Note 19 — Chapter XIV

Speaking of the Peloponnesus, a province, or theme, of the Byzantine monarchy, Gibbon says that the embroidery there produced was raised either in silk or gold; and the more simple ornament of stripes or circles was surpassed by the nicer imitation of flowers. The vestments that were fashioned for the palace or the altar often glittered with precious stones, and the figures were delineated in strings of Oriental pearls. Until the twelfth century, Greece alone, of all the countries of Christendom, possessed the silkworm.—Decline and Fall, chap. liii.