Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/69

 only by the three historians now to be quoted, by Cyprian, and by Solinus. But we have from these historians some remarkable accounts of the regard paid to it by the emperors Heliogabalus, Alexander Severus, Aurelian, Claudius II., Tacitus, and Carinus, all of whom reigned in the third century.

says (c. 26.), that the profligate and effeminate emperor Heliogabalus was the first Roman, who wore cloth made wholly of silk, the silk having been formerly combined with other less valuable materials, and, in consequence of his example, the custom of wearing silk soon became general among the wealthy citizens of Rome. He mentions (c. 33) among the innumerable extravagances of this emperor, that he had prepared a silken rope of purple and scarlet colors to hang himself with.

Of the emperor Alexander Severus he says (c. 40), that he himself had few garments of silk, that he never wore a tunic made wholly of silk, and that he never gave away cloth made of silk mixed with less valuable materials.

The following is the testimony of Flavius Vopiscus in his life of the emperor Aurelian.

Aurelian neither had himself in his wardrobe a garment wholly of silk, nor gave one to be worn by another. When his own wife begged him to allow her to have a single shawl of purple silk, he replied, Far be it from us to permit thread to be reckoned worth its weight in gold. For a pound of gold was then the price of a pound of silk. c. 45.

Although the above mentioned restrictions in the use of silk may be partly accounted for from the usual severity of Aurelian's character, yet the facts here stated abundantly show the rarity and high value of this material in that age.

Flavius Vopiscus further states, that the emperor Tacitus made it unlawful for men to wear silk unmixed with cheaper materials. Carinus, on the other hand, made presents of silken garments, as well as of gold and silver, to Greek artificers, and to wrestlers, players, and musicians.

, in his life of Claudius II. (c. 14 and 17.), twice mentions white garments of silk mixed with cheaper materials, which were destined for that emperor.