Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/74

 Sarcinatori in veste soubtili replicat(u)ræ  * sex Eidem aperturæ cum subsutura olosericræ      * quinquaginta Eidem aperturæ cum subsutura su(b)sericæ     * triginta (Sub)suturæ in veste grossiori               * quattuor.

Denarii. To the Tailor for lining a fine vest                     6 To the same for an opening and an edging with silk      50 To the same for an opening and an edging with stuff made of a mixed tissue of silk and flax               30 For an edging on a coarser vest                          4 Colonel Leake's translation.

This document proves, in exact conformity with the passages quoted from Solinus and Ammianus, that silk had come into general use at the commencement of the fourth century. It is also manifest from this extract, that silk was employed in giving to garments a greater proportion of intricacy and ornament than had been in use before.

The authors who make mention of silk in the fourth and following centuries are very numerous. We shall first take the heathen authors, and then the Christian writers, whose observations often have some moral application, which gives them an additional interest.

The unknown author of the Panegyric on the emperor Constantine, pronounced A. D. 317, thus mentions silk as characterizing oriental refinement.

Facile est vincere timidos et imbelles, quales amœna Græcia et deliciæ Orientis educunt, vix leve pallium et sericos sinus vitando sole tolerantes.

It is easy to vanquish the timid and those unused to war, the offspring of pleassant Greece and the delightful East, who, whilst they avoid the heat of the sun, can scarcely bear even a light shawl and folds of silk.

The testimony of the Roman historian , in reference to the practice of the emperor Aurelian and the dearness of silk during his reign, has already been produced. This author, in his life of the same emperor, makes the following remarks on a display of silk which he had himself recently witnessed.