Pollux and some others call it), i. e. cotton, to be intended. His conjecture seems probable. The remark of Isidore intimates, that in his time it had already been a matter of dispute whether Byssus was a kind of flax or something else.
XIII. Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, testifies to the great strength of the threads of Byssus.
Cloth made of Byssus indicates firm faith:
For threads of Byssus, it is said, surpass
E'en ropes of broom in firmness and in strength[1].
Ad Cytherium in Max. Biblioth. Patrum, vol. vi. p. 264.
Vossius also quotes the authority of Jerome and Eucherius
to prove the great tenacity of Byssus. But, if Byssus were
cotton, it certainly would not have been celebrated on that
account.
The arguments of Dr. J. R. Forster on the other side of the question will now be considered. See his Liber Singularis de Bysso Antiquorum, Lon. 1776, p. 11. 50.
I. His first argument is as follows. Julius Pollux says
(l. vii. c. 17.), that (
Greek characters)(Transliteration from Greek: Byssos) was "a kind of flax among the Indians."
The Jewish rabbis indeed all explain the Hebrew (Hebrew characters)
(Shesh), which in the Septuagint is always translated (Greek characters)(Transliteration from Greek: Byssos), as
signifying flax. But they use the term for flax in so loose and
general a way, that they may very properly be supposed to have
included cotton under it. In the same general sense we must
suppose (Greek characters)(Transliteration from Greek: linon) to be used by Julius Pollux; and it is clear, that
he must have meant cotton, because cotton grows abundantly
in India, whereas flax was never known to grow in India at all.
In proof of this last assertion Forster refers to Osbeck's Journal, vol i. p. 383. He also appeals to a passage of Philostratus (Vita Apollonii, l. ii. c. 20. p. 70, 71.), which has been quoted in Part Third, p. 328., where that author certainly applies the term in question to the cotton of India.
An answer to this argument, so far as it depends on the testimony of Julius Pollux, was furnished by Olaus Celsius in his Hierobotanicon, published in 1747, a work which Forster had better have consulted, when he was writing a treatise expressly
- ↑ See Part First, Chapters XII. and XIII.
