With joy elated at this proud success,
Their venerable mother now prepares
The golden trabeas, and the cinctures bright
With Seric fibres shorn from woolly trees:
Her well-train'd thumb protracts the length'ning gold,
And makes the metal to the threads adhere.
In Probini et Olybrii Consulatum, l. 177-182.
From these verses we learn that Proba had herself acquired the art of covering the thread with gold, and that she then used her gold thread in the woof to form the stripes or other ornaments of the consular trabeæ. These are afterwards called stiff togas (togæ rigentes, l. 205.), on account of the rigidity imparted to them by the gold thread.
The same poet gives an elaborate description of a Trabea which he supposes to have been woven by the Goddess Rome with the aid of Minerva for the use of the Consul Stilicho. Five different scenes are said to have been woven in this admirable robe (regentia dona, graves auro trabeas), and certain parts of them were wrought in gold[1].
Again, Claudian supposes Thetis to have woven scarfs of gold and purple for her son Achilles:
Ipsa manu chlamydes ostro texebat et auro. (Ep. 35.)
The epigram in which this line occurs, seems to imply that
Serena, mother-in-law of the Emperor Honorius, wove garments
of the same kind for him.
Maria, the daughter of the above-mentioned Stilicho, was bestowed by him upon Honorius, but died shortly after, about A. D. 400. In February, 1544, the marble coffin, containing her remains, was discovered at Rome. In it were preserved a garment and a pall, which, on being burnt, yielded 36 pounds of gold. There were also found a great number of glass vessels, jewels, and ornaments of all kinds, which Stilicho had given as a dowry to his daughter[2]. We may conclude, that the garments discovered in the tomb of Maria were woven by the hands of her mother Serena, since the epigram of Claudian
