During the two centuries
which had elapsed since the days of the first Christian emperor many
foreign luxuries had found their way into the Eastern capital. Byzantine
jewellery and Byzantine silks were already famous. The patterns on the
latter were not merely floral or geometrical, but four-footed animals,
birds, and scenes from outdoor sports formed part of the embellishment,
which, therefore, must have taken the place occupied in later times by
the tapestries of Arras and Fontainebleau.
Hitherto the Byzantines had imported their silks from Persia. After the
rebuilding of the Basilica, Justinian introduced silk-culture into
Greece. The garments ridiculed by Asterius, Bishop of Amasia, in the
fourth century, were repeated in the sixth century. "When men," says he,
"appear in the streets thus dressed, the passers-by look at them as at
painted walls. Their clothes are pictures which little children point
out to one another. The saintlier sort wear likenesses of Christ, the
Marriage of Galilee...and Lazarus raised from the dead."
On the robe of the Empress Theodora--the wife of Justinian, who is shown
in one of the mosaics of St. Vitale at Ravenna as presenting rich gifts
to that church--there is embroidered work along the border, showing the
Adoration of the Magi.
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