If the explanation now given be admitted as applicable to the Molochina of the Periplus, it may throw light upon some other passages of ancient authors.
Ctesias, in his Indica[1], mentions "sheets made from trees."
Strabo's account of the webs, which he calls Serica, an account derived from the writings of Nearchus, admiral of Alexander the Great, represents those webs as made from fibres, which were scraped from the bark of trees. This would apply exactly to the supposed use of the Hibiscus for making cloth. The bark must have been first stript from the tree, and the fibres then scraped from the inside of the bark.
To the same source we may, we think, trace the idea of Arethas (in Apoc. c. 57.), that the Byssus, Rev. xix. 8., was "the bark of an Indian tree made into flax."
Although the date of the following inscription, found at Rome, is uncertain, it may be conveniently brought in here. It is published by Muratori, Novus Thesaurus Vet. Inscriptionum, tom. ii. p. 939.
P. AVCTIVS P. L. LYSANDER.
VESTIARIVS. TENVIARIVS.
MOLOCHINARIVS. VOT. SOL.
Muratori in his Note says, that "Vestiarius Tenuiarius" was the man who made thin garments, and "Molochinarius" the man who made such garments of a mallow color.
The authors, next in regard to antiquity, who make mention of Molochina, are the writers of the Latin Comedy, Statius Cæcilius, who died 169 B. C., and Plautus, who died 184 B. C.
Nonius Marcellus (l. xvi.) quotes the following line from the Pausimachus of the former dramatist:
Carbasina, molochina, ampelina.[2]
The passage of Plautus is in the Aulularia (Act iii. Scene v.
l. 40.), where we have a ludicrous enumeration, extending
