The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Эдвард Гиббон

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СКАЧАТЬ 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).]

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      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.]

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      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.]

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      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).]

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      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.

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      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.]

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      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.

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      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. in the Tables, part ii. in the Geography, Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xxxii. xxxvi. xlii. xliii.), who discovers the gradual progress of the truth of the annals, and the extent of the monarchy, till the Christian era. He has searched, with a curious eye, the connections of the Chinese with the nations of the West; but these connections are slight, casual, and obscure; nor did the Romans entertain a suspicion that the Seres or Sinæ possessed an empire not inferior to their own. [Cp. Appendix 4.]

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      The roads from China to Persia and Hindostan may be investigated in the relations of Hackluyt and Thévenot (the ambassadors of Sharokh, Anthony Jenkinson, the Père Grueber, &c.). See likewise Hanway’s Travels, vol. i. p. 345-357. A communication through Thibet has been lately explored by the English sovereigns of Bengal.

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      For the Chinese navigation to Malacca and Achin, perhaps to Ceylon, see Renaudot (on the two Mahometan Travellers, p. 8-11, 13-17, 141-157), Dampier (vol. ii. p. 136), the Hist. Philosophique des deux Indes (tom. i. p. 98), and the Hist. Générale des Voyages (tom. vi. p. 201).

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      The knowledge, or rather ignorance, of Strabo, Pliny, Ptolemy, Arrian, Marcian, &c. of the countries eastward of Cape Comorin is finely illustrated by d’Anville (Antiquité Géographique de l’Inde, especially p. 161-198). Our geography of India is improved by commerce and conquest; and has been illustrated by the excellent maps and memoirs of Major Rennel. If he extends the sphere of his inquiries with the same critical knowledge and sagacity, he will succeed, and may surpass, the first of modern geographers.

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      The Taprobane of Pliny (vi. 24), Solinus (c. 53), and Salmas. (Plinianæ Exercitat. p. 781, 782), and most of the ancients, who often confound the islands of Ceylon and Sumatra, is more clearly described by Cosmas Indicopleustes; yet even the Christian topographer has exaggerated its dimensions. His information on the Indian and Chinese trade is rare and curious (l. ii. p. 138; l. xi. p. 337, 338, edit. Montfaucon).

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      See Procopius, Persic. (l. ii. c. 20). Cosmas affords some interesting knowledge of the port and inscription [two inscriptions, (1) of Ptolemy Euergetes (iii.); (2) of a king of Axum, of a much later date] of Adulis (Topograph. Christ. l. ii. p. 138, 140-143), and of the trade of the Axumites along the African coast of Barbaria or Zingi (p. 138, 139), and as far as Taprobane (l. xi. p. 339). [On the Axumites, see Dillmann’s article in the Abhandlungen of the Berlin Academy, 1878.]

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      See the Christian missions in India, in Cosmas (l. iii. p. 178, 179, l. xi. p. 337), and consult Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. (tom. iv. p. 413-548).

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      The invention, manufacture, and general use of silk in China may be seen in Duhalde (Description Générale de la Chine, tom. ii. p. 165, 205-223). The province of Chekian is the most renowned both for quantity and quality.

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      Procopius, l. viii. (Gothic. iv.) c. 17. Theophanes Byzant. apud Phot. Cod. lxxxiv. p. 38. Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiv. p. 69. Pagi (tom. ii. p. 602) assigns to the year 552 this memorable importation. Menander (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 107 [fr. 18, F.H.G. iv.]) mentions the admiration of the Sogdoites; and Theophylact Simocatta (l. vii. c. 9) darkly represents the two rival kingdoms in (China) the country of silk.

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      Cosmas, surnamed Indicopleustes, or the Indian navigator, performed his voyage about the year 522, and composed at Alexandria, between 535 and 547, Christian Topography (Montfaucon, Præfat. c. 1), in which he refutes the impious opinion that the earth is a globe; and Photius had read this work (Cod. xxxvi. p. 9, 10), which displays the prejudices of a monk, with the СКАЧАТЬ