enth century.[223]

The old Chinese flat gold was, about the sixteenth century, superseded
by what was manufactured in Spain, and is no longer imported or,
perhaps, even made.

6. SILK.

The origin and history of silk is learnedly and elaborately discussed
in Yates' "Textrinum Antiquorum." He gives us his authorities, and
literal translations for the benefit of the unlearned, who cannot read
the original texts. I have availed myself without hesitation of his
quotations, and of the carefully considered opinions he has drawn from
them.

It has been already said that wool and flax preceded silk in Egyptian,
Greek, and Roman manufactures. There is no certain mention of silk in
the Books of the Old Testament.[224] Silk is, however, named in the
Code of Manu.[225]

No shred of silk has been found in any Egyptian tomb, nor till
lately, and with one exception only, in those of the Greeks.

Auberville says, "La soie ne fit son apparition en Europe que 300 ans
avant notre ere."[226]

Pamphile, daughter of Plates, of Cos, is said by Aristotle to have
there first woven silk (300 B.C.). Probably raw silk was brought to
Cos from the interior of Asia, and Pamphile is by some supposed to
have "effiled" the solid manufactured silks, and woven them again into
gauzy webs. Yates suggests that it is possible that Pamphile obtained
cocoons and unwound them, as the passage in Aristotle may be so
interpreted.

The specimen of early silk-weaving which we have above alluded to, was
taken out of the "Tomb of the Seven Brothers" at Kertch, in the
Crimea, and is of the third century B.C. It consists of several bits
of very transparent painted silk. These fragments are an actual and
yet a contemporary witness to the truth of the tradition of Pamphile's
Coan webs, which are of the same date: possibly they were her
handiwork.

[Illustration: Pl. 34.
1. Classical Silk. Greek. (Semper's "Der Stil," p. 192.) 2.
Classical Silk. Roman. (Auberville, pl. 4.)]

Whether Pamphile's silk gauzes were the only fine webs of Cos,[227] is
a disputed question. She has the credit of being the first to clothe
victorious generals in triumphal garments, and she has been
immortalized by her cleverness and industry. Both Aristotle and Pliny
assert that she first invented the Coan webs, and that some of them
were of silk is undoubted. The question is, How came it there?
whence and by what route? and what country was its original home and
birth