[260] It appears not impossible, that, when Theocritus in Idyll. iii. 46, represents Adonis as “tending flocks upon the mountains,” he may have referred to the mountains of Phrygia or of Ionia. For in another Idyll. (i. 105-110,) he seems to connect the love of Venus for Adonis with her love for Anchises, as if the scene of both were in the same region. Among the various accounts of Adonis, one makes him the offspring of Smyrna; and Cinyras, the father of Adonis, is said to have founded the city of Smyrna in Ionia, calling it by that name after his daughter. (Hyginus, Fab. 58 and 275.) This supposition accounts most satisfactorily for the production of the beautiful elegy on the death of Adonis by Bion, who was a native of Smyrna.
The historical evidence to which we now proceed, though referring to times much posterior to the mythological, is more exact as well as more entitled to absolute credit.
According to Strabo the branches of Mount Taurus in Pisidia were rich in pastures “for all kinds of cattle[261].” The chief town of this region was Selge, a very flourishing city, and hence Tertullian, in a passage, mentions “oves Selgicæ,” Selgic sheep, among those of the greatest celebrity. The superior whiteness of the fleeces of Pamphylia is mentioned by Philostratus.
[261] Lib. xii. c. 7, § 3.
We have reason to believe, that the Lydians and Carians bestowed the greatest attention on sheep-breeding and on the woollen manufacture before the arrival of the Greek colonists among them. The new settlers adopted the employments of the ancient inhabitants, and made those employments subservient to a very extensive and lucrative trade. Pliny (viii. 73. 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[262]:” and Varro asserts, that in his time there were many flocks of wild sheep in Phrygia[263].
[262] Aves, 492.
[263] De Re Rusticâ, ii. 1.
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.