind of flax (See Julius Pollux, L. vii. 74.). Perhaps by this explanation nothing more was intended than that it was a plant, the fibres of which were used to spin and weave into cloth. It is highly probable that it was the Malva Silvestris or Common Mallow, and that it was called 'Apopyos.

According to the Attic lexicons of Pausanias (apud Eustath. 1. c.) and of Moris, 'Apopyos was an Attic term. We now find traces of it in seven Attic writers, four or five of whom wrote comedy. These are Aristophanes, Cratinus, Antiphanes, Eupolis, Clearchus, Eschines, and Plato.

I. We shall take first Aristophanes, whose comedy called Lysistrata is frequently quoted by Pausanias and Cratinus, and being still extant throws considerable light upon the subject. It was represented in the year 412. B. C. Lysistrata says (1. 150),

Καν τοῖς χιτώνιοισι τοῖς ἀμόργινοις
Γυμναὶ παριοῖμεν,

"And if we should present ourselves naked in shifts of amorgos;" showing that these shifts were transparent. Accordingly Moris says, that the αμόργινον was λεπτὸν ύφασμα, “ a thin web.” Bisetus in his Greek commentary on this play, after quoting the explanations of Stephanus Byzantinus, Suidas, Eustathius,

and the Etymologicum Magnum, judiciously concludes as follows: "From all these it is manifest, that appуvo XES, whether they took their name from a place, from their color, or from the raw material, were a kind of valuable robe, worn by the rich, fashionable, and luxurious women."

A subsequent passage of the Lysistrata (v. 736-741) still further illustrates this subject. A woman laments, that she has left at home her apopyıs without being peeled (axonov), and she goes to peel it (arodeiptiv). The mallow no less than flax and hemp, would require the bark to be stript off, and doubtless the best time for stripping it is as soon as the plant is gathered.

II. Cratinus died about 420 B. C. The following line, from his comedy called Maxaxoi, represents a person spinning 'Aμopyós. Αμοργὸν ἔνδον βρυτίνην νήθειν τινα.

Cratina Fragmenta, a Runkel, p. 29. III. Julius Pollux, speaking of garments made of 'Apopyòs (L. vii. c. 13.) quotes the Medea of Antiphanes thus; "H x popyos. This author was contemporary with Aristophanes.

IV. Eupolis wrote about the same time, and his authority may be added to the rest as proving that garments of Amorgos were admired by luxurious persons at Athens*.

V. Clearchus of Solit mentions the use of a cover of Amorgos for inclosing a splendid purple blanket. This application of it is agreeable to the foregoing evidence, showing that the amorgine webs were transparent. The silky translucence of the lace-like web of mallow would have a very beautiful effect over the fine purple of the downy blanket.

VI. Æschines in an oration against Timarchus, the object of which is to hold up to contempt the extravagancies of this Athenian spendthrift, in his enumeration of them, he mentions (p. 118, ed. Reiskii.) that Timarchus took to his house "a woman skilled in making cloths of Amorgos."

See Harpocration, p. 29. ed. Blancardi. 1683. 4to. Also Pher. et Eupolidis Fragmenta, a Runkel, p. 150.

† Ap. Athenæum, L. vi. p. 255, Casaub. Clearchus probably wrote about 100 years later than the before-mentioned authors, but the circumstances related by him may have occurred about the time when those authors flourished, and even at Athens.

VII. Plato in the 13th Epistle, addressed to Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, which, if not genuine, is at least ancient, proposes to give to the three daughters of Cebes three long shifts, not the valuable shifts made of Amorgos, but the linen shifts of Sicily.

The mention of amorgine garments by the writers, who have now been cited, seems to prove, that the fashion of making and wearing them first came in among the Greeks at Athens in the time of Aristophanes, who lived, as the reader will have observed, in the fifth century before Christ. From them the fashion may have extended itself into Sicily and Italy, which will account, if Amorgina were the same with Molochina, for the striking agreement in this respect between the writers of Greek and of Latin Comedy. In subsequent ages the manufacture seems so have declined, probably in consequence of the abundance of silk and other rich and beautiful goods imported from Asia. But the mention of these stuffs in the writings of Isidore and Alcuin renders it probable, that they were brought again into use in the fifth and following centuries of the Christian era.

26

CHAPTER XIII.

SPARTUM, OR SPANISH BROOM.

CLOTH MANUFACTURED FROM BROOM BARK, NETTLE, AND BULBOUS PLANT.-TESTIMONY OF GREEK AND LATIN AUTHORS.

Authority for Spanish Broom-Stipa Tenacissima-Cloth made from Broombark-Albania-Italy-France-Mode of preparing the fibre for weavingPliny's account of Spartum-Bulbous plant-Its fibrous coats-Pliny's translation of Theophrastus-Socks and garments-Size of the bulb-Its genus or species not sufficiently defined-Remarks of various modern writers on this plant -Interesting communications of Dr. Daniel Stebbins, of Northampton, Mass. to Hon. H. L. Ellsworth.

PLINY says, that "in the part of Hispania Citerior about New Carthage whole mountains were covered with Spartum ; that the natives made mattresses, shoes, and coarse garments of it, also fires and torches; and that its tender tops were eaten by animals." He also says, that it grows spontaneously where nothing else will grow, and that it is "the rush of a dry soil."

The question now arises, what plant Pliny intended to describe. Clusius, who travelled in Spain chiefly with a view to botany, supposed Pliny's "Spartum" to be the tough grass, used in every part of Spain for making mats, baskets, &c., which Linnæus afterwards called Stipa Tenacissimat. It is not surprising, that the opinion of so eminent a botanist as Clusius has been generally adopted. It is, however, far more probable, that the plant, which Pliny intended to speak of, was the Spartium Junceum, Linn., so familiarly known under the name of Spanish Broom.

In the first place, the name Spartum should be considered as decisive of the question, unless some sufficient reason can be

* L. xix. c. 2.

+ Clusii Plant. Rar. Historia, L. vi. p. 219. 220.

shown for ascribing to it in this passage a sense different from that which it commonly bore. Spartus or Spartum, is admitted to be used by all authors, Greek and Latin, and even by Pliny himself in another passage, to denote the Spanish Broom. We learn from Sibthorp, that the Spanish Broom is still called Sparto by the Greeks, and that it grows on dry sandy hills throughout the islands of the Archipelago and the continent of Greece. Sparto was indeed properly the Greek name of this shrub, the Latin name being Genista, and the use of the Greek name in Hispania Citerior may have been owing to the Grecian settlements on that coast, colonized from Marseilles.

Besides the passages of Latin authors referred to by Schneider and Billerbeck, and which it is unnecessary to repeat, the following from Isidore of Seville appears decisive respecting the acceptation of the term.

"Spartus frutex virgosus sine foliis, ab asperitate vocatus; volumina enim funium, quæ ex eo fiunt, aspera sunt." Originum L. xvii. c. 9.

This is the definition of a learned and observant author, who lived in Spain, and who must have been familiar with the facts. "Frutex virgosus sine foliis" is a clear and striking description of the Spanish Broom, the leaves of which are so small as easily to escape observationt. The Stipa Tenacissi ma, on the other hand, is not a shrub with twigs, but a grass, which grows in tufts, the long leaves being as abundant and useful as the stems or straws. Clusius himself (l. c.) in laying down the distinction between the Spartum of the Greeks, which he supposed to be the Spanish Broom, and the Spartum of Pliny, which he supposed to be the Stipa Tenacissima, asserts that the former is a shrub (fruter), the latter a herb with grassy leaves (herba graminacea folia proferens). It is clear, therefore, that the inhabitants of Spain in the time of Isidore

See L. xi. 8. where Pliny says, that bees obtain honey and wax from "Spartum," and compare this with Aristotle, Hist. Anim. L. x. 40.

+ Dioscorides also describes the Spanish Broom to be "a shrub bearing long twigs without leaves." Isidore's etymology, deducing Spartus from Asper, is manifestly absurd.