BOOK VIII. Lxxiii. 191-193 



black wool fleeces, PoUentia jiear the Alps white, 

 Asia the i*ecl fleeces that they call Erythrean, 

 Baetica the same, Canossa tawny, Taranto also a dark 

 colour of its own. AU fresh fleeces have a medicinal 

 property. Istrian and Liburnian fleece is nearer to hair 

 than wool, and not suitable for garments with a soft 

 nap : nixl the same applies to the fleece that Salacia 

 in Lusitania advertises by its check pattern. There 

 is a similar wool in the district of the Fishponds in the 

 province of Narbonne, and also in Egypt, which is 

 used for darning clothes worn by use and making 

 them last again for a long period. Also the coarse 

 hair of a shaggy fleece has a very ancient popularity 

 in carpets : Homer " is evidence that they were un- 

 doubtedly in use even in very early times. Diff"erent 

 methods of dyeing these fleeces are practised by the 

 Gaiils and by the Parthian races. Self-felted fleeces 

 make clothing, and also if vinegar is added withstand 

 even steel, nay more even fire, the latest method 

 of cleaning them. In fact fleeces drawn from the 

 coppers of the pohshers serve as stuffing for cushions, 

 I beheve by a French invention : at all events at the 

 present day it is classified under GalUc names. And 

 I could not easily say at what period this began ; for 

 people in old times had bedding of straw, in the same 

 vvay as in camp now. Frieze cloaks began within my 

 father's memory and cloaks with hair on both sides 

 within my own, as also shaggy body-belts ; moreover 

 weaving a broad-striped tunic after the manner of a 

 frieze cloak is coming in for the first time now. 

 Black fleeces will not take dye of any colour ; we 

 will discuss the dyeing of the other sorts in their 

 proper places under the head of marine shellfish ^" 

 or the Jiature of various plants.* 



^35 



