BOOK XIX. II. 9-II 



ncar the Alia district and Faenza on the Aemilian 

 Road. The Faenza Unens are prcferred for \\lii1e- 

 ness to those of Alia, whicli are always unbleached, 

 but those of Retovium arc supremely fine in texture 

 and substance and are as white as the Faventia, but 

 have no nap, which quahty counts in their favour with 

 some people but puts off others. This flax makes a 

 tough thread having a quality almost more uniform 

 than that of a spider's wcb, and giving a twang whcn 

 you choose to test it with your teeth ; consequently 

 it is twice the pi*ice of the other kinds. 



And after these it is Hither Spain that has a linen of Fiax of 

 special kistre, due to the outstanding quaUty of a y^amrania 

 stream that washes the city of Tarragon, in the waters /'"" "«■'*■ 

 of wliich it is dressed ; also its fineness is marveUous, 

 'iarragon being the place where cambrics were first 

 invented. From the same province of Spain Zoela 

 Hax has recently been imported into Italy, a flax 

 specially useful for hunting-nets ; Zoela is a city of 

 Gallaecia near the Atlantic coast. The flax of Cumae 

 in Campania also has a reputation of its own for nets for 

 fishing and fowUng, and it is also used as a material 

 for making hunting-nets : in fact we use flax to lav no 

 less insidious snares for the whole of the animal king- 

 dom than for ourselves ! But the Cumae nets will 

 cut the bristles of a boar and even turn the edge of a 

 steel knife ; and we have seen before now netting of 

 such fine texture that it could be passed through a 

 man's ring, with running tackle and all, a single 

 person carrying an amount of net sufficient to en- 

 circle a wood ! Nor is this the most remarkable thing 

 about it, but the fact that cach string of these nettings 

 consists of 150 threads, as recently made for Fulvius 

 Lupus who died in the office of governor of Egypt. 



427 



