Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/58

 In another passage (Amores i. 14. 5.) Ovid compares the thin hairs of a lady to the silken veils of the Seres,

Veils such as color'd Seres wear.

We now proceed to the testimonies of authors who wrote either in Greek or Latin at the latter part of the Augustan age, or immediately after it.

DYONISIUS PERIEGETES.

[Greek: Kai ethnea barbara Sêrôn, Oite boas men anainontai kai iphia mêla, Aiola de xainontes erêmês anthea gaiês, Eimata teuchousin polydaidala, timêenta, Eidomena chroiê leimônidos anthesi poiês; Keinois outi ken ergon arachnaôn eriseien.] (l. 755.)

And the barbarous nations of the Seres, who renounce the care of sheep and oxen, but comb the variously colored flowers of the desert land to make precious figured garments, resembling in color the flowers of the meadow, and rivalling (in fineness) the work of spiders.—Yates's Translation.

It is worthy of observation that Dyonisius speaks expressly not only of the fineness of the thread, but of the flowered texture of the silk.

STRABO.

[Greek: Toiauta de kai ta Sêrika, ek ti nôn phloiôn xainomenês byssou.]

L. xv. 695. (v. vi. p. 40. Tzschucke.)

This is repeated by Eustathius on Dyonisius Periegetes. The account seems to have been taken by Strabo, perhaps inaccurately, from Nearchus. It is doubtful, whether [Greek: Sêrika] denoted silken webs in this passage. But whatever Strabo meant, he supposed the raw material to be scraped from the bark of trees.

As contemporary with the authors last quoted, Dyonisius and Strabo, we may here mention the law passed by the Roman Senate early in the reign of Tiberius, "Ne vestis Serica viros fœdaret." Taciti Annales, ii. 33. ''Dion. Cass. l.'' 57. p. 860.