DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.67419#0069
NEEDLEWORK OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS. 47
and such clothes and garments were called Polymita,
But Fraunce devised the scutchion, square, or
lozenge damaske worke. Metellus Scipio, among
other challenges and imputations laid against Capito^
reproached and accused him for this:—‘That his
hangings and furniture of his dining chamber, being
Babylonian work or cloth of Arras, were sold for
800,000 sesterces; and such like of late days stood
Prince Nero in 400,000 sesterces, i. e. forty millions.’
The embrodered long robes of Servius Tullius,
wherewith he covered and arraied all over the image
of Fortune, by him dedicated, remained whole and
sound until the end of Sejanus. And a wonder it
was that they neither fell from the image nor were
motheaten in 560 yeares.” *
It was long before silk was in general use, even
for patrician garments. It has been supposed that
the famous Median vest, invented by Semiramis,
was silken, which might account for its great fame
in the west. Be this as it may, it was so very
graceful, that the Medes adopted it after they had
conquered Asia; and the Persians followed their
example. In the time of the Romans the price of
silk was weight for weight with gold, and the first
persons who brought silk into Europe were the
Greeks of Alexander’s army. Under Tiberius it
was forbidden to be worn by men ; and it is said
that the Emperor Aurelian even refused the earnest
request of his empress for a silken dress, on the
plea of its extravagant cost. Heliogabalus was
the first man that ever wore a robe entirely of silk.
He had also a tunic woven of gold threads; such
* Book viii. chap. 48.
and such clothes and garments were called Polymita,
But Fraunce devised the scutchion, square, or
lozenge damaske worke. Metellus Scipio, among
other challenges and imputations laid against Capito^
reproached and accused him for this:—‘That his
hangings and furniture of his dining chamber, being
Babylonian work or cloth of Arras, were sold for
800,000 sesterces; and such like of late days stood
Prince Nero in 400,000 sesterces, i. e. forty millions.’
The embrodered long robes of Servius Tullius,
wherewith he covered and arraied all over the image
of Fortune, by him dedicated, remained whole and
sound until the end of Sejanus. And a wonder it
was that they neither fell from the image nor were
motheaten in 560 yeares.” *
It was long before silk was in general use, even
for patrician garments. It has been supposed that
the famous Median vest, invented by Semiramis,
was silken, which might account for its great fame
in the west. Be this as it may, it was so very
graceful, that the Medes adopted it after they had
conquered Asia; and the Persians followed their
example. In the time of the Romans the price of
silk was weight for weight with gold, and the first
persons who brought silk into Europe were the
Greeks of Alexander’s army. Under Tiberius it
was forbidden to be worn by men ; and it is said
that the Emperor Aurelian even refused the earnest
request of his empress for a silken dress, on the
plea of its extravagant cost. Heliogabalus was
the first man that ever wore a robe entirely of silk.
He had also a tunic woven of gold threads; such
* Book viii. chap. 48.