DAMASKS, BROCADES AND VELVETS so differs
from
others.
At its first inetaniorphosis it produces a
caterpillar, then a bonibylius, then a chrysalis
—
all
the three changes
taking place within six months. From this animal, women separate and reel off the cocoons, and afterwards spin them. Tt is said that
was first spun in the Island of Cos, l)y Pamphile, daughter of Aristotle, it will be remembered, was the pupil of Plato, and the teacher of Alexander the Great, and lived in the fourth silk
Plates."
century before Christ. Soon, allusions to silk became common in Greek and Roman litBut even Pliny in the first centmy after Christ told less erature.
The
about the silkworm than could be learned from Aristotle.
was indicated clearly enough l)y the Latin name for it, scricum, derived from Seres, the Roman name for the The word is Chinese, which itself was borrowed from the Greeks. evidently connected with the Chinese sse (silk), the French sole, the Italian seta, the Spanish sedo, the German seide, the Russian sheik, Chinese origin of
silk
the English silk.
Always the silks that found their way to Rome brought high It prices and their use by men was considered effeminate luxmy. would seem from an anecdote about the Emj^eror Aurelian, who lived in the third century after Christ, and who neither used silk himself nor woidd allow his wife to have a single silk dress, that a pound of silk at that time was worth a pound of gold. Nevertheless,
was stated a century later by the historian Ammianus Marcellinus, that silk had already come within the reach of the common people. it
Not
until
the reign of the
Emperor Justinian
in
the
sixth
century after Christ, two centiu'ies after Constantine had transferred the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to Constantinople, was the groming of silk permanently established in Europe. The story goes that two Persian monks, who had lived long years
and learned the whole art and mystery of rearing silkworms, Constantinople and told what they knew to the Emperor. He bade them return to China and attempt to smuggle in China,
visited
thence the materials necessary for the cultivation of silk.
This they
accomplished by concealing eggs of the silkworm and sprouts of the nudberry tree in their pilgrims' staffs made of bamboo.
Rapidly the culture of silk S2)read through the Byzantine Empire, especially to Syria and Sicily, where it continued to flourish In the twelfth century it was after the Mohammedan conquests. 13