As flaps the cotton, spread above our heads
In the vast theatres from mast to beam.
We now find frequent mention of cotton by the poets of the Augustan age and by many subsequent writers. As in the case of silk, these authors introduce cotton, not only historically, but for the purpose of embellishment; and, considering Carbasus as a poetical term, they often by a catachresis employ it where they mean to speak of linen. Also as was before observed in regard to silk (Part I. chapter II.), it may likewise be noticed here, that the wars against Mithridates and the Parthians may have contributed to make the Romans familiar with the use of cotton, although their chief supply of it was more probably through Egypt, than through Persia and Babylonia.
Catullus (64.), speaking of the black sail which Ægeus furnished for the ships of his son Theseus, calls it “Carbasus Ibera,” “an Iberian sail.” As, on the one hand, he here uses the proper term for cotton, without intending to describe the sail as cotton, so on the other hand he calls the sail Iberian merely because Iberia was a country adjoining Colchis, and from Colchis (as will be shown in Part IV.) the Greeks and Romans obtained a great supply of flax and sail-cloth.
Tibullus, or Lygdamus, entreats (iii. 2. 17.), in the contemplation of his death and funeral, that after his bones have been washed, first with wine, and then with milk, they may be dried “carbaseis veils,” with linen napkins. Although he uses the proper term for cotton, he probably did not intend to denote any preference for cotton rather than linen. His bones, after being wiped, were to be deposited in a marble urn.
Propertius seems to have aimed at a display of knowledge on these subjects (see [Part First, chapter II.]); and in the following passage (iv. 3.) he probably used Carbasa in its proper sense, as he is referring to Eastern habits:
Raptave odorata carbasa lina duci.
Muslins taken among the spoils from a scented general.
In the last Elegy of the same Book he refers to the story of the young Vestal virgin, who, when the flame was extinguished upon the altar committed to her care, and when the scourge appeared to await her for her neglect, threw upon the ashes a fillet of muslin from her head, and saved her life by its ignition, which was supposed to be effected by the favor of the goddess:
Vel cui, commissos cum Vesta reposceret ignes,