The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Эдвард Гиббон
Ref. 054
See this church and monastery in Ducange, C. P. Christiana, l. iv. p. 182. [The monks took them, not to the church of St. Conon, but to that of St. Laurentius, which had the privilege of asylum.]
Ref. 055
The history of the Nika sedition is extracted from Marcellinus (in Chron.), Procopius (Persic. l. i. c. 26), John Malala (tom. ii. p. 213-218 [p. 473 sqq., ed. Bonn]), Chron. Paschal. (p. 336-340 [p. 620 sqq., ed. Bonn]), Theophanes (Chronograph. p. 154-158 [181-6, ed. de Boor]), and Zonaras (l. xiv. p. 61-63 [c. 6]). [See Appendix 3.]
Ref. 056
Marcellinus says in general terms, innumeris populis in circo trucidatis. Procopius numbers 30,000 victims [so Marius of Aventicum (ad ann.), who was probably drawing from Consularia Italica]; and the 35,000 of Theophanes are swelled to 40,000 by the more recent Zonaras. Such is the usual progress of exaggeration. [This remark is blunted by the fact that John Lydus, a contemporary, gives a still higher number, 50,000. De Mag. p. 266.]
Ref. 057
Hierocles, a contemporary of Justinian, composed his Συνἑκδημος (Itineraria, p. 631), or review of the Eastern provinces and cities, before the year 535 (Wesseling in Præfat. and Not. ad p. 623, &c.). [Best edition by A. Burckhardt, 1893.]
Ref. 058
See the book of Genesis (xii. 10), and the administration of Joseph. The annals of the Greeks and Hebrews agree in the early arts and plenty of Egypt; but this antiquity supposes a long series of improvements; and Warburton, who is almost stifled by the Hebrew, calls aloud for the Samaritan chronology (Divine Legation, vol. iii. p. 29, &c.).
Ref. 059
Eight millions of Roman modii, besides a contribution of 80,000 aurei for the expenses of water-carriage, from which the subject was graciously excused. See the xiiith Edict of Justinian; the numbers are checked and verified by the agreement of the Greek and Latin texts.
Ref. 060
Homer’s Iliad, vi. 289. These veils, πέπλοι παμποίκιλοι, were the work of the Sidonian women. But this passage is more honourable to the manufactures than to the navigation of Phœnicia, from whence they had been imported to Troy in Phrygian bottoms.
Ref. 061
See in Ovid (de Arte Amandi, iii. 269, &c.) a poetical list of twelve colours borrowed from flowers, the elements, &c. But it is almost impossible to discriminate by words all the nice and various shades both of art and nature.
Ref. 062
By the discovery of Cochineal, &c. we far surpass the colours of antiquity. Their royal purple had a strong smell, and a dark cast as deep as bull’s blood — obscuritas rubens (says Cassiodorius, Var. 1, 2), nigredo sanguinea. The president Goguet (Origine des Loix et des Arts, part ii. l. ii. c. 2, p. 184-215) will amuse and satisfy the reader. I doubt whether his book, especially in England, is as well known as it deserves to be.
Ref. 063
Historical proofs of this jealousy have been occasionally introduced, and many more might have been added; but the arbitrary acts of despotism were justified by the sober and general declarations of law (Codex Theodosian. l. x. tit. 21, leg. 3. Codex Justinian. l. xi. tit. 8, leg. 5). An inglorious permission, and necessary restriction, was applied to the mimæ, the female dancers (Cod. Theodos. l. xv. tit. 7, leg. 11).
Ref. 064
In the history of insects (far more wonderful than Ovid’s Metamorphoses) the silk-worm holds a conspicuous place. The bombyx of the isle of Ceos, as described by Pliny (Hist. Natur. xi. 26, 27, with the notes of the two learned Jesuits, Hardouin and Brotier), may be illustrated by a similar species in China (Mémoires sur les Chinois, tom. ii. p. 575-598); but our silk-worm, as well as the white mulberry-tree, were unknown to Theophrastus and Pliny. [Here the author has curiously confused Ceos with Cos. The earliest notice of the silk-worm is in Aristotle, Hist. Animal. 5, 19: ἐκ δὲ τούτου τον̂ ζώου καὶ τὰ βομβύκια ἀναλύουσι τω̂ν γυναικω̂ν τινὲς ἀναπηνιζόμεναι κἄπειτα ὑϕα̂ίνουσιν. The early Chinese Chronicle Hou-han-shu, which was partly written during the 5th cent. ad and covers the period ad 25 to 220, states that in Ta-tsin (the eastern part of the Roman empire) the people “practise the planting of trees and the rearing of silk-worms” (Hirth, China and the Roman Orient, p. 40). In a later work, the Wei-shu, contemporary with Justinian, mulberry-trees are specified in a proximity which is perhaps significant. “The country produces all kinds of grain, the mulberry-tree and hemp. The inhabitants busy themselves with silk-worms and fields” (Hirth, ib. p. 50).]
Ref. 065
Georgic. ii. 121 [cp. Claudian, Prob. et Olyb. 179]. Serica quando venerint in usum planissime non scio: suspicor tamen in Julii Cæsaris ævo, nam ante non invenio, says Justus Lipsius (Excursus i. ad Tacit. Annal. ii. 32). See Dion Cassius (l. xliii. p. 358, edit. Reimar), and Pausanias (l. vi. p. 519), the first who describes, however strangely, the Seric insect. [For the silk trade see Pardessus, Mémoire sur le commerce de soie chez les anciens, in Mém. de l’Acad. des Inscriptions, 1842; F. Hirth, China and the Roman Orient, 1885 (see Appendix 4); for the mulberry-tree, see Hehn, Kulturpflanzen und Hausthiere, p. 336 sqq.]
Ref. 066
Tam longinquo orbe petitur, ut in publico matrona transluceat . . . ut denudet feminas vestis (Plin. vi. 20, xi. 21). Varro and Publius Syrus had already played on the Toga vitrea, ventus textilis, and nebula linea (Horat. Sermon. i. 2, 101, with the notes of Torrentius and Dacier). [Cp. Athenæus, iv. 3.]
Ref. 067
On the texture, colours, names, and use of the silk, half silk, and linen garments of antiquity, see the profound, diffuse, and obscure researches of the great Salmasius (in Hist. August. p. 127, 309, 310, 339, 341, 342, 344, 388-391, 395, 513), who was ignorant of the most common trades of Dijon or Leyden. [The authority for the unravelling and reweaving in Syria of woven silks imported from China is Pliny (in the passages cited in the last note). The statement has been regarded by some as a figment, but F. Hirth (op. cit.) has shown that it is confirmed in a striking way by Chinese authorities: by the Wei-lio (compiled before ad 429) and in the Encyclopædia of Ma Tuan-lin. The former says: “They [the inhabitants of the Roman Orient, esp. Syria] were always anxious to get Chinese silk for severing it in order to make hu-ling [damask, gauze, Coan transparencies?], for which reason they frequently trade by sea with the countries of An-hsi (Parthia).” Hirth’s translation, p. 72. Cp. p. 257-8. Pardessus takes the same view of the passages in Pliny (op. cit. p. 14, 15).]
Ref. 068
Flavius Vopiscus in Aurelian. c. 45, in Hist. August. p. 224. See Salmasius ad Hist. Aug. p. 392, and Plinian. Exercitat. in Solinum, p. 694, 695. The Anecdotes of Procopius (c. 25) state a partial and imperfect rate of the price of silk in the time of Justinian.
Ref. 069
Procopius de Ædif. l. iii. c. 1. These pinnes de mer are found near Smyrna, Sicily, Corsica, and Minorca; and a pair of gloves of their silk was presented to Pope Benedict XIV. [This cloth is the byssus woven from the threads of the pinna squamosa.]
Ref. 070
Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 20; l. ii. c. 25. Gothic. l. iv. c. 17. Menander in Excerpt. Legat. p. 107 [fr. 18, F.H.G. iv. p. 225]. Of the Parthian or Persian empire, Isidore of Charax (in Stathmis Parthicis, p. 7, 8, in Hudson, Geograph. Minor, tom. ii.) has marked the roads, and Ammianus Marcellinus (l. xxiii. c. 6, p. 400) has enumerated the provinces.
Ref. 071
The blind admiration of the Jesuits confounds the different periods of the Chinese history. They are more critically distinguished by M. de Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. i. part i.