It Was Therefore
Necessary, That Justinian Should Have Recourse To Other Measures To Obtain
Silk Goods; Instead, However, Of Restoring
The trade of Egypt, which at
this period had fallen into utter decay, and sending vessels directly from
the Red
Sea to the Indian markets, where the raw material might have been
procured, he had recourse to Arabia and Abyssinia. According to Suidas, he
wished the former to import the silk in a raw state, intending to
manufacture it in his own dominions. But the king of Abyssinia declined the
offer; as the vicinity of the Persians to the Indian markets for silk
enabled them to purchase it at a cheaper rate than the Abyssinians could
procure it. The same obstacle prevented the Arabians from complying with
the request of Justinian.
The wealthy and luxurious Romans, therefore, must have been deprived of
this elegant material for their dresses, had not their wishes been
gratified by an unexpected event. Two Persian monks travelled to Serindi,
where they had lived long enough to become acquainted with the various
processes for spinning and manufacturing silk. When they returned, they
communicated their information to Justinian; and were induced, by his
promises, to undertake the transportation of the eggs of the silk-worm,
from China to Constantinople. Accordingly, they went back to Serindi, and
brought away a quantity of the eggs in a hollow cane, and conveyed them
safely to Constantinople. They superintended and directed the hatching of
the eggs, by the heat of a dunghill: the worms were fed on mulberry leaves:
a sufficient number of butterflies were saved to keep up the stock; and to
add to the benefits already conferred, the Persian monks taught the Romans
the whole of the manufacture. From Constantinople, the silk-worms were
conveyed to Greece, Sicily, and Italy. In the succeeding reign, the Romans
had improved so much in the management of the silk-worms, and in the
manufacture of silk, that the Serindi ambassadors, on their arrival in
Constantinople, acknowledged that the Romans were not inferior to the
natives of China, in either of these respects. It may be mentioned, in
further proof of the opinion already given, that the silk manufactures of
Cos were not supplied from silk-worms in that island, that we have the
express authority of Theophanes and Zonaras, that, before silk-worms were
brought to Constantinople, in the reign of Justinian, no person in that
city knew that silk was produced by a worm. This, certainly, would not have
been the case, if there had been silk-worms so near Constantinople as the
island of Cos is. All the authors whom we have quoted, (with the exception
of Aristotle, Pliny, and Pausanias,) including a period of six centuries,
supposed that silk was made from fleeces growing upon trees, from the bark
of trees, or from flowers. These mistakes, may, indeed, have arisen from
the Romans having heard of the silk being taken from the mulberry and other
trees, on which the worms feed; but, however they originated, they plainly
prove that the native country of the silk-worm was at a very great distance
from Rome, and one of which they had very little knowledge.
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