the spindle increased the pull on the fi bers, turning them into
workable threads.
Th e use of the loom is a topic of Homeric epics. Th e wise
Penelope used a loom to trick her potential suitors by weaving
a death robe for Odysseus’s father, Laertes. She had prom-
ised to choose one of the suitors when the shroud was ready,
but she undid each day’s work during the night. Th e loom is
a frame on which threads are passed over and under stable
threads. With the help of a stem, a simple handheld device,
women pulled the fi lling threads over and under the stable
threads. Th en, from the top of the loom, a kind of closely
spaced comb was drawn, thus pressing the fi bers together to
form solid textiles. Of course, some techniques, such as knit-
ting, were simpler.
In his Republic, Plato describes the work of the dyer. Th e
fi rst task was the lengthy and delicate process of preparing
the dyeing materials, which were primarily barks, fruits, veg-
etables, animal products, or minerals. Before dipping threads
into the dye, the dyer cleaned them by soaking them in potash
and clay. Perhaps one of the best pictorial descriptions of the
wool-working process is a painted vase dating from around
560 b.c.e. In fi ve groups, women are shown combing wool,
spinning thread, fi lling a basket with yarn, weighing balls of
yarn, working on a vertical loom, and folding fi nished cloth.
Silk was also used in Greece. Th rough trade and colo-
nization the Greeks had contact with people in the East who
knew of the silkworm. Th e legislator Solon (ca. 638–559
b.c.e.) established sericulture—the farming of silkworms—to
boost the economy of Athens. More than 5,000 cocoons of a
silkworm are needed to produce about 2 pounds of raw silk.
First the cocoons are boiled, and then their fi laments are re-
moved and twisted together into very long threads that are
wound on reels.ROME
BY LYN GREEN
Many of the surviving textiles of the Roman period are from
the time of the empire and from the provinces, where, com-
pared with Italy, the climate was oft en more conducive to the
preservation of textiles. All the major fabrics used—cotton,
linen, wool, and silk—have been found at sites in Egypt and
the Near East. Of these, probably cotton was the rarest and
silk the most valuable. Wool was the preeminent fabric of Ro-
man culture. It was used for tunics, blankets, and of course,
togas. It could be woven into various forms, including plain
(tabby), twill, damask, and tapestry. Twill weave produced a
hard-wearing fabric popular in the northern provinces. Dam-
ask weave is believed to have been developed in Egypt before
the fi rst century c.e. Tapestry weave was also used in Egypt,
but oft en for fabrics of mixed fi bers. Th e tapestry technique
allowed wool decorations to be woven into the surrounding
linen. Th ese decorations were oft en colored.
One reason for the popularity of wool was that it was
widely available, easily dyed, and relatively easy to preparefor weaving, even though much of the fl eece was 50 percent
dirt and grease. Th at problem was solved to some extent by
washing the sheep before shearing. Th e next steps, probably
performed by professional wool combers, were combing and
teasing the wool to prepare it for spinning. Ancient Roman
wool combs have survived, but teasing the wool to separate
the fi bers was done with the fi ngers.
To spin wool into thread, the Romans used a distaff and
spindle; they appear not to have had spinning wheels. One
technique for making thread easier to spin was wetting it and
then spinning it in the direction that the fi bers have a natural
tendency to twist. Th us, cotton fi bers were usually spun to
the right (producing a Z twist), and linen fi bers were usually
spun to the left (producing an S twist). Wool, however, does
not have a natural twisting direction and could be spun ei-
ther clockwise or counterclockwise, though spinners in some
areas seem to have preferred one direction to another. For
example, the threads in many samples of wool excavated in
Egypt were spun to the left , refl ecting the Egyptians’ prefer-
ence for working with linen, which has a natural S twist.
Th e resulting wool thread was used for sewing, weaving,
or knitting, depending on the thickness of the yarn. Th e num-
ber of knitted socks that have survived from various parts of
the Roman Empire attest to the popularity of that method of
producing clothing. However, Roman knitting was diff erent
from the modern technique of looping yarn around needles.
An alternate method of working wool that did not involve
spinning or weaving was felting. Felt was used primarily in
army gear, however.
According to the Roman historian Pliny the Elder, fl ax
was prepared for weaving into linen by being soaked in water
to remove the bark of plants. Th en the inner fi bers of the plant
were dried and beaten successively with a wooden mallet and
a fl at wooden blade. Th e beaten fi bers were drawn through
a wooden combing board with teeth. Egypt was one of the
major linen producers of the empire. In Greco-Roman times
cotton (gossypium) was also introduced into Egypt to coun-
teract the expense of importing it from India, but most of the
cotton used in the empire was probably still brought from
southern Asia. Silk was also brought overland from China at
great expense. Once silk thread arrived in the Mediterranean,
it might be rewoven with another thread, such as linen. Th at
kind of silk was called subserica.
Several types of looms were in use in the vast Roman Em-
pire: the warp-weighted loom, the two-beam vertical loom,
and the horizontal loom. Th e warp-weighted loom was most
common in Italy and the northern and western provinces of
the empire. Th e two-beam vertical loom was used widely in
the empire by the end of the fi rst century c.e. Th e horizontal
loom may have originated in Syria about the middle of the
third century c.e.
Th e woven cloth was fi nished by fullers. In a large vat
or tub fi lled with water, fuller’s earth, urine (bought or col-
lected from public urinals), and soapwort or other cleanser,
the cloth was treaded or otherwise agitated to remove dirt.1082 textiles and needlework: Rome0895-1194_Soc&Culturev4(s-z).i1082 1082 10/10/07 2:31:00 PM