Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/273

 ed. Bip.) mentions the wool of Laodicea (See Appendix A.) in Caria; and Strabo (xii. c. 7. p. 578. Casaub.) observes, that the country about this city and Colossæ, which was not far from it, produced sheep highly valued on account of the fineness and the color of their fleeces.

Aristophanes mentions a pall, made of "Phrygian fleeces :" and Varro asserts, that in his time there were many flocks of wild sheep in Phrygia.

The passages above quoted from Strabo and Joannes Tzetzes allude to the very great celebrity of the wool of Miletus and of the articles woven from it.

The passages, which will now be produced from both Greek and Latin authors of various ages, conspire to prove the distinguished excellence of the wool of Miletus, although in many of them the epithet Milesian may be employed only in a proverbial acceptation to denote wool of the finest quality. The animals, which yielded this wool, must have been bred in the interior of Ionia not far from Miletus.

Ctesias describes the softness of camels'-hair by comparing it to Milesian fleeces. A woman in Aristophanes (Lysist. 732.) says, she must go home to spread her Milesian fleeces on the couch, because the worms were gnawing them. In a fragment of a Greek comedy, called Procris, of a somewhat later age (ap. Athen. l. xii. p. 553), a favorite lap-dog is described, lying on Milesian fleeces;

[Greek: Thykoun hypostoreite malakôs tô kyni; Katô men hypobaleite tôn Milêsiôn Eriôn].

Therefore make a soft bed for the dog: throw down for him Milesian fleeces.

The Sybarites wore shawls of Milesian wool. Palæphatus explains the fable of the Hesperides by saying, that their father Hesperus was a Milesian, and that they had beautiful sheep, such as those which were still kept at Miletus. Eustathius says, the "Milesian carpets " had become proverbial. Virgil