In Chapters II. and III., we quoted several passages which make mention of cloth of gold, from Tibullus, Ovid, Seneca the Tragedian, Lucan, Dio Cassius, Claudian, Virgil, Gregorius Nazienzenus, and Basil, all of which speak of cloth of gold. Ovid mentions purple garments variously colored and interwoven with gold, as belonging to Bacchus.--_Met._ iii. 556. Publius Syrus was a writer of the same period. In the following fragment preserved by Petronius Arbiter, he compares the train of the peacock to Babylonian stuffs enriched with gold and various colors: Thy food the peacock, which displays his spotted train, As shines a Babylonian shawl with feather’d gold! Shawls, interwoven with gold, are mentioned by Galen[117], and by Valerius Flaccus[118]; also by Lucan in the following passage, where he is describing the furniture of Cleopatra’s palace (x. 125, 126.): Part shines with feather’d gold, part sheds a blaze Of scarlet, _intermixed_ by _Pharian looms_! [117] Quoted in Chapter II. [118] Auro depicta chlamys. The following passages also contain evidence on the same subject. SENECA, THE PHILOSOPHER. As yet figured cloths did not exist: gold was not woven, it was not even extracted from the ground.--_Epist._ 91. LUCIAN describes the tragic actors, when they performed the part of kings, as wearing a chlamys interwoven with gold[119]. [119] Somnium, vol. ii. p. 742. ed. Hemsterhusii. APULEIUS. They carefully spread over the couches, cloths figured with gold and Tyrian purple.--_Met._ PHILOSTRATUS depicts Midas wearing a golden robe[120]. [120] Imag. i. 22. NEMESIANUS. In thy scarf’s woof much sportive gold display.--_Cyneg._ 91. The poet is addressing Diana and describing her attire. AUSONIUS. Weave flexile gold within thy shawls, O Greece[121]. This is the _first_ passage since the time of Homer, which mentions Greece as concerned in weaving with gold. But Ausonius probably alluded to the Greeks of Asia Minor, as, besides the evidence produced from Basil, we have seen that Pergamus was one of the most noted places for these productions, which were on that account called “Attalicæ vestes[122].” When Ausonius was appointed Consul at Rome A. D. 379, his friend and former pupil, the Emperor Gratian, sent him as a present a toga in which was inserted a figure of Constantius II., _wrought in gold_.--Ausonii Gratiarum Actio, § 53. [121] Epigram 37.