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[1].
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 Flavius Vopiscus,
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.
- ↑ A Roman coin of the value of about sixteen or seventeen cents, called Denarii
from the letter X upon it; which denoted ten.
