Odyssey ([Greek: r]. 180-182.) a sacrifice is made and a feast prepared of sheep, goats, hogs, and a cow. Also in Od. v. 3. 250. sheep are sacrificed and furnish part of a feast. In order to ratify a treaty between the Greeks and Trojans, the former sacrificed a lamb of the male sex to Jupiter; the latter one of the male sex and white to the Sun, and another of the female sex and black to the Earth. (Il. [Greek: g]. 103, 104.) Sheep are sacrificed to Apollo at Delphi in Euripides, Ion, l. 230. 380. The rare instances of the use of sheep for food or sacrifice by the Egyptians have been already noticed.
But, although sheep, both old and young, male and female, were sacrificed to the objects of religious worship and on other festive occasions were eaten, especially by the rich and great, yet their chief use was to supply clothing, and the nourishment they yielded consisted in their milk and the cheese made from it, rather than in their flesh.
This fact is illustrated by the words of Solomon, formerly quoted, and in which he speaks of lambs for clothing and goat's milk for food. In like manner St. Paul says (1 Cor. ix. 7.), "Who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock?"
Varro thinks, that sheep were employed for the use of man before any other animal on account of their usefulness and placidity, and he represents their use to consist in supplying cheese and milk for food, fleeces and skins for clothing[1]. In like manner Columella in his account of the use of sheep (vii. 2.) says, they afforded the chief materials for clothing. In treating of their use for food, he mentions only their milk and cheese. Pliny refers to the employment of sheep both for sacrifices and for clothing. He also remarks, that as the ox is principally useful in obtaining food, to wit, by ploughing and other agricultural processes, the sheep, on the other hand, supplies materials for clothing[2].
The fact, that wool was among the ancients by far the most common material for making clothes, accounts for the various
