Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/426

 Setabis et telas Arabum sprevisse superba Et Pelusiaco filum componere lino.

Silius Ital. iii. 373.

Nam sudaria Setaba ex Hiberis Miserunt mihi muneri Fabullus Et Veranius.—Catullus, xx. 14.

Hispanæque alio spectantur Setabis usu.

Gratius Faliscus, l. 41.

Pliny also mentions a kind of flax, called Zoelicum, from a place in Gallicia.

Strabo (iv. 2. 2. p. 41. ed. Sieb.) particularly mentions the linen manufacture of the Cadurci: and from them the Romans obtained the best ticking for beds, which was on this account called Cadurcum.

Flax, as we are told by Pliny (xix. 1.), was ''woven into sail-*cloth in all parts of Gaul''; and, in some of the countries beyond the Rhine, the most beautiful apparel of the ladies was linen. Tacitus states that the women of Germany wore linen sheets over their other clothing.

Jerome mentions the shirts of the Atrebates as one of the luxuries of his day, and his notice of them seems to show, that they were conveyed as an article of merchandize even into Asia.

Whether the manufactures of the Atrebates were equal to the modern Cambric we cannot say; but, supposing the garments in question to have been linen, it is remarkable that this manufacture should have flourished in Artois for 1800 years.

The following translation of a passage from Eginhart's LifeLatin, Linum; Slavonian, Len; Lithuanian, Linnai; Lettish, Linni; German, Lein; French, Suio; Gothic, and Anglo-Saxon, Lin; Welsh, Llin.]