But it is the province of Nearer Spain that produces a linen of the greatest lustre, an advantage which it owes to the waters of a stream which washes the city of Tarraco[827] there. The fineness, too, of this linen is quite marvellous, and here it is that the first manufactories of cambric[828] were established. From the same province, too, of Spain, the flax of Zoëla[829] has of late years been introduced into Italy, and has been found extremely serviceable for the manufacture of hunting-nets. Zoëla is a city of Callæcia, in the vicinity of the Ocean. The flax, too, of Cumæ, in Campania, has its own peculiar merits in the manufacture of nets for fishing and fowling; it is employed, also, for making hunting-nets. For it is from flax, in fact, that we prepare various textures, destined to be no less insidious to the brute creation than they are to ourselves. It is with toils made from the flax of Cumæ that wild boars are taken, the meshes being proof against their bristles,[830] equally with the edge of the knife: before now, too, we have seen some of these toils of a fineness so remarkable[831] as to allow of being passed through a man’s ring, running ropes and all, a single individual being able to carry an amount of nets sufficient to environ a whole forest—a thing which we know to have been done not long ago by Julius Lupus, who died prefect of Egypt. This, however, is nothing very surprising, but it really is quite wonderful that each of the cords was composed of no less than one hundred and fifty threads. Those, no doubt, will be astonished at this, who are not aware that there is preserved in the Temple of Minerva, at Lindus, in the Isle of Rhodes, the cuirass of a former king of Egypt, Amasis by name, each thread employed in the texture of which is composed of three hundred and sixty-five other threads. Mucianus, who was three times consul, informs us that he saw this curiosity very recently, though there was but little then remaining of it, in consequence of the injury it had experienced at the hands of various persons who had tried to verify the fact. Italy, too, holds the flax of the Peligni in high esteem, though it is only employed by fullers; there is no kind known that is whiter than this, or which bears a closer resemblance to wool. That grown by the Cadurci[832] is held in high estimation for making mattresses;[833] which, as well as flock,[834] are an invention for which we are indebted to the Gauls: the ancient usage of Italy is still kept in remembrance in the word “stramentum,”[835] the name given by us to beds stuffed with straw.