Note 436 — Chapter XIV

The use of silk seems from its first introduction into the Empire to have been regarded as the ne plus ultra of luxury. It was condemned by Pliny, vi. 20, xi. 21. Elagabalus was the first man as well as the first Emperor who ventured to wear a material hitherto confined to female dress. See Gibbon, vol. vii. c. 40, and his interesting account of the introduction of silk-worms from China to Constantinople by some Persian monks in the reign of Justinian.