Delphi Complete Works of Pliny the Elder

by Pliny the Elder

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  CHAP. 74.

  DIFFERENT KINDS OF CLOTHS.

  Varro informs us, he himself having been an eye-witness, that in the temple of Sancus, the wool was still preserved on the distaff and spindle of Tanaquil, who was also called Caia Cæ- cilia; and he says that the royal waved toga, formerly worn by Servius Tullius, and now in the temple of Fortune, was made by her. Hence was derived the custom, on the marriage of a young woman, of carrying in the procession a dressed distaff and a spindle, with the thread arranged upon it. Tanaquil was the first who wove the straight tunic, such as our young people wear with the white toga; newly-married women also. Waved garments were at first the most esteemed of all: after which those composed of various colours came into vogue. Fenestella informs us, that togas with a smooth surface, as well as the Phryxian togas, began to be used in the latter part of the reign of Augustus. Thick stuffs, in the preparation of which the poppy was used, are of more ancient date, being mentioned by the poet Lucilius, in his lines on Torquatus. The prætexta had its origin among the Etrurians. I find that the trabea was first worn by the kings; embroidered garments are mentioned by Homer, and in this class originated the triumphal robes. The Phrygians first used the needle for this purpose, and hence this kind of garment obtained the name of Phrygionian. King Attalus, who also lived in Asia, invented the art of embroidering with gold, from which these garments have been called Attalic. Babylon was very famous for making embroidery in different colours, and hence stuffs of this kind have obtained the name of Babylonian. The method of weaving cloth with more than two threads was in- vented at Alexandria; these cloths are called polymita; it was in Gaul that they were first divided into chequers. Metellus Scipio, in the accusation which he brought against Cato, stated that even in his time Babylonian covers for couches were selling for eight hundred thousand sesterces, and these of late, in the time of the Emperor Nero, had risen to four millions. The prætextæ of Servius Tullius, with which the statue of Fortune, dedicated by him, was covered, lasted until the death of Sejanus; and it is a remarkable fact, that, during a period of five hundred and sixty years, they had never become tattered, or received injury from moths. I myself have seen the fleece upon the living animal dyed purple, scarlet, and violet, — a pound and a half of dye being used for each, — just as though they had been produced by Nature in this form, to meet the demands of luxury.

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  CHAP. 75.

  THE DIFFERENT SHAPES OF SHEEP; THE MUSMON.

  In the sheep, it is considered a proof of its being of a very fair breed, when the legs are short, and the belly is covered with wool; when this part is bare, they used to be called apicæ, and were looked upon as worthless. The tail of the Syrian sheep is a cubit in length, and it is upon that part that most of the wool is found. It is considered too early to castrate lambs before they are five months old. (49.) There is in Spain, and more especially in Corsica, a peculiar kind of animal called the musmon, not very unlike a sheep, but with a fleece which more resembles the hair of the goat than the wool of the sheep. The ancients gave the name of umbri to the breed between this animal and the sheep. The head of the sheep is the weakest part of all, on which account it is obliged, when it feeds, to turn away from the sun. The animals which are covered with wool are the most stupid of all. When they are afraid to enter any place, if one is only dragged into it by the horns, all the rest will follow. The longest duration of their life is ten years; but in Æthiopia it is thirteen. Goats live in that country eleven years, but in other parts of the world mostly eight years only. Both of these animals require to be covered not more than four times to ensure conception.

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  CHAP. 76. (50.)

  GOATS AND THEIR PROPAGATION.

  The goat occasionally brings forth as many as four at a birth; but this is rarely the case. It is pregnant five months, like the sheep. Goats become barren when very fat. There is little advantage to be derived from their bringing forth before their third year, or after the fourth, when they begin to grow old. They are capable of generating in the seventh month, and while they are still sucking. In both sexes those that have no horns are considered the most valuable. A single coupling in the day is not sufficient; the second and the following ones are more effectual. They conceive in the month of November, so as to bring forth in the month of March, when the buds are bursting; this is sometimes the case with them when only one year old, and always with those of the second year; but the produce of those which are three years old is the most valuable. They continue to bring forth for a period of eight years. Cold produces abortion. When their eyes are surcharged, the female discharges the blood from the eye by pricking it with the point of a bulrush, and the male with the thorn of a bramble.

  Mutianus relates an instance of the intelligence of this animal, of which he himself was an eye-witness. Two goats, coming from opposite directions, met on a very narrow bridge, which would not admit of either of them turning round, and in consequence of its great length, they could not safely go backwards, there being no sure footing on account of its narrowness, while at the same time an impetuous torrent was rapidly rushing beneath; accordingly, one of the animals lay down flat, while the other walked over it.

  Among the males, those are the most esteemed which have flat noses and long hanging ears, the shoulders being covered with very thick shaggy hair; the mark of the most valuable among the females is the having two folds hanging down the body from under the neck. Some of these animals have no horns; but where there are horns, the age of the animal is denoted by the number of knots on them. Those that have no horns give the most milk. According to Archelaus, they breathe, not through the nose, but the ears, and they are never entirely free from fever, from which circumstance it is, probably, that they are more animated than sheep, more ardent, and have stronger sexual passions. It is said also, that they have the power of seeing by night as well as in the day, for which reason those persons who are called Nyctalopes, recover the power of seeing in the evening, by eating the liver of the he-goat. In Cilicia, and in the vicinity of the Syrtes, the inhabitants shear the goat for the purpose of clothing themselves. It is said that the she-goats in the pastures will never look at each other at sun-set, but lie with their backs towards one another, while at other times of the day they lie facing each other and in family groups. They all have long hair hanging down from the chin, which is called by us aruncus. If any one of the flock is taken hold of and dragged by this hair, all the rest gaze on in stupid astonishment; and the same happens when any one of them has eaten of a certain herb Their bite is very destructive to trees, and they make the olive barren by licking it; for which reason they are not sacrificed to Minerva.

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  CHAP. 77. (51.)

  THE HOG.

  The period for coupling the hog lasts from the return of the west wind to the vernal equinox; the proper age commences in the eighth month, indeed, in some places, in the fourth even, and continues until the eighth year They bring forth twice in the year, the time of gestation being four months; the number at a birth amounts to twenty even, but they cannot rear so large a number. Nigidius informs us, that those which are produced within ten days of the winter solstice are born with teeth. One coupling is sufficient, but it is repeated, on account of their extreme liability to abortion; the remedy for which is not to allow coupling the first time the female is in heat, nor until its ears are flaccid and pendant. The males do not generate after they are three years old. When the females become feeble from old age, they receive the males lying down. It is not looked upon as anything portentous when they eat their young. The young of the hog is considered in a state of purity for sacrifice when five days old, the lamb on the seventh day, and the calf on the thirtieth. Coruncanius asserts, that ruminant animals are not proper for victims until they have two teeth. It has been supposed, that when a pig has lost one eye, it will not live long; otherwise, t
hese animals generally live up to fifteen, or sometimes twenty years. They sometimes become mad; besides which, they are liable to other diseases, especially to quinsy and to scrofula. It is an indication that the hog is diseased, when blood is found at the root of a bristle pulled from its back, and when it holds its head on one side while walking. When the female becomes too fat, she has a deficiency of milk; the first litter is always the least numerous. Animals of this kind delight in rolling in the mud. The tail is curled, and it has also been remarked, that those are a more acceptable offering to the gods, whose tail is turned to the right than those which have it turned to the left. They may be fattened in sixty days, and more especially if they have been kept without food for three days before fattening. The swine is by far the most brutish of all the animals, and it has been said, and not unaptly, that life has been given them in place of salt. And yet it has been known, that these animals, when carried away by thieves, have recognized the voice of their keeper; and when a vessel has been under water through the inclination of one of its sides, they have had the sense to go over to the other side. The leader of the herd will even learn to go to market, and to different houses in the city. In the wild state also, they have the sense to pass their urine in plashy places, that they may destroy all traces of them, and so lighten themselves for flight. The female is spayed, just as is done with the camel; after they have fasted two days, they are suspended by the hind feet, and the orifice of the womb is cut; after this operation, they fatten more quickly.

  M. Apicius made the discovery, that we may employ the same artificial method of increasing the size of the liver of the sow, as of that of the goose; it consists in cramming them with dried figs, and when they are fat enough, they are drenched with wine mixed with honey, and immediately killed. There is no animal that affords a greater variety to the palate of the epicure; all the others have their own peculiar flavour, but the flesh of the hog has nearly fifty different flavours. Hence it is, that there are whole pages of regulations made by the cen- sors, forbidding the serving up at banquets of the belly, the kernels, the testicles, the womb, and the cheeks. However, notwithstanding all this, the poet Publius, the author of the Mimes, when he ceased to be a slave, is said to have given no entertainment without serving up the belly of a sow, to which he also gave the name of “sumen.”

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  CHAP. 78.

  THE WILD BOAR; WHO WAS THE FIRST TO ESTABLISH PARKS FOR WILD ANIMALS.

  The flesh of the wild boar is also much esteemed. Cato, the Censor, in his orations, strongly declaimed against the use of the brawn of the wild boar. The animal used to be divided into three portions, the middle part of which was laid by, and is called boar’s chine. P. Servilius Rullus was the first Roman who served up a whole boar at a banquet; the father of that Rullus, who, in the consulship of Cicero, proposed the Agrarian law. So recent is the introduction of a thing which is now in daily use. The Annalists have taken notice of such a fact as this, clearly as a hint to us to mend our manners; seeing that now-a-days two or three boars are consumed, not at one entertainment, but as forming the first course only.

  (52.) Fulvius Lupinus was the first Roman who formed parks for the reception of these and other wild animals: he first fed them in the territory of Tarquinii: it was not long, however, that imitators were found in L. Lucullus and Q. Hortensius. The wild sow brings forth once only in the year. The males are very fierce during the rutting time; they fight with each other, having first hardened their sides by rubbing them against the trees, and covered themselves with mud. The females, as is the case with animals of every kind, become more fierce just after they have brought forth. The wild boar is not capable of generating before the first year. The wild boar of India has two curved teeth, projecting from beneath the muzzle, a cubit in length; and the same number projecting from the forehead, like the horns of the young bull. The hair of these animals, in a wild state, is the eclour of copper, the others are black. No species whatever of the swine is found in Arabia.

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  CHAP. 79. (53.)

  ANIMALS IN A HALF-WILD STATE.

  In no species is the union with the wild animal so easy as in that of the swine; the produce of such unions was called by the ancients hybrid, or half savage; which appellation has also been transferred to the human race, as it was to C. Antonius, the colleague of Cicero in his consulship. Not only, however, with respect to the hog, but all other animals as well, wherever there is a tame species, there is a corresponding wild one as well; a fact which is equally true with reference to man himself, as is proved by the many races of wild men of which we have already spoken. There is no kind of animal, however, that is divided into a greater number of varieties than the goat. There are the capræa, the rupicapra or rock-goat, and the ibex, an animal of wonderful swiftness, although its head is loaded with immense horns, which bear a strong resemblance to the sheath of a sword. By means of these horns the animal balances itself, when it darts along the rocks, as though it had been hurled from a sling; more especially when it wishes to leap from one eminence to another. There are the oryges also, which are said to be the only animals that have the hair the contrary way, the points being turned towards the head. There are the dama also, the pygargus, and the strepsiceros, besides many others which strongly resemble them. The first mentioned of these animals, however, dwell in the Alps; all the others are sent to us from the parts beyond sea.

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  CHAP. 80. (54.)

  APES.

  The different kinds of apes, which approach the nearest to the human figure, are distinguished from each other by the tail. Their shrewdness is quite wonderful. It is said that, imitating the hunters, they will besmear themselves with bird-lime, and put their feet into the shoes, which, as so many snares, have been prepared for them. Mucianus says, that they have even played at chess, having, by practice, learned to distinguish the different pieces, which are made of wax. He says that the species which have tails become quite melancholy when the moon is on the wane, and that they leap for joy at the time of the new moon, and adore it. Other quadrupeds also are terrified at the eclipses of the heavenly bodies. All the species of apes manifest remarkable affection for their offspring. Females, which have been domesticated, and have had young ones, carry them about and shew them to all comers, shew great delight when they are caressed, and appear to understand the kindness thus shewn them. Hence it is, that they very often stifle their young with their embraces. The dog’s-headed ape is of a much fiercer nature, as is the case with the satyr. The callitriche has almost a totally different aspect; it has a beard on the face, and a tail, which in the first part of it is very bushy. It is said that this animal cannot live except in the climate of Æthiopia, which is its native place.

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  CHAP. 81. (55.)

  THE DIFFERENT SPECIES OF HARES.

  There are also numerous species of hares. Those in the Alps are white, and it is believed that, during the winter, they live upon snow for food; at all events, every year, as the snow melts, they acquire a reddish colour; it is, moreover, an animal which is capable of existing in the most severe climates. There is also a species of hare, in Spain, which is called the rabbit; it is extremely prolific, and produces famine in the Balearic islands, by destroying the harvests. The young ones, either when cut from out of the body of the mother, or taken from the breast, without having the entrails removed, are considered a most delicate food; they are then called laurices. It is a well-known fact, that the inhabitants of the Balearic islands begged of the late Emperor Augustus the aid of a number of soldiers, to prevent the too rapid increase of these animals. The ferret is greatly esteemed for its skill in catching them. It is thrown into the burrows, with their numerous outlets, which the rabbits form, and from which circumstance they derive their name, and as it drives them out, they are taken above. Archelaus informs us, that in the hare, the number of cavernous receptacles i
n the body for the excrements always equals that of its years; but still the numbers are sometimes found to differ. He says also, that the same individual possesses the characteristics of the two sexes, and that it becomes pregnant just as well without the aid of the male. It is a kind provision of Nature, in making animals which are both harmless and good for food, thus prolific. The hare, which is preyed upon by all other animals, is the only one, except the dasypus, which is capable of superfœtation; while the mother is suckling one of her young, she has another in the womb covered with hair, another without any covering at all, and another which is just beginning to be formed. Attempts have been made to form a kind of stuff of the hair of these animals; but it is not so soft as when attached to the skin, and, in consequence of the shortness of the hairs, soon falls to pieces.

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