In Greece and Rome those wonderful inventions by which a few towns have become the workshop of the world were as yet undreamt of, and the simpler operations of the loom were frequent beside every household hearth. Even the plan of the house among the Greeks was influenced by this circumstance, for we have seen that a distinct place was assigned for the domestic works of spinning and weaving.
The first operation to be noticed is the spinning of the flax, cotton, or wool into thread. The material to be spun was first rolled into a ball and supported on the distaff, a stick of wood or ivory, which passed through the centre of the ball and was held in the left hand of the person spinning. The fibres of the raw material were drawn out and twisted by the finger, and then fixed into the notch or cleft of the spindle. This was formed of a slender shaft of wood about a foot long, furnished at one end with a slit to catch the thread, and inserted at the other end into a circular piece of heavy wood, stone, or metal. The spindle was kept in constant revolution by the hand of the spinner, and by its weight drew the fibres out of the ball of raw material. These fibres were twisted into thread, partly by the fingers and partly by the whirling of the spindle. When the spindle reached the ground the thread was wound on its shaft, again fixed in the cleft, and the same process repeated till the shaft was covered with as much spun thread as it could carry. The reel thus formed was fixed in a hollow case--the shuttle--so as to revolve freely within it, and the thread was drawn out through a small hole in the enclosing case.
The loom consisted of a simple frame-work, oblong in shape, and erected almost always in a perpendicular position, so that the weaver stood to perform her task. The warp was arranged in vertical threads between the upper and lower cross-bars of the frame; and the alternate threads were separated by a thin stick or cane, so as to form two sets or layers, between which the threads of the woof were introduced. This passing of the woof-thread was effected either with or without the shuttle; of course, always by hand. When the thread of the woof had been passed between the two layers of the warp, it is plain that these layers must change places in order firmly to inclose the introduced thread; _i. e._ the anterior layer must become posterior, and _vice versa_. This end was effected by inclosing each separate thread of the warp in a loop, and fastening all the loops of each layer to a separate stick, so that the person weaving could, by drawing one such stick toward her, cause all the corresponding threads of one layer to start from those of the other layer. By this means, after passing one thread of the woof, the posterior layer of the warp was drawn forward so as firmly to inclose it, and into the space between the layers a new thread of woof was again introduced. The layers of the warp were, of course, decussated in this manner on every successive introduction of a thread of the woof. The woof-thread, when passed, was firmly pressed between the layers of the warp, either by the comb or by the “spatha,” a large, flat wooden instrument, much like an enlarged paper-knife. In simple weaving, the repetition of the process described was all that was requisite to form the material; and striped patterns were easily produced, merely by alternately inserting bands of differently-colored woof. A check resulted when both warp and woof were thus alternately varied in hue. But to form more complicated patterns, an intricate arrangement of the leashes, or sets of loops above described, was necessary.
