Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/428

 silence," replied the king. Alciphron tells of the barber putting on him a linen cloth ([Greek: sindôn]) in order to shave him (l. iii. Ep. 66.); and Phaneas, in an Epigram, calls the cloth used in shaving by the same name, [Greek: Sindôn]. Diogenes Laertius also (vi. 90.) tells a story respecting the philosopher Crates, which shows that at Athens it was not deemed proper for a man to wear linen as an outer garment, but that persons were enveloped in it under the hands of the hair-dresser. "The Athenian police-officers ([Greek: hoi astyomoi]) having charged him with wearing a linen sheet for his outer garment, he said, 'I will show you Theophrastus himself habited in that manner;' and when they doubted the fact, he took them to see Theophrastus at the hair-dresser's."

Coarser linen was used in great quantity both for sails, and for awnings to keep off the heat of the sun from the Roman theatres, the Forum, and other places of public resort.

The Emperor Alexander Severus, as we learn from the following passage of his Life written by Ælius Lampridius, was a great admirer of good linen, and preferred that which was plain to such as had flowers or feathers interwoven as practised in Egypt and the neighboring countries.

Boni linteaminis appetitor fuit, et quidem puri, dicens, 'Si lintei idcirco sunt, ut nihil asperum habeant, quid opus est purpurâ?' In lineâ autem aurum mitti, etiam dementiam judicabat, quum asperitati adderetur rigor.

He took great delight in good linen, and preferred it plain. "If," said he, "linen cloths are made of that material in order that they may not be at all rough, why mix purple with them?" But to interweave gold in linen, he considered madness, because this made it rigid in addition to its roughness.

The following passage of the Life of the Emperor Carinus by Flavius Vopiscus is remarkable as proving the value attached by the Romans of that age to the linen imported from Egypt and Phœnice, especially to the transparent and flowered varieties.

Jam quid lineas petitas Ægypto loquar? Quid Tyro et Sidone tenuitate perlucidas, micantes purpurâ, plumandi difficultate pernobiles?

Why should I mention the linen cloths brought from Egypt, or those imported from Tyre and Sidon, which are so thin as to be transparent, which ''glow with purple, or are prized on account of their labored embroidery''?