Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/121

 with some other substance. This art was the invention of one of the kings of Asia."

In Book xxxv. c. 36. Pliny says that Zeuxis, to display his wealth at Olympia, caused his name to be woven in gold in the compartments of his outer garment.

Caligula once wore a tunic interwoven with gold. Heliogabalus was far more profuse in regard to this kind of splendor. White sheets, interwoven with gold, were used at the funeral obsequies of Nero. We may here observe, that the use of gold in dress almost invariably accompanied that of silk. The same Emperors who took delight in the one, indulged themselves with the other also. On the contrary, Alexander Severus, as we shall show when treating of linen in Part IV., was economical in both these respects.

In Chapters II. and III., we quoted several passages which make mention of cloth of gold, from Tibullus, Ovid, Seneca the Tragedian, Lucan, Dio Cassius, Claudian, Virgil, Gregorius Nazienzenus, and Basil, all of which speak of cloth of gold. Ovid mentions purple garments variously colored and interwoven with gold, as belonging to Bacchus.—Met. iii. 556.

Publius Syrus was a writer of the same period. In the following fragment preserved by Petronius Arbiter, he compares the train of the peacock to Babylonian stuffs enriched with gold and various colors:

Thy food the peacock, which displays his spotted train, As shines a Babylonian shawl with feather'd gold!

Shawls, interwoven with gold, are mentioned by Galen, and by Valerius Flaccus ; also by Lucan in the following passage, where he is describing the furniture of Cleopatra's palace (x. 125, 126.):

Part shines with feather'd gold, part sheds a blaze Of scarlet, intermixed by Pharian looms!

The following passages also contain evidence on the same subject.