Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/271

 We cannot survey the now deserted Iscuria without observing, what a mournful contrast the Euxine presents under the sway of both Russia and Turkey to the useful energy, which more than 2000 years ago promoted life and the arts of life, and brought into close and peaceful contact the most refined and the most uncultivated nations, under the direction of the Ionians of Miletus. The beauty, the bravery, the activity, and the independence of a highland clan still represent the skill and enterprize of the ancient Coraxi; but the commerce, which rewarded their industry, and extended their reputation through the civilized world, has sunk into insignificance.

Besides the above notices of the Coraxi in Strabo and Tzetzes we find little said concerning the breeding of sheep in this part of Asia. Aristotle, however, mentions the sheep of "Pontus near Scythia," and says that they were without horns. The Melanchlæni also, who are mentioned by Herodotus in his account of the Scythian tribes, and who lived to the north of the Coraxi, were so called, because they wore black palls.

There can be no doubt, that the use and management of sheep were known from the earliest times throughout nearly the whole of Asia Minor, and that some nations in this region had attained to a superiority in the art before the settlement in it of the Grecian colonists.

The imagery of the Homeric poems (supposed to be written about 900 B. C.) affords abundant evidence of these facts. They continually mention shepherds, who had the care of sheep, as well as goat-herds, who managed goats. They speak of the folds, in which the flocks were secured at night to preserve them from the attacks of wild beasts. The dangers to which the flocks were exposed from both wolves and lions, are in accordance with similar expressions and incidents in the Scriptures of the Old Testament, arising from the existence of the same ravenous and destructive quadrupeds in Palestine. Also, the language both of the Scriptures and of the Homeric poems is precisely the same, in which the king, ruling his people is compared to the shepherd tending his flock, or to the