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This fine linen was so valuable that it sold for its weight in gold. 
It is related that an ambassador from a king of Persia to India, on 
his return home presented his master with a cocoa nut set in 
jewels, containing a muslin turban thirty yards in length, and so 
exceedingly fine as scarcely to be felt by the touch. 
After the rise of the Roman power, Greece gradually lost its 
influence, until its states became provinces of Rome. Gibbon 
says, “that after the age of Justinian, the Eastern Empire began 
to decay, and but for its trade and manufactures, it would have 
sunk faster than it did.” 
The ancient Romans were more celebrated for military than 
for manufacturing and commercial pursuits. At an early period of 
their history, they had colonies in various parts of Europe and 
Asia, from whence they drew their supplies of many of the 
necessaries and luxuries of life. The colonies provided them with 
the bulk of the fabrics they required—Spain, Gaul, Germany, as 
well as Egypt. Phoenicia and Greece sent the productions of their 
looms to Rome, and found a ready market for them there. Rome, 
however, had also its weaving establishments, conducted by a 
distinct class of people. Hired women used to weave in the open 
air. It had also its domestic manufacture, in which the mistress 
and her maidens both performed their part. Spinning and weaving 
were considered honourable employments, and formed the chief 
occupation of females in every rank. The family loom long stood 
in the public apartment of the mansion, and there the lady of the 
house sat and toiled, surrotnded by her maidens. 
The Roman Emperors encouraged the trade, and were at great 
pains to procure the best artificers of all kinds, particularly the best 
manufacturers of woollen and linen cloth. These they formed 
into corporations, with various privileges, and settled them in the 
most convenient places of the several provinces of the empire. 
Pliny supplies many particulars of the Roman trade; and he 
wrote his account of it in the reign of Vespasian, when Rome was 
in its most flourishing state. 
Augustus, even when all simplicity of manner had expired with 
the Republic, affected still to bring up the females of his family 
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