The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous ... - Cd3wd.com

SILK BY THK ANCIENTS. 27
Reim. Suidas in v. Tipiptos*. Silk was to be worn by women
only.
The next emperor Caligula had silk curtains to his throne
{Dion. Cass. I. 59. p. 915. Reim.), and he wore silk as part of
his dress, when he appeared in public. Uio Cassius particularly
mentions, that, when he was celebrating a kind of triumph at
Puteoli, he put on what he alleged to be the thorax of Alex-
ander, and over that a silken chlamys, dyed with the murex,
and adorned with gold and precious stones. On the following
day he wore a tunic interwoven with goldt. The use of
shawls and tunics of silk was, however, except in the case
of the extravagances of a Caligula, still confined to the fe-
male sex. Under the earlier emperors it is probable, that silk
was obtained in considerable quantities for the wardrobe of the
empress, where it was preserved from one reign to another, until
in the year 176 Marcus Aureiius Antoninus, the philosopher, in
consequence of the exhausted state of his treasury, sold by pub-
lic auction in the Forum of Trajan the imperial ornaments and
jewels together with the golden and silken robes of the Em-
presst.
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FIRST CENTURY.
SENECA, THE PHILOSOPHER.
Posse nos vestitos esse sine commercio Serum. Epist. 91.
We may clothe ourselves without any commerce with the Seres.
Video Sericas vestes, si vestes vocandte sunt, in quibus nihil est, quo defendi aut
corpus aut denique pudor possit : quibus sumtis mulier parum liquid6 nudam se
non esse jurabit. Hibc ingenti sumnid, ab ignotis etiam ad commercium gentibus
accersunter, ut matronaB nostrae ne adulteris quidem plus sui in cubiculo quam in
publico osteudant. De Benejiciis, L. vii. c. 9.
I see silken (Seric) garments, if they can be called garments, which cannot
afford any protection either for the body or for shame : on taking which a woman
will scarce with a clear conscience deny, that she is naked. Tliese are sent for
* Dio Cassius (1. 43. p. 358. Rheini.) mentions as a report, that Julius Coesar
employed silk curtains {-Kixpa-ntTaafiara TinpiKo) to add to the splendor of his triumph.
t In describing the effeminate dress of the emperor Caligula, Suetonius tells us
{cap. 52), that he often went into public, wearing bracelets and long sleeves, iind
sometimes in a garment of silk and a cyclas.
X Jul. Capitol, c. xvii. p. 65. Bip.
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