[1248] Lamprid. Vita Heliogab. cap. 23.
[1249] Plin. lib. viii. cap. 48. That the cloth of Attalus was embroidered with the needle is proved by a passage of Silius Italicus, lib. xiv. 661. We find by Martial, lib. xiii. ep. 28, that the Babylonian cloth was also ornamented with embroidery; and the same author, lib. xiv. ep. 50, extols the weaving of Alexandria, as being not inferior to the Babylonian embroidery with the needle. In opposition to which might be quoted a passage of Tertullian De Habitu Mulierum, where he makes use of the word insuere to the Phrygian work, and of intexere to the Babylonian. By these expressions it would appear that he wished to define accurately the difference of the Phrygian and Babylonian cloth, and to show that the former was embroidered and the latter wove. But Tertullian often plays with words. Intexere is the same as insuere. In Pliny, book xxxv. ch. 9, a name embroidered with gold threads is called “aureis litteris in palleis intextum nomen.”
[1250] Lamprid. Vita Alexand. Severi, c. 40.
[1251] Odyss. lib. v. 230; x. 23, 24.
[1252] Vita Aureliani, cap. 46.
[1253] A doubt however arises respecting this proof. It is possible that the author here speaks of gilt silver; for, as the ancients were not acquainted with the art of separating these metals, their gold was entirely lost when they melted the silver. I remember no passage in ancient authors where mention is made of weaving or embroidering with threads of silver gilt.
[1254] Salmas. ad Vopisc. p. 394; et ad Tertull. de Pallio, p. 208. Such cloth at those periods was called συρματινὸν, συρματηρὸν, drap d’argent.
[1255] Antiquitat. Ital. Medii Ævi, ii. p. 374.
[1256] Pyrotechnia, lib. ix.
[1257] La Piazza Universale, Ven. 1610, 4to.