396 Dr. Parry's Essay on the Nature, Produce, Origin, 



Varro,* Columella.t Pliny.;]; Martial.J Palladius,|| Petronius,^ and Calpurnius 

 Siculus** agree in stating that the sheep which were generally understood as pro- 

 ducing the finest v/ool in the Roman dominions were those of Apulia and 

 Calabria. Columella however speaks of the wool of the Altinates, in the vicinity of 

 the Po in Cisalpine Gaul, as more valuable than that of Italy; tt and Pliny 

 himself acknowledges that in his time no wool was sold dearer than that in the 

 neighbourhood of the river Po. He adds that the price of wool had never ex- 

 ceeded a hundred sestertii the libra or pound.JJ Now the Roman sestertius 

 being about seven farthings and three quarters of our money, and the libra about 

 5245 grains, it follows that an avoirdupois pound, or 7008 grains of this wool, 

 would have cost about £ i. is. jd. of our money. This price shews the estimation 

 in which fine wool was then held; and must have operated as a sufficiently strong 

 motive to introduce, maintain, or improve, by all possible means, any sort of sheep 

 which would furnish this rich commodity. 



At that very time, according to various ancient authors, Spain itself was not 

 without valuable breeds of sheep. But these breeds were memorable only for two 

 points, one of which was their being what was called " nativae,"^^ or bearing fleeces 

 which were naturally of different tints. At a time when the art of dying was little 

 understood, it was certainly no small merit in wool to be capable of being manu- 

 factured into cloths of various colours without that difficult and expensive process- 

 Columella, himself a Spaniard, speaking, in the passage already alluded to, of the 

 sheep of Boetica in Corduba, which was the province of Andalusia in Spaiii> 



* Varron. lib. ii. cap. 2. 



t Generis eximii Milesias, Calabras, Appulasque, nostri existimabant, earumque optimas Taren- 

 tinas. Columella: lib. vii. cap. 2. 



t Lana autem laudatissima Apula, et qua in Italia Graeci pecoris appellatur, circa Tarentum 

 sum;T)am nobilitatem habent. Hist. Natur. lib, viii. § 73. 



§ Se Laced.'enionio velat toga lota Galeso. Martial. Epigram, lib. ii. 43. 



II November, ^ XIII. 



fl Arietes a Tarento emit, et eos curavit in gregem. Petronii Arbit. cap. xxxviil. 



* * Totque Tarentinx proestant mihi vellera matres. T. Calpurnii Siculi Ecloga II. lin. 69. 

 tf Nunc Gallica; pretiosiores habeiitur, earumque prsecipue Altinates. -Columell. vii. 2. 



II Alba Circumpadanis nulla prxfertur; ncc libra ccntenos nummos ad hoc asvi cxcessit uUa. 

 Hist. Natur. viii. 73. 



§§ Quas nativas appellant, aliquot modis Hispania. Ibidem. 



