In Syria, children luxuriously educated are said to have been rocked in their cradles wrapped in coverlets of Milesian wool.[416] The sheep of Miletos were, in fact, the Merinos of antiquity; and their wool being celebrated for its fineness and softness, it was not only employed in manufacturing the best cloths, but also in stuffing the mattresses of kings and other great personages who thought much of their ease. And as the vulgar imagine they become great by habiting themselves in garments similar to those of their princes, like the honest man who sought wisdom through reading by Epictetus’ lamp, the stuffs, couches, and coverlets of Miletos got into great vogue among the ancients. Virgil, Cicero, Servius, Columella, and many other writers speak accordingly of their excellence, and their testimonies have, with wonderful industry, been collected by the learned Bochart.[417] ----- Footnote 416: Esther i. 6. Lament, iv. 5. Bochart. Geograph. Sac. i. 6. 30. Footnote 417: Geog. Sac. i. 6. 28, seq. ----- But though Miletos had a reputation for this kind of manufacture, it by no means enjoyed a monopoly. The scarlet coverings of Sardis, and the variegated stuffs of Cyprus, produced by the famous weaver Akesas and his son Helicon,[418] appear in many instances to have obtained a preference over all others. Pathymias, too, the Egyptian, distinguished himself in the same line.[419] ----- Footnote 418: Eustath. ad Odyss. α. p. 32. 30. Footnote 419: Athen. ii. 30. ----- All these bed-coverings were commonly perfumed with fragrant essences,[420] for which reason the voluptuous poets of antiquity dwell with a sort of rapture on the pleasure of rolling about in bed. Ephippos exclaims:— “How I delight To spring upon the dainty coverlets; Breathing the perfume of the rose, and steeped In tears of myrrh!” ----- Footnote 420: In old times the whole bedroom was sometimes perfumed.—Iliad, γ. 382. ----- Aristophanes, likewise, and Sophron, the mimographer, make mention of these fragrant counterpanes, which were extremely costly, and inwrought, according to the latter, with figures of birds.[421] Elsewhere Athenæus relates that the Persian carpets contained representations of men, animals, and monsters.[422] Their blankets, like our own, were plain white; but even so far back as the heroic ages, the upper coverings, as being partly designed for show, were of rich and various colours.[423] ----- Footnote 421: Athen. ii. 30. Aristoph. Frag. incert. 2. Brunck. Footnote 422: Deipnosoph. xi. 55. Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 172. Footnote 423: Feith. Antiq. Homer, iii. 8. 4. -----