CHAPTER XII.

MALLOWS.

CULTIVATION AND USE OF THE MALLOW AMONG THE ANCIENTS.--TESTIMONY OF LATIN, GREEK, AND ATTIC WRITERS.

The earliest mention of Mallows is to be found in Job xxx. 4.--Varieties of the Mallow--Cultivation and use of the Mallow--Testimony of ancient authors--Papias and Isidore’s mention of Mallow cloth--Mallow cloth common in the days of Charlemagne--Mallow shawls--Mallow cloths mentioned in the Periplus as exported from India to Barygaza (Baroch)--Calidāsa the Indian dramatist, who lived in the first century B. C.--His testimony--Wallich’s (the Indian botanist) account--Mantles of woven bark, mentioned in the Sacontăla of Calidāsa--Valcălas or Mantles of woven bark, mentioned in the Ramayana, a noted poem of ancient India--Sheets made from trees--Ctesias’ testimony--Strabo’s account--Testimony of Statius Cæcilius and Plautus, who lived 169 B. C. and 184 B. C.--Plautus’s laughable enumeration of the analogy of trades--Beauty of garments of Amorgos mentioned by Eupolis--Clearchus’s testimony--Plato mentions linen shifts--Amorgine garments first manufactured at Athens in the time of Aristophanes.

The earliest mention of mallows is that given in the book of Job, in the following words: “For want and famine they were solitary: fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste. Who cut up _mallows_ by the bushes, and _juniper-roots_ for their meat.”--Job xxx. 4.

We find in ancient authors of a more modern date, distinct mention of three species of malvaceous plants, which are still common in the South of Europe. These are, the Common Mallow, _Malva Silvestris_, Linn.; the Marsh Mallow, _Althæa Officinalis_, Linn.; and the Hempleaved Mallow, _Althæa Cannabina_, Linn.

The Common Mallow is called by the Latin writers _Malva_, by the Greek Μαλάχη, or Μολόχη.

This plant was used for food from the earliest times. Hesiod represents living on Mallows and asphodel as the sign of moderation, contentment, and simplicity of manners.

Νήπιοι, οὐδ’ ἴσασιν ὅσῳ πλέον ἥμισυ παντὸς, Οὐδ’ ὅσον ἐν μαλάχῃ τε καὶ ἀσφοδέλῳ μέγ’ ὄνειαρ.--_Op. et Dies_, 41.

Fools! not to know how much more the half is than the whole, and how much benefit there is in mallows and asphodel.

A dish of these vegetables was probably the cheapest of all kinds of food; they grew wild in the meadow and by the wayside, and were gathered and dressed without any labor or trouble.

Various authors however mention the cultivation of the Common Mallow in gardens. See Virgil, _Moretum_, 73. Pliny, _Hist. Nat._ l. xix. c. 22 and 31. Isidori _Orig._ l. xvii. c. 10. Papiæ _Vocabular._ v. _Malva. Geoponica_, xii. l. Palladuis, iii. 24. xi. ll.

Dioscorides (_l._ ii. c. III.) calls it the Garden Mallow. Aristophanes (_Plutus_ 544.) mentions eating the shoots of mallows instead of bread, intending by this to represent a vile and destitute kind of living. Plutarch (_Septem Sapientum Convivium_) says, “The mallow is good for food, and the Anthericus is sweet.” According to Le Clerc ὁ ἀνθέρικος (_Anthericus_) means the scapus of the asphodel: if he is right, this plant was eaten as we now eat asparagus. It is also remarkable that on this supposition Plutarch mentions the same two plants, which are also mentioned together by Hesiod.

According to Theophrastus (_Hist. Plant._ vii. 7. 2.) the mallow was not eaten raw, as in a salad, but required to be cooked. Cicero (_Epist. ad Fam._ vii. 26.) mentions the highly-seasoned vegetables at a dinner given by his friend Lentulus. Having been made ill by them, he says, that he, “who easily abstained from oysters and lampreys, had been deceived by beet and mallows.” Probably the leaves of the mallow were on this occasion boiled, chopped, and seasoned, much in the same way as spinach is now prepared in France.

Moschus in the following well-known lines refers to the common mallow together with other culinary vegetables:

Αἲ, αἲ, ταὶ μαλάχαι μὲν, ἐπὰν κατὰ κᾶπον ὄλωνται, Ἠδὲ τὰ χλωρὰ σέλινα, τό τ’ εὐθαλὲς οὖλον ἄνηθον, Ὕστερον αὖ ζώοντι, καὶ εἰς ἔτος ἄλλο φυόντι.

Mallows, alas! die down, and parsley, and flourishing fennel; Then they spring up afresh, and live next year in the garden.

This is accurately true of the common mallow, the root of which is perennial, so that the stems grow up and die down again every year. Accordingly Theophrastus brings it as an example of a plant _with annual stems_[191].

[191] Hist. Plant. l. vii. c. 8. p. 142. Heinsii. 240. Schneider.

Horace in two passages signifies his partiality to mallows, calling them “_leves_,” _light to digest_.

Let olives be my food, endive, and mallows light. _Od._ _l._ i. 31. _v._ 16.

Mallows, salubrious to a frame o’er-filled. Epod. 2. 57.

Martial recommends this vegetable on account of its laxative effect:

Utere lactucis, et mollibus utere malvis. (iii. 47.)

Exoneratarus ventrem mihi villica malvas Attulit, et varias, quas habet hortus, opes. (x. 48.)

Diphilus of Siphnos (_as quoted by Athenæus_, _l._ ii. _p._ 58. E. _Casaub._), after enumerating the medical virtues of the Common Mallow, says, that “the wild was better than the cultivated kind.”

Without quoting other classical authorities, the ancient practice may be illustrated by the observations of modern travellers, who mention that the Common Mallow is still an article of consumption in the same parts of the world.

Biddulph, who visited Syria about the year 1600, says, he “saw near Aleppo many poor people gathering mallows, and three-leaved grass, and asked them what they did with it, and they answered, that it was all their food, and that they boiled it, and did eat it.” (_Collection of Voyages and Travels from the Library of the E. of Oxford_, _p._ 807.)

Dr. Sibthorp states, that the _Malva Silvestris_ grows wild in Cyprus, and is called Μόλωχα. He also says, “The wild mallow is very common about Athens: the leaves are boiled and eaten as a pot-herb, and an ingredient in the Dolma.” (_Memoirs relating to European and Asiatic Turkey_, _edited by Walpole_, _p._ 245.) Dr. Holland mentions both _Malva Silvestris_ and _Althæa Officinalis_ among the officinal plants, which he found in Cephalonia. (_Travels in Greece_, _p._ 543, _4to._).

The _Althæa Officinalis_, or Marsh Mallow, is called by the Greek authors Ἀλθαία, by the Latin, Hibiscus. Theophrastus says, that it went also under the name of wild mallow[192]. Whilst the Common Mallow, though highly esteemed for its medicinal virtues, was principally regarded as a substantial article of food; the Marsh Mallow, on the contrary, seems to have been rarely used except as an article of the Materia Medica[193]; and, as its peculiar properties were likely to be more matured in the wild than cultivated state, it does not appear to have been grown in gardens[194]. Theophrastus describes it by comparing it with the Common Mallow, and mentions its application, both internally and externally, as a medicine[195]. Dioscorides (_l._ iii. _c._ 139.) gives similar details. Besides mentioning the proper name of the plant in Greek and in Latin, he calls it, “a kind of wild mallow.” Palladius (_l._ xi. _p._ 184. _Bip._) explains “_Hibiscus_” to be the same as “_Althæa_.” See also Pliny, _l._ xx. _c._ 14. _ed. Bip._ Virgil alludes to the use of it as fodder for goats, and as a material for _weaving baskets_[196].

[192] Hist. Plant. l. ix. cap. 15. p. 188. Heinsii.

[193] Calpurnius (Eclog. iv. 32,) mentions the “Hibiscus” as used for food, but only by persons in a state of great destitution.

[194] At a later period, however, we find the Althæa Officinalis under the name of “_Ibischa Mis-malva_” in a catalogue of the plants, which Charlemagne selected for cultivation in the gardens attached to his villas. See Sprengel, Hist. Rei Herb. i. 220.

[195] Hist. Plant. l. ix. cap. 19. p. 192. ed. Heinsii.

[196] Eclog. ii. 30. and x. 71. See Servius, Heyne, and J. II. Voss., _ad loc._

The Hemp-leaved Mallow, _Althæa Cannabina_, is once mentioned by Dioscorides (_lib._ iii. _c._ 141.). Giving an account of hemp, he distinguishes between the cultivated and the wild. He says of the wild hemp, that the Romans called it _Cannabis Terminalis_[197]. After mentioning the medical properties of the plant, Dioscorides says, that its bark was useful for making ropes. The truth of this observation will be apparent to every botanist. The plants belonging to the natural order _Malvaceæ_ are all remarkable for the abundance of strong and beautiful fibres in their bark[198].

[197] Meaning literally Hedge-hemp.

[198] We have the following testimony respecting the actual fabrication of mallow-cloth in modern times:

“Nous avons vu à Madrid, chez le savant pharmacien D. Casimir Ortéga, de ces tissus, qui nous ont semblé fort remarquables. Ils étaient faits avec l’écorce des _Althéas officinalis_ et _cannabina_, et avec celle du _Malva sylvestris_.” Fée, Flore de Virgile, Paris 1822, p. 66.

But of the European species there is none superior in the fineness, the strength, the whiteness, and lustre of its fibres, to the Common Mallow, the _Malva Silvestris_. We have seen that the _ancients_ were familiarly acquainted with this plant; that it was commonly cultivated in their gardens; and that they gathered it, when growing wild, to be taken as food or medicine. In these circumstances they could scarcely fail to observe the aptitude of its bark for being spun into thread. More especially in places where they had no other native supply of fibrous materials; in Attica, for example, which probably produced neither hemp nor flax, it seems in the highest degree probable, that the fitness of the mallow to supply materials for weaving would not be overlooked.

In producing the evidence, which establishes this as a positive fact, we shall begin with the latest testimonies and proceed in a reverse order upward to the most ancient. According to this plan, the first authority is that of Papias, who wrote his Vocabulary about the year 1050. He gives the following explanations:

Malbella vestis quæ ex malvarum stamine conficitur, quam alii molocinam vocant. Molocina vestis quæ albo stamine sit: quam alii malbellam vocant.

These passages clearly describe a kind of cloth made of the white fibres of the common mallow. _Malbella_, the same with Malvella, is a Latin adjective, in the form of a diminutive, from _Malva_: _Molocina_, the same with Μολόχινη, is a Greek adjective from Μολόχη, and signifies _made of mallow_.

Papias, who seems in compiling his dictionary to have made great use of Isidore, perhaps derived these explanations in part from the following passage of the latter author:

_Melocinia_ (vestis est), quæ malvarum stamine conficitur, quam alii _molocinam_, alii _malvellam_ vocant. _Isid. Hisp. Orig._ xix. 22.

The cloth called _Melocinea_ is made of the thread of mallows, and is called by some _Molocina_, by others _Malvella_.

The passages of Papias cannot be taken as a proof, that mallow-cloth was woven in his day. But that it was in fashion as late as the age of Charlemagne appears from the following line, which is quoted by Du Cange (_Glossar. Med. et Inf. Lat. v. Melocineus_) from a poem in praise of that monarch, attributed to Alcuin:

Tecta melocineo fulgescit femina amictu.

Wrapt in a mallow shawl the lady shines.

The word “_fulgescit_” aptly describes the lustre of the material under consideration. From the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea[199] we learn, that _cloths made of mallow_, were among the articles of export from India, being brought from Ozene (Ugain) and Tagara in the interior of the country to the sea-port of Barygaza (Baroch). P. 146. 169, 170, 171.

[199] P. 146. 169, 170, 171. Arriani Op. ed. Blancardi, tom. ii.

The genus _Hibiscus_, Linn. is very abundant in India. The bark of a certain species of this genus, especially of H. _Tiliaceus_ and H. _Cannabinus_, is now very extensively employed for making _cordage_, and might unquestionably have been used for making cloth[200].

[200] Cavanilles, Tab. 52, fig. 1, represents H. Cannabinus, the leaf of which is like that of hemp. Tab. 55, fig. 1, represents H. Tiliaceus, in the description of which we read “_cortice in funes ductili_;” and Cavanilles says, the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands (_Australium insularum_) use in their ships and boats ropes made from the bark.

H. _Tiliaceus_ is also represented in Rheede’s Hort. Malabaricus (vol. i. fig. 30.). It grows about 15 feet high.

Dr. Wallich (Cat. of Indian Woods, p. 18.) mentions two other species as used for making cordage from the bark.

The late Mr. John Hare, who lived in India a long time, says, that a coarse kind of cloth, used for making sacks, &c., is now woven from Hibiscus bark.

As a further evidence, that the _Molochina_ mentioned in the Periplus were made from the bark of the Hibiscus, we may refer to that admirable specimen of Eastern taste and ingenuity, the Sacontăla of the great Indian dramatist Calidāsa. Several passages of this poem make mention of the _Valcăla_, which the Sanscrit Lexicons, themselves of great antiquity, explain as meaning either bark, or a vesture made from it. We learn from Dr. Wallich, a celebrated Indian botanist, that many kinds of Hibiscus had this quality in an eminent degree, and, as their bark was in common use for making all kinds of cordage, it might undoubtedly be employed for weaving.

The Sacontăla is of a date as ancient as the Periplus. Professor Von Bohlen (_Das alte Indien_, _vol._ ii. _p._ 477.) asserts, that the author Calidāsa certainly flourished as early as the first century B. C. Sir William Jones makes him older by several centuries. (_Works_, _vol._ vi. _p._ 206.) The place also agrees as well as the time. The Hibiscus Tiliaceus, according to Sir J. E. Smith, is “one of the most common trees in every part of the East Indies, thriving in all sorts of situations and soils, and cultivated for the sake of its shade even more than the beauty of its flowers, in towns and villages and by road-sides. A coarse cordage,” he adds, “is made of the bark; the wood is light and white, useful for small cabinet-work; the mucilage of the whole plant is applied to some medical purposes.” The Molochina, mentioned in the Periplus, were brought from Ozene and Tagara, and may have come from still further North. The hermitage, described in the drama, was at the foot of the Himalaya Mountains, and near the river Malina, and, according to the representations given by the poet, the Valcălas (translated by Sir W. Jones “_mantles of woven bark_,” and by Chézy, “_vêtemens d’écorce_”), were worn both by the hermits and by the beautiful Sacontăla, while she was their inmate[201].

[201] Translation of the Sacontăla, Sir W. Jones’s Works, vol. vi. pp. 217. 225. 289. Original, ed. Chézy, Paris, 1830, p. 7, l. 10.; p. 9, l. 10; p. 24, l. 7.; p. 131, l. 14. Chézy’s translation, pp. 10. 27. 142. 143. See also Heeren, Ideen, i. 2. p. 648.

“Valcălas” are mentioned in precisely the same manner in the Ramayana, one of the most noted of the heroic poems of ancient India. They are represented as coarse garments worn by ascetics.

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_[202], mentions “_sheets made from trees_.”

[202] Cap. 22. Fragmenta, ed. Bähr. p. 253. 326.

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.[203]

[203] See C. C. Statii Fragmenta, a Leonhardo Spengel, Monachii 1829, p. 35. Statius chiefly copied Menander (_Gellius_, ii. _c._ 16.); but it is not certain that Menander wrote any play called _Pausimachus_.

The passage of Plautus is in the Aulularia (_Act_ iii. _Scene_ v. _l._ 40.), where we have a ludicrous enumeration, extending through more than ten lines, of all the persons concerned in the manufacture or sale of garments.

Solearii astant, astant molochinarii.

All the lexicographers and commentators explain _Molochinarius_ to be one who dyes cloth of the color of the mallow. _Lanarius_ was a woollen-draper; _Coactiliarius_, a dealer in felts, a hatter; _Lintearius_ a linen-draper; and _Sericarius_ a silk-mercer. According to the same analogy, _Molochinarius_ would mean _a dealer in Molochina_, i. e. _in all kinds of cloth made from mallows_.

The class of writers, which will now be produced as affording testimony respecting the use of the mallow for weaving, are Greek authors, and who instead of the common Greek terms employ the Attic term Ἀμοργὸς and its derivatives.

Ἀμοργὸς has been explained by some of the lexicographers to be a kind of flax (See Julius Pollux, L. vii. § 74.). Perhaps by this explanation nothing more was intended than that it was a plant, the fibres of which were used to spin and weave into cloth. It is highly probable that it was the _Malva Silvestris_ or _Common Mallow_, and that it was called Ἀμοργὸς.

According to the Attic lexicons of Pausanias (_apud Eustath. l. c._) and of Mœris, Ἀμοργὸς was an Attic term. We now find traces of it in seven Attic writers, four or five of whom wrote comedy. These are Aristophanes, Cratinus, Antiphanes, Eupolis, Clearchus, Æschines, and Plato.

I. We shall take first Aristophanes, whose comedy called Lysistrata is frequently quoted by Pausanias and Cratinus, and being still extant throws considerable light upon the subject. It was represented in the year 412. B. C. Lysistrata says (_l._ 150),

Κᾂν τοῖς χιτώνιοισι τοῖς ἁμόργινοις Γυμναὶ παριοῖμεν,

“And if we should present ourselves naked in shifts of amorgos;” showing that these shifts were transparent. Accordingly Mœris says, that the ἀμόργινον was λεπτὸν ὕφασμα, “a thin web.” Bisetus in his Greek commentary on this play, after quoting the explanations of Stephanus Byzantinus, Suidas, Eustathius, and the Etymologicum Magnum, judiciously concludes as follows: “From all these it is manifest, that ἀμόργινοι χιτώνες, whether they took their name from a place, from their color, or from the raw material, were a kind of valuable robe, worn by the rich, fashionable, and luxurious women.”

A subsequent passage of the Lysistrata (v. 736-741) still further illustrates this subject. A woman laments, that she has left at home her ἀμοργις _without being peeled_ (ἄλοπον), and she goes _to peel it_ (ἀποδείρειν). The mallow no less than flax and hemp, would require the bark to be stript off, and doubtless the best time for stripping it is as soon as the plant is gathered.

II. Cratinus died about 420 B. C. The following line, from his comedy called Μαλθακοὶ, represents a person spinning Ἀμοργός.

Ἀμοργὸν ἔνδον βρυτίνην νήθειν τινα. _Cratina Fragmenta, a Runkel_, _p._ 29.

III. Julius Pollux, speaking of garments made of Ἀμοργὸς (L. vii. c. 13.) quotes the Medea of Antiphanes thus: Ἦν χιτὼν ἁμόργινος. This author was contemporary with Aristophanes.

IV. Eupolis wrote about the same time, and his authority may be added to the rest as proving that garments of Amorgos were admired by luxurious persons at Athens[204].

[204] See Harpocration, p. 29. ed. Blancardi. 1683. 4to. Also Pher. et Eupolidis Fragmenta, a Runkel, p. 150.

V. Clearchus of Soli[205] mentions the use of a cover of Amorgos for inclosing a splendid purple blanket. This application of it is agreeable to the foregoing evidence, showing that the _amorgine webs were transparent_. The silky translucence of the lace-like web of mallow would have a very beautiful effect over the fine purple of the downy blanket.

[205] Ap. Athenæum, L. vi. p. 255, Casaub. Clearchus probably wrote about 100 years later than the before-mentioned authors, but the circumstances related by him may have occurred about the time when those authors flourished, and even at Athens.

VI. Æschines in an oration against Timarchus, the object of which is to hold up to contempt the extravagancies of this Athenian spendthrift, in his enumeration of them, he mentions (p. 118, ed. Reiskii.) that Timarchus took to his house a “woman skilled in making cloths of Amorgos.”

VII. Plato in the 13th Epistle, addressed to Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, which, if not genuine, is at least ancient, proposes to give to the three daughters of Cebes three long shifts, not the valuable shifts made of Amorgos, but the linen shifts of Sicily.

The mention of amorgine garments by the writers, who have now been cited, seems to prove, that the fashion of making and wearing them first came in among the Greeks at Athens in the time of Aristophanes, who lived, as the reader will have observed, in the fifth century before Christ. From them the fashion may have extended itself into Sicily and Italy, which will account, if _Amorgina_ were the same with _Molochina_, for the striking agreement in this respect between the writers of Greek and of Latin Comedy. In subsequent ages the manufacture seems to have declined, probably in consequence of the abundance of silk and other rich and beautiful goods imported from Asia. But the mention of these stuffs in the writings of Isidore and Alcuin renders it probable, that they were brought again into use in the fifth and following centuries of the Christian era.