imagerie and floure, work, and from
thence came the triumphant robes. As for embroderie itselfe and
needle-worke, it was the Phrygians invention: and hereupon embroderers
in Latine bee called phrygiones. And in the same Asia king Attalus was
the first that devised cloth of gold: and thence come such colours to
be called Attalica. In Babylon they used much to weave their cloth of
divers colours, and this was a great wearing amongst them, and cloths
so wrought were called Babylonica. To weave cloth of tissue with
twisted threeds both in woofe and warpe, and the same of sundrie
colours, was the invention of Alexandria; and such clothes and
garments were called Polymita, But Fraunce devised the scutchion,
square, or lozenge damaske worke. Metellus Scipio, among other
challenges and imputations laid against Capito, reproached and accused
him for this:--'That his hangings and furniture of his dining chamber,
being Babylonian work or cloth of Arras, were sold for 800,000
sesterces; and such like of late days stood Prince Nero in 400,000
sesterces, _i.e._ forty millions.' The embrodered long robes of
Servius Tullius, wherewith he covered and arraied all over the image
of Fortune, by him dedicated, remained whole and sound until the end
of Sejanus. And a wonder it was that they neither fell from the image
nor were motheaten in 560 yeares."[5]

It was long before silk was in general use, even for patrician
garments. It has been supposed that the famous Median vest, invented
by Semiramis, was silken, which might account for its great fame in
the west. Be this as it may, it was so very graceful, that the Medes
adopted it after they had conquered Asia; and the Persians followed
their example. In the time of the Romans the price of silk was weight
for weight with gold, and the first persons who brought silk into
Europe were the Greeks of Alexander's army. Under Tiberius it was
forbidden to be worn by men; and it is said that the Emperor Aurelian
even refused the earnest request of his empress for a silken dress, on
the plea of its extravagant cost. Heliogabalus was the first man that
ever wore a robe entirely of silk. He had also a tunic woven of gold
threads; such gold thread as we referred to in a prior chapter, as
consisting of the metal alone beaten out and rounded, without any
intermixture of silk or woollen. Tarquinius Priscus had also a vest of
this gorgeous description, as had likewise Agrippina. Gold thread and
wire continu