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

SILK BY THE ANXIENTS. 39
AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS.
This historian describes the Seres as " a quiet and inofTen-
sive people who, avoiding all quarrels with their neighbors, are
exempt from the distresses and alarms of war, and not being
under the necessity of using offensive arms, do not even know
their use, and occupy a fertile country under a delicious and
healthy climate. He represents them as passing their happy
hfe in the most perfect tranquillity and the most delicious re-
pose amidst shady thickets refreshed by pleasant zephyrs, and
where the soil furnishes so soft a wool, that after having been
sprinkled with water and combed, it forms cloths resembling
silk."
Marcellinus proceeds to describe the Seres as being content
with their own felicitous condition, and so reserved in their in-
tercourse with the rest of mankind, that when foreigners ven-
ture within their boundaries for Avrought and unwrought silk,
and other valuable articles, they consider the price offered in
silence, and transact their business without exchanging a word
a mode of traffic which is still practised in some eastern coun-
tries.
Macpherson, in the Annals of Commerce, a very valuable
work, thinks that according to all appearances, the Seres were
themselves the authors of this story, in order to make stran-
gers believe that their country enjoyed all these benefits by the
peculiar blessing of heaven, and that no other nation could
participate in them.
The remarks of Solinus and Ammianus conspire to show,
how much more common silk had become about the end of
the third century, being then worn, at least with a warp of
cheaper materials, by men as well as by women, and not
being confined to the noble and the wealthy. These authors
likewise dilate upon the use of showers of water to detach silk
from the trees on which it was found. According to PUny and
Solinus, water was also employed after the silk was gathered
from the trees* : and probal^ly the fact was so. Silk, as it
* " The remaining shores are occupied by savage nations, as the Melanchlceni
;