Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/63

 SAINT JOHN.

Silk ([Greek: Sêrikon]) occurs but once in the New Testament, Rev. xviii. 12. It is here mentioned in a curious enumeration of all the most valuable articles of foreign traffic.

SILIUS ITALICUS.

Seres lanigeris repetebant vellera lucis. Punica. vi. 4.

Seres took fleeces from the woolly groves.

Munera rubri Præterea Ponti, depexaque vellera ramis, Femineus labor. Ib. xiv. 664.

The produce of the Erythræan seas, And fleeces comb'd by women from the trees.

Videre Eoi (monstrum admirabile!) Seres Lanigeros cinere Ausonio canescere lucos.

Ib. xvii. 595, 596.

The Seres' woolly groves, O wondrous sight! In the far East, were with Italian ashes white.

In the last passage Silius is describing the effects of the recent eruption of Mount Vesuvius, A. D. 79. That its ashes should reach the country of the Seres, whether it was in Persia or China, would indeed have been "Monstrum admirabile!"

STATIUS.

Seric (i. e. silken) palls.

Sylvæ, iii. 4. 89.

PLUTARCH

dissuades the virtuous and prudent wife from wearing silk. He mentions, that webs of silk and fine linen were at the same time thin and compact or close.