The poet is describing the dress of Cleopatra. He supposes her to have worn over her breast a piece of silk, woven by the Seres, imported through Sidon into Egypt, and then embroidered. By the last process, in which the Egyptians greatly excelled, the threads were in part separated, so as to exhibit the appearance of lace, and to allow the white breast of the queen to be visible through the texture. Amidst the braidings of her flowing hair, The spoils of orient rocks and shells appear: Like midnight stars, ten thousand diamonds deck The comely rising of her graceful neck; Of wondrous work, a thin transparent lawn O’er each soft breast in decency was drawn, Where still by turns the parting threads withdrew, And all the panting bosom rose to view. Her robe, her every part, her air confess The power of female skill exhausted in her dress. _Pharsalia_, x. In glowing purple rich the coverings lie, Twice had they drunk the noblest Tyrian dye Others, as Pharian artists have the skill To mix the party-color’d web at will, With winding trails of various silks were made, Whose branching gold set off the rich brocade. _Ibid._ With this description we compare that of Seneca, which represents silk as embroidered in Asia Minor, with the “Mæonian needle.” PLINY speaks copiously and repeatedly of the manufacture of silk. Nevertheless we learn from him scarce anything, which we did not know from the earlier authorities. His accounts are taken from Aristotle, from Varro, and probably also from persons who accompanied the Parthian expeditions, or who engaged in the trade with inner Asia. But according to his usual manner, when he speaks of what he has not himself seen, he confounds accounts from different witnesses, which are inconsistent with one another. He asserts that the bombyx was a native of Cos; but it is not probable that the women of that island would, in such case, have recourse to the laborious operation of converting foreign finished goods into threads for their own weaving. It is, therefore, only reasonable to suppose that whatever manufacture was carried on from the raw material, was, like that of Tyre or Berytus, composed of unwrought silk imported from the East. It is mentioned both by Theophanes and Zonares, the Byzantine historians, that before silk-worms were brought to Constantinople in the middle of the sixth century, no person in that capital knew that silk was produced by a worm; a tolerably strong evidence that none were reared so near to Constantinople as Cos. Pliny’s account of the Coan bombyx is evidently a cloud of fable and absurdity, in which, however, we may discern a few lines of truth, probably derived from the accounts of the silk-worm of the Seres. JOSEPHUS