Part 4 — CHAPTER II. HEMP[542].
Reading edition
CHAPTER II. HEMP[542].
CULTIVATION AND USES OF HEMP BY THE ANCIENTS—ITS USE LIMITED—THRACE—COLCHIS—CARIA—ETYMOLOGY OF HEMP.
The use of Hemp among the ancients was very limited. It is never mentioned in the Scriptures, and not often by the heathen writers of antiquity. It is remarkable, that no notice is taken of it by Theophrastus. It was however used among the Greeks and Romans, for making ropes and nets, but not for sacks, these being made of goats’-hair[543].
The only reason for introducing hemp in this enumeration is, that, according to Herodotus (iv. 74.) garments were made of it by the Thracians. “They were so like linen,” says he, “that none but a very experienced person could tell whether they were of hemp or flax; one, who had never seen hemp, would certainly suppose them to be linen.” The coarser kinds of linen would, it is certain, be scarcely, if at all distinguishable from the finer kinds of hempen cloth.
Hesychius (v. Κάνναβις) quotes the preceding remark of Herodotus, only saying that the Thracian women made sheets of hemp (ἱμάτια). In substituting these expressions he puts upon the words of Herodotus an explanation derived from his familiar knowledge of Grecian customs. To the present day hemp is produced abundantly in the vicinity of the countries which were occupied by the ancient Thracians. A traveller who has lately visited them, informs us, that “the men who drive the horses, which drag the boats upon the Danube between Pest and Vienna, now wear coarse tunics of hemp[544].
Ammianus Marcellinus (xxxi. 2. p. 474.), speaking of the Huns, who lived beyond the Palus Mæotis, says,
They cover themselves with tunics made of linen, or of the skins of wild mice sewed together.
These tunics, though called “lintea,” may have been the hempen garments, which, according to Herodotus, were scarce to be distinguished from linen.
The next writer, who mentions hemp after Herodotus, is Moschion, rather more than 200 years B. C. He states[545], that the magnificent ship Syracusia, built by the command of Hiero II., was provided with hemp from the Rhone for making ropes. The common materials for such purposes were the Egyptian Papyrus, the bark of the Lime-tree, of the Hemp-leaved Mallow, and of the Spanish and Portugal Broom, and probably also the Stipa Tenacissima of Linnæus.
Hemp, as well as flax, was grown abundantly in Colchis[546]. It was brought to the ports of the Ægean Sea by the Ionian merchants, who were intimately connected with the northern and eastern coasts of the Euxine through the medium of the Milesian colonies. This fact may account for the cultivation of hemp in Caria. The best was obtained in the time of Pliny (l. xix. c. 9.) from Alabanda and Mylasa in that country. Pliny also mentions a kind, which grew in the country of the Sabines, and which was remarkable for its height.
Automedon, who lived a little before Pliny, complains in an Epigram of a bad dinner given him by one of his acquaintances, and compares the tall stringy cabbages to hemp[547]. As this author was a native of Cyzicus, he would probably have abundant opportunities of becoming familiar with the plant.
In the time of Pausanias hemp was grown in Elis. See his Eliaca, c. 26. § 4.
Dioscorides (l. iii. c. 141.) gives an account of hemp, in which he distinguishes between the cultivated and the wild. By Wild Hemp he means the Althœæ Cannabina, Linn.[548]. He observes respecting the Cultivated Hemp, by which he meant proper hemp, the Cannabis Sativa, Linn., that it was “of great use for twisting the strongest ropes.”
On the whole we may conclude, that hemp was not the natural growth either of Italy, Greece, or Asia Minor, but was confined, as it still is in a great degree, to countries lying further north and having a more rigid climate. The intimate connexion of the Romans with the Greek colony of Marseilles may have brought it among the Sabines, as the active trade between the Euxine and Miletus may have introduced it into Caria. With the material its name was also imported, and this is substantially the same in all the languages of Europe, as well as in many Asiatic tongues[549].