In Chapters II. and III., we quoted several passages which make mention of cloth of gold, from Tibullus, Ovid, Seneca the Tragedian, Lucan, Dio Cassius, Claudian, Virgil, Gregorius Nazienzenus, and Basil, all of which speak of cloth of gold. Ovid mentions purple garments variously colored and interwoven with gold, as belonging to Bacchus.—Met. iii. 556.
Publius Syrus was a writer of the same period. In the following fragment preserved by Petronius Arbiter, he compares the train of the peacock to Babylonian stuffs enriched with gold and various colors:
Thy food the peacock, which displays his spotted train,
As shines a Babylonian shawl with feather’d gold!
Shawls, interwoven with gold, are mentioned by Galen[117], and by Valerius Flaccus[118]; also by Lucan in the following passage, where he is describing the furniture of Cleopatra’s palace (x. 125, 126.):
Part shines with feather’d gold, part sheds a blaze
Of scarlet, intermixed by Pharian looms!
[117] Quoted in Chapter II.
[118] Auro depicta chlamys.
The following passages also contain evidence on the same subject.