[1278]. Odyss. δ. 221. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxi. 21. Dutens, p. 183. From a passage in Herodotus there seems reason to suspect, that certain Asiatic nations were already in his time acquainted with the inebriating effects of opium smoke. For, describing the inhabitants of the larger islands found in the Araxes, he relates that they were accustomed to gather together round a fire, and casting the fruit of some unknown tree into the flames to inhale with delight the smoke and effluvia emitted by it, until they experienced all the delight and madness of intoxication, which impelled them to leap about, and dance and sing. i. 202. Among the Scythians, moreover, we find in the same author distinct traces of the use of beng, or hemp-seed. iv. 75.
[1279]. Thucyd. iv. 26. Celsus, ii. 32. Dioscor. iv. 65.
[1280]. Dioscor. ii. 129. 179.
[1281]. Σμίλαξ λεία. Dioscor. iv. 145.
[1282]. Poll. ii. 46. 214. 216. Plat. Tim. t. vii p. 19, seq. 89, seq. 98.
CHAPTER VII.
INDUSTRY: WEAVERS, GLOVERS, SOCK-MAKERS, CORDWAINERS, TANNERS, HATTERS, DYERS OF PURPLE, ETC., FISHERMEN.
In spinning and weaving the ancients evidently rivalled us, though without the aid of machinery. As far, indeed, as the former process is concerned, no machinery can rival the human hand, which, from its slight oily exudation[[1283]] is enabled to communicate superior strength and evenness to the finest threads. Thus in Hindustân muslins were formerly produced, which, laid on the grass and wetted by dew, became invisible.[[1284]] And there is no reason for doubting that the produce of ancient Greek looms rivalled those of Dakka. The fabrics of Cos[[1285]] and Tarentum appear, in fact, from the testimony of the ancients, to have floated like a snowy mist around the female form, disclosing its whole contour like a gauze veil.[[1286]] In flowered and variegated tissues,[[1287]] too, they attained extraordinary excellence. The finest and most brilliant shot stuffs imitating the breast of the dove, flowered cloth of gold, and the weaving of gold wire itself, were known to the ancients. Silk, before that of China[[1288]] was common in the west, they obtained from the beard of a sea shell; and lawn and cambric and open work, like Brussels or Valenciennes lace, were familiar to them.
Being ignorant of who was the inventor of the art of weaving, they attributed the honour to Athena, who imparted a knowledge of it to Arachnè,[[1289]] a virgin of Mæonia, afterwards changed into a spider. But spiders were not long the only weavers among the Hellenes, who speedily invented the upright and horizontal looms, which, in after times at least, were constructed from the wood of the andrachnè.[[1290]]
Among the finest and most elegant fabrics of Greece were those manufactured in the Achæan city of Patræ,[[1291]] where the women being twice as numerous as the men, would alone appear to have worked in the factories, from which the greater number of the inhabitants, doubtless, derived their livelihood. The flax, from which the fine linen and head-nets[[1292]] of this town were made, was not grown in the neighbourhood, but in the plains of Elis,[[1293]] where alone, in Greece, the plant attained the highest degree of perfection, not yielding in fineness to the best produced in India, while it was possessed of superior whiteness.[[1294]] The fine cloths manufactured from it sold for their weight in gold.[[1295]] Another species of very fine flax was cultivated in the island of Amorgos,[[1296]] where were likewise manufactured linens of the most beautiful texture, frequently dyed purple, on which account the word Amorgis[[1297]] has sometimes been supposed to denote a purple stuff, though the fabrics of the island were as often white as of any other colour. In imitation of the Egyptians, they wove a sort of fine napkins, which were evidently used in the same manner as our pocket-handkerchiefs.[[1298]]