As yet figured cloths did not exist: gold was not woven, it was not even extracted from the ground.—Epist. 91. LUCIAN describes the tragic actors, when they performed the part of kings, as wearing a chlamys interwoven with gold[1]. APULEIUS. They carefully spread over the couches, cloths figured with gold and Tyrian purple.—Met.
PHILOSTRATUS
depicts Midas wearing a golden robe[2].
NEMESIANUS.
In thy scarf's woof much sportive gold display.—Cyneg. 91.
The poet is addressing Diana and describing her attire.
AUSONIUS.
Weave flexile gold within thy shawls, O Greece[3].
This is the first passage since the time of Homer, which mentions Greece as concerned in weaving with gold. But Ausonius probably alluded to the Greeks of Asia Minor, as, besides the evidence produced from Basil, we have seen that Pergamus was one of the most noted places for these productions, which were on that account called "Attalicæ vestes[4]."*
- ↑ Somnium, vol. ii. p. 742. ed. Hemsterhusii.
- ↑ Imag. i. 22.
- ↑ Epigram 37.
- ↑ "I find evidence that kings wore the striped toga; that figured cloths were in use even in the days of Homer; and that these gave rise to the triumphal. To produce this effect with the needle was the invention of the Phrygians, on which account cloths so embroidered have been called Phrygionic. In the same part of Asia king Attalus discovered the art of inserting a woof of gold (?); from which circumstance the Attalic cloths received their name (?). Babylon first obtained celebrity by its method of diversifying the picture with different colors, and gave its name to textures of this description. But to weave with a great number of leashes, so as to produce the cloths called polymita (the polymita were damask cloths), was first taught in Alexandria; to divide by squares (plaids) in
