This pleases boys, and whose is blood to shed.
[333] It appears from this epigram that, when shaken, it had the color of the brown wool of Canusium, a kind of drab. The lacerna was a mantle, which the Romans wore out of doors over their white toga, with which it was well contrasted, whether it was purple, scarlet, or brown; but the last color, though less showy at first, must have had the advantage of durability. See [Appendix A].
On referring to the passages produced from Pliny, Columella, and Martial, it will be seen that the Romans ascribed a very high value to the white wool of Gallia Cisalpina, i. e. of North Italy, or the region about the Po. Parma was considered second only to Apulia for the whiteness of its wool. Besides the two epigrams of Martial already cited, he refers to Parma as a great place for sheep-breeding in the following passage, addressed to the wealthy Callistratus:
And Gallic Parma shears thy num’rous flocks.
L. v. ep. 13.
Columella speaks moreover (l. c.) of the superiority of the wool of Mutina, now Modena; and Martial (l. v. ep. 105.) mentions the circumstance of a fuller, or clothier, in that city having exhibited a show to the public, which is a presumptive evidence that he had a great business in manufacturing the produce of the surrounding country.
Strabo in his account of the productions of Cisalpine Gaul divides the wool into three kinds; First, the soft kind, of which the finest varieties were grown about Mutina and the river Scutana, which is the modern Scultenna, a tributary of the Po, rising in the Apennines; Secondly, the coarse kind, grown in Liguria and the country of the Insubres, which was very much used for the common wearing apparel of the Italians; and Thirdly, the middle kind, grown about Patavium (now Padua) and employed for making valuable carpets and various descriptions of blankets[334]. By comparing the statements of this author with those of Columella and Martial it will appear, that the whole region watered by the parallel rivers Parma, Gabellus, and Scultenna, and known by the name of Macri Campi, or the Barren Plains, was esteemed for the production of the fine white wool.
[334] Strabo, L. v. c. 1. § 12. p. 119. ed. Siebenkees.
That the tending of both sheep and goats was a principal occupation of the people of Mantua we learn from Virgil, a native of that city, who places the scene of most of his pastorals in its vicinity. His First and Ninth Eclogues more particularly relate to the calamities, which the Mantuans were compelled to sustain, when Augustus seized on their lands to reward his veteran soldiers after the battle of Philippi. These eclogues mention flocks both of sheep and goats, and show that those who had the care of them cultivated music and poetry after the manner of the Sicilians. The commencement of the Seventh Eclogue is especially instructive, because it gives us reason to believe, that while many of the Arcadians left their country in consequence of that excess of population, to which mountainous regions are subject, in order to become foreign mercenaries, others, on the contrary, entered into foreign service as shepherds and goatherds, and in this condition not only made themselves useful by their experience, skill, and fidelity, but also introduced at the same time their native music together with that refinement of manners and feelings which it promoted. The poet thus describes two such individuals, who had been employed in tending flocks upon the banks of the Mincius (l. 12, 13), and who were either born in Arcadia, or were at least of Arcadian origin.
Two blooming swains had join’d their flocks in one,