Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/92

 72 THE DECLINE AND FALL these were domestic slaves, their masters, who directed the work and enjoyed the profit, were of a free and honourable condition. The gifts which a rich and generous matron of Peloponnesus presented to the emperor Basil, her adopted son, were doubtless fabricated in the Grecian looms. Danielis bestowed a carpet of fine wool, of a pattern which imitated the spots of a peacock's tail, of a magnitude to overspread the floor of a new church, erected in the triple name of Christ, of Michael the ai-changel, and the prophet Elijah. She gave six hinidred pieces of silk and linen, of various use and denomina- tion : the silk was painted with the Tyrian die, and adorned by the labours of the needle ; and the linen was so exquisitely fine that an entire piece might be rolled in the hollow of a cane.-'^ In his description of the Greek manufactures, an historian of Sicily discriminates their price according to the weight and quality of the silk, the closeness of the texture, the beauty of the colours, and the taste and materials of the em- broidery. A single, or even a double or treble, thread was thought sufficient for ordinary sale ; but the union of six threads composed a piece of stronger and more costly workman- ship. Among the coloui's, he celebrates, with affectation of eloquence, the fiery blaze of the scarlet, and the softer lustre of the green. The embroidery was raised either in silk or gold ; the more simple ornament of stripes or circles was surpassed by the nicer imitation of flowers ; the vestments that were fabri- cated for the palace or the altar often glittered with precious stones ; and the figures were delineated in strings of Oriental pearls. -1 Till the twelfth century, Greece alone, of all the countries of Christendom, was possessed of the insect who is taught by nature, and of the workmen who are instructed by art, to prepare this elegant luxury. But the secret had been stolen by the dexterity and diligence of the Arabs ; the caliphs of the East and West scorned to borrow from the unbelievers their furniture and apparel ; and two cities of Spain, Almeria and 20 See Constantine (in Vit. Basil, c. 74, 75, '76, p. 195, 197, in Script, post Theophaneni), who allows himself to use man)' technical or barbarous words : barbarous, says he, t?) riav nnWiov afj.a$(a, KaXbi- yip trrl TovTot! Koii/oAeKrtir. Ducange labours on some ; but he was not a weaver. 21 The manufactures of Palermo, as they are described by Hugo Falcandus (Hist. Sicula in proem, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, torn. v. p. 256), are a copy of those of Greece. Without transcribing his declamatory sentences, which I have softened in the text, I shall observe, that in this passage, the strange word exareniasmata is very properly changed for exanthemata by Carisius, the first editor. Falcandus lived about the year 1190.