Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/66



[Greek: monon tas memôrêmenas leptourgias, kai tas en tais hyphais periergous plokas ekpodôn methistantas nêma chrysou, kai sêras Indikous, kai tous periergous bombykas chairein eôntas, hos skôlêx phyetai to prôton; eita ex autou daseia anaphainetai kampê. meth' hên eis tritên metamorphôsin neochmoutai bombylion; hoi de nekydalon auto kalousin; ex hou makros tiktetai stêmôn, kathaper ek tês arachnês ho tês arachnês mitos.]—Pædag. ii. 10. But, if it is necessary to accommodate ourselves to the women, let us concede to them the use of cloths, which are a little softer, only refusing that degree of fineness, which would imply folly, and such webs as are excessively labored and intricate; bidding farewell to gold thread, and to the Indian Seres, and that industrious bombyx, which is first a worm, then puts on the appearance of a hairy caterpillar, and hence passes, in the third place, into a Bombylius, or, as some call it, a Necydalus; and out of which is produced a long thread, in the same manner as the thread of the spider.—Yates's Translation.

The use of the epithet "Indian" in this passage may be accounted for from the circumstance, that in the time of the writer silken goods were brought to Alexandria and other cities of Egypt from India. Clemens has evidently borrowed this description from Aristotle.

SECOND CENTURY.

TERTULLIAN.

thus describes the Bombyx:

Vermiculi genus est, qui per aërem liquando aranearum horoscopis idoneas sedes tendit, dehinc devorat, mox alvo reddere; proinde si necaveris, animata jam stamina volves.

It is a kind of worm, which extends abodes like the dials of spiders by floating them through the air. It then devours them so as to restore them to its stomach. Therefore, if you kill it, you will roll living threads. (See chap. ix.)

In the same treatise (De Pallio, c. 4.) we find the following notice:

Such as Hercules was in the silk of Omphale.

Soon after, the same author, speaking of Alexander the Great, says,

Vicerat Medicam gentem, et victus est Medicâ veste:pectus squamarum signaculis disculptum, textu pellucido tegendo, nudavit: et anhelum adhuc ab opere belli, ut mollius, ventilante serico extinxit. Non erat satis animi tumens Macedo, ni illum etiam vestis inflatior delectâsset.

He had conquered the Medes, and was conquered by a Median garment. When his breast exhibited the sculptured resemblances of scales, he covered it