CHAPTER III.
SHEEP BREEDING AND PASTORAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS—ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SCRIPTURES, &c.
Sheep-breeding in Germany and Gaul—In Britain—Improved by the Belgians
and Saxons—Sheep-breeding in Spain—Natural dyes of Spanish wool—Golden
hue and other natural dyes of the wool of Bætica—Native colors of Bætic
wool—Saga and chequered plaids—Sheep always bred principally for the
weaver, not for the butcher—Sheep supplied milk for food, wool for clothing—The
moth.
According to Tacitus[1], the ancient Germans had abundance of cattle, although we have no reason to suppose that they had acquired any of that skill in sheep-breeding, by which their successors in Silesia and Saxony are now distinguished. On the contrary, we are informed by the same author that the only woollen garment, which they commonly wore, was the Sagum, a term implying the coarseness of the material[2].
We find almost as little in any ancient author in favor of the wool of Gallia Transalpina, the modern France. Pliny mentions a coarse kind, more like hair than wool, which was produced in the neighborhood of Pezenas in Provence[3]. Martial's account of the Endromis Sequanica, coarse, but useful to keep off the cold and wet, bears upon the same point;
The frousy foster of a female hand;
Of name Laconian, from a barb'rous land;
Though rude, yet welcome to December's snow,
To thee we bid the homely stranger go:
That into glowing limbs no cold may glide,
That baleful Iris never drench thy pride:
