FULLO

( κναφεύς , γναφεύς ), also called NACCA, a fuller, a washer or scourer of cloth and linen. The full ones not only received the cloth as it came from the loom in order to scour and smooth it, but also washed and cleansed garments which had been already worn. The clothes were first washed, which was done in tubs or vats, where they were trodden upon and stamped by the feet of the full ones, whence Seneca speaks of saltus fullonicus . The ancients were not acquainted with soap, but they used in its stead different kinds of alkali, by which the dirt was more easily separated from the clothes. Of these, by far the most common was the urine of men and animals, which was mixed with the water in which the clothes were washed. When the clothes were dry, the wool was brushed and carded to raise the nap, sometimes with the skin of a hedgehog, and sometimes with some plants of the thistle kind. The clothes were then hung on a ve el of basket-work ( viminea cave a ), under which sulphur was placed in order to whiten the cloth. A fine white earth, called Cimolian by Pliny, was often rubbed into the cloth to increase its whitene . The establishment or workshop of the fullers was called Fullonica , Full on i cum , or Fullonimn . The Greeks were also accustomed to send their garments to fullers to be washed and scoured. The word πλύνειν denoted the washing of linen, and κναφεύειν or γναφεύειν the washing of woollen clothes.