(See [Part 1, chap. iii. p. 59].)
Also Prudentius, the Christian poet (See [Part 1, chap. iii. p. 59].), in an elaborate account of Pride, depicts her in a garment of the same kind:
Carbasea ex humeris summo collecta coibat
Palla sinu, teretem nectens a pectore nodum.—Psychom. 186.
A muslin kerchief by a knot compress’d,
Pass’d o’er her shoulders, and adorn’d her breast.
Tantâ tamque multiplici fertilitate abundat rerum omnium Cyprus, ut nullius externi indigens adminiculi, indigenis viribus, a fundamento ipso carinæ ad supremos usque carbasos ædificet onerarium navem, omnibusque armamentis instructam mari committat.—Amm. Marcellinus, xiv. 8.
Apuleius mentions carbasina in conjunction with bombycina and other kinds of cloth[423]. He may consequently be presumed to use the word in its proper sense, to wit, as denoting calico or muslin. In the same manner cotton is distinguished from silk by Sidonius Apollinaris[424]. Also we may presume that cotton and not linen sails are to be understood in the following line of Avienus:
Si tamen in Boream flectantur carbasa cymbæ.
Descr. Orbis, 799.