As sheep in flocks thick-pasturing on the plain
Attend the footsteps of the shepherd-swain,
His well-known call they hear, and fully fed,
Pace slowly on, their leader at their head;
Who pipes melodious, as he moves along,
On sprightly reeds his modulated song:
Thus charm'd with tuneful sounds the scaly train
Pursued the flying vessel o'er the main.
Fawkes's Translation.
The testimony afforded by Varro relative to the management of the South Italian sheep, having been given and illustrated, it is to be deplored that Italy, once so renowned for its sheep, can now boast little of this production of her bounteous clime. The Romans, whose dress was woollen, cultivated in an especial degree the fineness of the fleece; and it was not until the days of the Empire that the silk and cotton of the East began to supersede the ancient raiment of the Roman people. The finest wools of ancient Italy were produced in Apulia and Calabria, being the eastern parts of the present kingdom of Naples[1].
We now proceed to the other writers on Rural Affairs, viz., Columella and Palladius.
The first attests the high estimation in which the sheep of Calabria and Apulia were held by the Romans, especially before his own time, and he says that among them the Tarentine sheep were the best of all. In speaking of the practice so prevalent in this district of covering them with skins, he shows, that these "oves pellitæ" were also called "soft" (molles), and "covered" (tectæ). Indeed he makes the great distinction of sheep to be into the "genus molle," i. e. the soft kind, and the "genus hirsutum," or "hirtum," i. e. the coarse kind. We further learn that the soft sheep were called by the Romans Greek sheep, because they were bred in Græcia Magna, and
- ↑ It appears from the following passage of Varro, that the Apulian was sold at
a higher price than some other kinds of wool which were equally beautiful, because
it wore better. By lana Gallicana in this passage we must understand
the wool of Gallia Cisalpina, of which we shall next treat.
Sic enim lana Gallicana et Appula videtur imperito similis propter speciem,
cum peritus Appulam emat pluris, quod in usu firmior sit.
De Lin. Lat., lib. ix. 28. p. 484. ed. Spengel.
