place?

After stating the _pros_ and _cons_ of the question, how and where did
silk first make its appearance, Sir G. Birdwood concludes that both
the worm and the cocoon were known to the Greeks and Romans, by report
and rare specimens, from the time of Alexander's return from his
Indian campaign.[228]

Of course the remains of these fabrics are extremely scarce; and, in
fact, only two are at present known to me besides the Kertch specimen.
The first is given in Semper's "Der Stil," and is evidently classical
Greek or Roman; but the silk material might have been effiled from an
Oriental stuff (pl. 34, No. 1). The second must have been originally a
Roman pattern, modified by the Persian loom in which it was woven.
This may have been a Roman triumphal robe of the date of Julius Caesar
(pl. 34, No. 2).

It is clear that Chinese silken stuffs were not generally known in
Southern Europe till the time of Julius Caesar, who displayed a
profusion of silks in some of his splendid theatrical representations.

How silk first arrived from the East is disputed; some say it came by
the Red Sea, and other authorities believe it was brought from China,
_via_ Persia, by land.

But it is not necessary that it should have entered our civilization
by only one gate. The Periplus Maris Erythraei makes frequent mention
of the trade in silks, through India, by the Indus to the coasts of
the Erythrean Sea. They were also brought through Bactria to Barygaza,
near Surat, from a city called Thina (China?). The author of the
Periplus, of course, refers to some place in the country vaguely
called Serica.[229]

That the trade which brought it into Europe was difficult and
limited, is proved by the fact that silk continued, even as late as
the third century of our era, to be an article of luxury, of which the
manufacture and use continued to be the subject of legal enactments
and restrictions, for 600 years after Pamphile's first essay in
silk-weaving in Cos.

"The Seres" was the name given by the ancients to the nation which
produced silk; and it was undoubtedly that accepted for the distant
region now called China, including Corea, and later, the kingdom of
Khotan. The first mention of these people as a distinct nation is by
Mela (iii. 7), who speaks of them as an "honest people, who bring what
they have to sell, and return for their payments."[230]

The prevailing idea amongst the Greeks was that silk was combed from
the trees. Seneca s