monopoly sometimes raised the value even above the standard
of Aurelian, the manufacturers of Tyre and Berytus were sometimes
compelled, by the operation of the same causes, to content themselves
with a ninth part of that extravagant rate. [65] A law was thought
necessary to discriminate the dress of comedians from that of senators;
and of the silk exported from its native country the far greater
part was consumed by the subjects of Justinian. They were still more
intimately acquainted with a shell-fish of the Mediterranean,
surnamed the silk-worm of the sea: the fine wool or hair by which the
mother-of-pearl affixes itself to the rock is now manufactured for
curiosity rather than use; and a robe obtained from the same singular
materials was the gift of the Roman emperor to the satraps of Armenia.
[66]

[Footnote 61: In the history of insects (far more wonderful than Ovid's
Metamorphoses) the silk-worm holds a conspicuous place. The bombyx of
the Isle of Ceos, as described by Pliny, (Hist. Natur. xi. 26, 27, with
the notes of the two learned Jesuits, Hardouin and Brotier,) may be
illustrated by a similar species in China, (Memoires sur les Chinois,
tom. ii. p. 575--598;) but our silk-worm, as well as the white
mulberry-tree, were unknown to Theophrastus and Pliny.]

[Footnote 62: Georgic. ii. 121. Serica quando venerint in usum
planissime non acio: suspicor tamen in Julii Caesaris aevo, nam ante non
invenio, says Justus Lipsius, (Excursus i. ad Tacit. Annal. ii. 32.) See
Dion Cassius, (l. xliii. p. 358, edit. Reimar,) and Pausanius, (l. vi.
p. 519,) the first who describes, however strangely, the Seric insect.]

[Footnote 63: Tam longinquo orbe petitur, ut in publico matrona
transluceat...ut denudet foeminas vestis, (Plin. vi. 20, xi. 21.) Varro
and Publius Syrus had already played on the Toga vitrea, ventus
texilis, and nebula linen, (Horat. Sermon. i. 2, 101, with the notes of
Torrentius and Dacier.)]

[Footnote 6311: Gibbon must have written transparent draperies and naked
matrons. Through sometimes affected, he is never inaccurate.--M.]

[Footnote 64: On the texture, colors, names, and use of the silk, half
silk, and liuen garments of antiquity, see the profound, diffuse, and
obscure researches of the great Salmasius, (in Hist. August. p. 127,
309, 310, 339, 341, 342, 344, 388--391, 395, 513,) who was ignorant of
the most common trades of Dijon or Leyden.]

[Footnote 65: Flavius Vopiscus in Aurelian. c. 45, i