“Some women undo the cocoons of this creature, winding off the silk, and then weave it; and Pamphile, daughter of Plateus, is said to have been the first to weave it in Cos.” This implies that the manufacture of silk was carried on in Cos, but no information is given as to whether the worm was reared in that island or whether the raw silk was imported. Pliny[148] tells us more on the subject; he seems to distinguish the three kinds of silk mentioned above. Of these three, only “sericum” is, strictly speaking, silk—that is to say, a material made by unwinding the cocoon of the silkworm reared on the mulberry tree. This worm is first mentioned by Pausanias.[149] It was the Chinese who discovered this method of procuring the silk, and it was apparently unknown to the Greeks and Romans. The “coa” and “bombycina” were procured by piercing and carding the cocoon instead of unwinding them entire; the result was a substance coarser and less brilliant than silk. Pliny draws a distinction between “coa” and “bombycina,” telling us that the latter was a product of Assyria and came from the ordinary mulberry worm, whereas the worm from which coan silk was procured was reared on other trees, notably the oak, ash, and cypress.[150]
Coæ vestes are frequently mentioned by the Latin poets, chiefly Horace, Tibullus, and Propertius, and from them we learn that they were chiefly worn by Hetairæ and were of a transparent texture;[151] sometimes they were purple and had gold threads interwoven or embroidered.[152] One piece of silk was found amongst other materials at Kertch. In colour it is a bronze-gold, and is woven in a lozenge pattern.
If Greek dress lacked variety of cut and material, the deficiency was to some extent made up by considerable gaiety of colour and ornamentation. Probably none but slaves and artisans would wear garments of one colour without pattern or ornamentation of any kind, and even they would sometimes have their dresses adorned with a simple border, such as a broad stripe. From the numerous references scattered up and down through extant literature, it appears that the favourite colours were purple, red, and yellow. Pollux[153] gives us a list of the colours most commonly used. This list includes green (βατραχίς) and gray (κίλλιον, ὀνάγρινον), in addition to those mentioned above, but strangely enough no mention is made of blue. The word κυάνεος, “dark blue,” is seldom if ever applied to garments, yet it is scarcely likely that the colour was unknown to the Greeks. Possibly some shades described as πορφύρεος approached a violet, or blue, as distinguished from ἁλοῦργος, “true purple.” For red we find the word φοινίκεος, “dark red,” used especially of the military cloak of the Lacedæmonians,[154] and κοκκοβαφής, “scarlet”; for yellow κροκωτός and θάψινος. Βατραχίς, “frog-coloured,” is the word applied to a green garment, and this is probably the colour described as ὀμφάνικος, “like unripe grapes.” Pollux[155] tells us that for mourning the Greeks wore φαιὸν καὶ μέλαν ἀλλήλοις ἔγγυς, “gray and black, very like each other.” From this we learn that φαιός was a very dark colour, probably gray or dun.
The ornamentation applied to dress by the Greeks was very varied in character; it is comparatively rare to find on Greek vases a dress that is entirely free from decorations, and the patterns represented are very numerous. Sometimes the ornament consists of a simple border, often of a pattern distributed all over the dress, and these designs are frequently of a very elaborate character, including animal and even human forms. In sculpture, too, this feature was not neglected; the maidens of the Acropolis at Athens all have some pattern on their draperies added in colour, and one of them has no less than seven different designs distributed over her costume. We know that the himation of the Olympian Zeus by Pheidias was richly decorated, and the fragment from Damophon’s great group at Lycosura will serve as a later example of sculptured drapery highly ornamented with patterns in relief. This has not only geometric and floral designs as borders, but the whole surface is covered with fantastic dancing figures of human and hybrid forms.
References in literature are not very frequent; the most noteworthy occurs in the Iliad,[156] where Helen is described as working at a great loom:
ἣ δὲ μέγαν ἱστὸν ὕφαινεν
δίπλακα πορφυρέην, πολέας δ᾽ ἐνέπασσεν ἀέθλους
Τρώων θ᾽ ἱπποδάμων καὶ Ἀχαιῶν χαλκοχιτώνων.
“She was weaving a great purple web of double fold, and over it she spread many battles of horse-taming Trojans and bronze-clad Achæans.”
The epithet ποικίλος, applied to dress, undoubtedly means “richly decorated,” and the ἀνθινά, “flowered garments,” frequently mentioned in inscriptions, presumably refers to garments ornamented with floral designs. In connection with the passage in Homer, the question has been raised as to whether these complex designs were woven into the material or embroidered afterwards. It seems hardly likely that they were woven in, unless the work were a heavy tapestry, such as would hardly be suitable for a costume; moreover, the word ἐμπάσσω means “to sprinkle on,” and is more easily applicable to the distribution of a design over a piece of material already woven than to the formation of a pattern in the course of the weaving. The words μέγαν, ἱστὸν, and ὔφαινεν would still be applicable, because when the garment was at this stage, it would still be regarded as incomplete, and the designs, however applied, would probably be at least sketched out while it was still on the loom.