124 -^^ ^' H* 



Corsica fupplled timber for {hip-building. 



Sardinia had feme mines of filver ; tmd it had corn and cattle to 

 fpare for the ufe of the capital. 



Sicily, which the poets thought proper to make the birth-place and 

 refidence of Ceres, their goddefs of agriculture, and which Cicero calls 

 the granary and treafury of the empire, furnhhed Rome with vaft quan- 

 tities of wine, honey, whereof that of Hybla was eminently famous, fait, 

 faffron, cheefe, cattle, hides, pigeons, (for the Romans were great 

 pigeon-fanciers *) corals, and emeralds. But all thefe were trifling, if 

 compared to the prodigious quantities of wheat exported from this 

 noble ifland, which, before it fell under the dominion of Rome, has, 

 upon fome occafions, even fupplied the temporary deficiency of corn, 

 in fo fertile a country as Egypt. 



The inhabitants of Melita, (Mali a) who weve a Carthaginian colony, 

 carried on a confiderable manufadure of very fine white cloth, called 

 linen, by fome authors, and woollen, by others. As the Romans called 

 cotton the wool of trees, and the ifland produces cotton of a mofl 

 excellent quality in the prefent day, there can be little doubt that 

 thefe fine cloths were calicos, or muflins. The houfes of Melita were 

 difl:inguiflied by their elegance, the comfortable fruits of fuccefsful 

 indufl:ry. 



Greece furniflied honey, and particularly a remarkably fine kind 

 from Attica. Lacedsemon fent its beautiful green marble, and the dye 

 of the purple fliell-fifti ; and Elis furniftied its fine fl:uflr called byflinus, 

 probably of the nature of cambric, which ufed to fell for its weight in 

 gold f . 



Many of the Grecian islands produced excellent marble : Paros was 

 particularly celebrated for the kind fo well known by its name, and fo 

 valuable to statuaries, for its pure and uniform white colour, and its ex- 

 emption from the fparkles, which, by giving a falfe light, injure the ef- 

 fect in fl:atues made of other marbles. Samos fl:ill excelled in manufac- 

 tures of fine earthen-ware. Lemnos furniflied the befl; vermilion, (fino- 

 }Ms) which fold at Rome for thirteen denarii (8/4-|- fl:erling) a pound. 

 Cos manufadured an inferior kind of filk, faid to be produced by worms 

 of a fpecies different from the genuine filk-worms, which, from the 

 cenfures on its indecent tranfparency, feems to have been like the mo- 

 dern farcenets, or perfians. 



From Thrace were imported great quantities of corn, and faked tun- 

 nies, which abound in the Euxine fea. 



Colchis produced wool of an excellent quality, and far more valuable 

 than the golden fleece, which Jafon and his companions are faid to have 



• Alius, r Roman knijjlit, fold a pair of pijreons for four hundred denarii, equal to ^12 : 18:4 

 ftcrling. [^ytibulhnol't Tables sf ancient coins, tsfc. p. 129.J 



■j i>ec an attempt to explain the nature of byflinui, fen'cum, &c. ander tke year 73. 



