Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/412

 *planation. This was indeed the general opinion of learned men, until J. R. Forster advanced the position, that ''Byssus was cotton''. A careful examination of the question confirms the correctness of the old opinions, and for the following reasons.

I. The earliest author, who uses the term, is Æschylus. He represents Antigone wearing a shawl or sheet of fine flax. In the Bacchæ of Euripides (l. 776.) the same garment, which was distinctive of the female sex, is introduced under the same denomination. We cannot suppose, that dramatic writers would mention in plays addressed to a general audience clothing of any material with which they were not familiarly acquainted. But the Greeks in the time of Æschylus and Euripides knew little or nothing of cotton. They had, however, been long supplied with fine linen from Egypt and Phœnice; and the [Greek: byssinon peplôma] of Antigone is the same article of female attire with the [Greek: argennai othonai] of Helen, described by Homer. Indeed Æschylus himself in two other passages calls the same garment linen. In the Coephoræ (l. 25, 26.) the expressions, [Greek: Linophthoroi d' hyphasmatôn lakides] and [Greek: Prosternoi stolmoi peplôn], describe the rents, expressive of sorrow, which were made in the linen veil or shawl ([Greek: peplos]) of an Oriental woman. In the Supplices (l. 120.) the leader of the chorus says, she often tears her linen, or her Sidonian veil.

II. The next author in point of time, and one of the first in point of importance, is Herodotus. In his account of the mode of making mummies, he says (l. ii. c. 86.) the embalmed body was enveloped in cotton. But the fillets or bandages of the mummies are proved by microscopic observations to be universally linen; at least all the specimens have been found to be linen, which have been submitted to this, the only decisive test.

III. Herodotus also states (vii. 181.), that a man, wounded in an engagement, had his torn limbs bound [Greek: sindonos byssinês telamôsi]. Now, supposing that the persons concerned had their choice between linen and cotton, there can be no doubt that they would choose linen as most suitable for such a purpose. Cotton, when applied to wounds, irritates them. Julius Pollux men-*