Nor with Mæonian needle marks the web,
Gather’d by Eastern Seres from the trees.
Seres, illustrious for their fleece.
Thyestes, 378.
Remove, ye maids, the vests, whose tissue glares
With purple and with gold; far be the red
Of Tyrian murex, and the shining thread,
Which furthest Seres gather from the boughs.
Hyppolitus, 386. (Phædra loquitur.)
At a very early period the art of dyeing had been carried to a very great degree of perfection in Phœnicia. The method of dyeing woollen cloths purple was, it is said, first discovered at Tyre. This color, the most celebrated among the ancients, appears to have been brought to a degree of excellence, of which we can form but a very faint idea: