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

42 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF
Sarciiiatori in vcstc soubtili rei)Iicat(u)r£e . . * sex
Eidcm apertura; cum siibsutura olosericaj . . * quinquaginta
Eidcm aperturoe cum subsutura su(b)sericne . . * triginta
(Sub)sutur!B in veste grossiori
* quattuor.
Denarii*.
To the Tailor for lining a fine vest 6
To the same for an opening and an edging with silk . . . . .50
To the same for an opening and an edging with stufl" made of a mixed tis-
sue of silk and flax .......... 30
For an edging on a coarser vest 4
Colonel Leake's translation.
This document proves, in exact conformity with the passages
quoted from SoUnus and Ammiamis, that silk had come into
general use at the commencement of the fourth century. It is
also manifest from this extract, that silk was employed in giv-
ing to garments a greater proportion of intricacy and ornament
than had been in use before.
The authors who make mention of silk in the fourth and fol-
lowing centuries are very numerous. We shall first take the
heathen authors, and then the Christian writers, whose observa-
tions often have some moral application, which gives them an
additional interest.
The unknown author of the Panegyric on the emperor Con-
stantine, pronounced A. D. 317, thus mentions silk as charac-
terizing oriental refinement.
Facile est vincere timidos et imbelles, quales amoena Grmcia et delicioB Oricntis
educunt, vix leve pallium et sericos sinus vitando sole tolerantes.
It is easy to vanquish the timid and those unused to war, the offspring of pleeis-
sant Greece and the delightful East, who, whilst they avoid the heat of the sun,
can scarcely bear even a light shawl and folds of silk.
The testimony of the Roman historian Flavius Vopiscus,
in reference to the practice of the emperor Aurelian and the
dearness of silk during his reign, has already been produced.
This author, in his life of the same emperor, makes the follow-
ing remarks on a display of silk which he had himself recently
witnessed.
* A Roman com of the value of about sixteen or seventeen cents, called De-
narii from the letter X upon it ; which denoted ten.