se
princesses were much mortified, believing it was a suggestion of their
fallen fortunes, Alexander hastened to reassure them--saying that his
own mother and sisters occupied themselves in embroidering dresses.

The Persians and Babylonians seem to have preferred subjects for their
embroidered dresses somewhat in the style of the mantle of
Alkisthenes, which was probably Oriental, and suggests the Babylonian
mantle in Jericho, "which tempted Achan to sin." The Egyptian frescoes
on the other hand, sometimes give us women and goddesses dressed in
small flowery patterns that remind one of Indian chintzes. These were
probably woven, painted, and embroidered, and filled in with threads
of gold. The Romans varied their fashions, but they preferred for a
time striped borders on their garments,[475] and called them
"molores," "dilores," "trilores," up to seven. The Greeks but seldom
departed from the rule of plain or quietly patterned surfaces with
rich borders in their delineations of dress, though there are examples
of large designs covering the whole garment.

The embroidered dresses of early Christian times are to be judged of
by mosaics and frescoes--mostly Italian. Those of the dark ages were
till lately only names and guesses. But a hiatus in our knowledge has
been filled up lately by the store of entombed textiles discovered in
the Fayoum in Egypt, and now at Vienna, in Herr Graf'schen's
Collection. Here we have a variety of shapes, designs, and stitches,
and every kind of subject, sacred and profane, Christian and Pagan,
and the missing links between Indian and Byzantine fabrics are
revealed. They cover nearly 400 years, from the third to the seventh
century, and many of them may be looked upon as apart from any
ecclesiastical or even Christian suggestions. I have spoken of them in
the chapter on Woollen Materials.[476]

After the seventh century, we again come into the dawning light of
history--and find here and there an illustrative fragment, nearly
always ecclesiastical, taken from the graves of priests and monarchs.
Charlemagne's mantle and robe embroidered with elephants and with
bees, preserved at Aix-la-Chapelle--his dalmatic in the Vatican--the
Durham embroideries, are rare and precious examples of that early
period.

Semper describes the difference between "the covering" and the
"binding." This seems to be little considered in modern costume, but
it is so essential that I would impress it on my readers.