Pallia nam meruit, sunt quæ cruce textile pulchra,
Serica qua niveis sunt agnava blattea telis,
Et textis crucibus magnificatur opus.[168]
Very often the crosses woven on these fabrics were of the simplest shape; oftener were they designed after an elaborate type with a symbolic meaning about it that afforded an especial name to the stuffs upon which they were figured, the first of which that claims our notice is denominated
[166] Lib. Pon. ii. 257.
[167] Ibid. 258.
[168] Poematum, Liber II. iv.
Gammadion, or Gammadiæ, a word applied as often to the pattern upon silks as the figures wrought upon gold and silver for use in churches, we so repeatedly come upon in the “Liber Pontificalis.”
In the Greek alphabet the capital letter of gamma takes the shape of an exact right angle thus, Γ. Being so, many writers have beheld in it an emblem of our Lord as our corner-stone. Following this idea artists at a very early period struck out a way of forming the cross after several shapes by various combinations with it of this letter Γ. Four of these gammas put so