It appears that the Nabatæan law was far more effectual towards the attainment of its object than the Egyptian. For, whereas the pastoral tribes of Arabia have retained their independence and their national peculiarities even to the present day; the Egyptians, on the other hand, became a prey to foreign invasion, and among other changes in their customs we have to notice the introduction of the management of sheep. Even as early as the time of Moses the practice had commenced; for in the account of the effects of the murrain in Exodus ix. 3, we find mention of sheep, and indeed it is remarkable, that the domestic animals there enumerated, viz. horses, asses, camels, oxen, and sheep, are exactly the same, which, as we have before shown, were bred by the ancient Persians[239]. Later historians afford distinct testimony to the same fact. Thus Diodorus Siculus says, that “upon the subsidence of the waters after the inundation of the Nile the flocks were admitted to pasture, and the produce of the soil was so abundant, that the sheep were not only shorn _twice_, but also brought forth young _twice_ in the year.” Herodotus also plainly supposes, that sheep and goats were bred in Egypt, when he contrasts the inhabitants of the Theban Nome, who worshipped Ammon, with the inhabitants of the Mendesian Nome, who worshipped Mendes. The former, he says, “all abstain from sheep, and sacrifice goats;” the latter “abstain from goats, which they hold in veneration, and sacrifice sheep.” He, however, mentions that the Thebans slew a ram once a year on occasion of a particular ceremony, which he describes (ii. 42. 46.). The testimony of Strabo and Plutarch, though differing in some particulars from that of Herodotus, is to the same general effect. Aristotle (_l. c._) mentions, that the sheep of Egypt were larger than those of Greece. [239] It should be observed, that the Hebrew word translated _sheep_ in Ex. ix. 3. included goats. But, although these passages show, that sheep were bred in Egypt, we think it evident that their number was very limited. Egyptian wool cannot have been of the least importance as an article of commerce. What was produced must also have been consumed in the country. For, although the chief material for the clothing of the Egyptians was linen, and they were forbidden to be buried in woollen or to use it in the temples, yet Herodotus (ii. 81.) states, that on ordinary occasions they wore a garment of white wool over their linen shirt. They also used wool for embroidering. According to Pliny[240] the Egyptian wool was coarse and of a short staple. Tertullian records a saying of the Egyptians, that Mercury invented the spinning of wool in their country[241]. [240] Hist. Nat. l. viii. 73. See Appendix A. [241] De Pallio, c. 3.