THE EARLY HISTORY OP SILK. l6l 



prince of Sogdia, through the wishes of his people, 

 was appointed ambassador by the Turkish court, to 

 )nediate with Persia for supplying that nation with 

 Eastern silk. This prince acted in the twofold capa- 

 city of an envoy and a merchant. He took with 

 him to Persia a number of bales of the manufactured 

 silk, which he expected to sell readily, in conse- 

 quence of the price at which he could afford to 

 dispose of them being so much lower than in Persia 

 at the time. But the results of this embassy proved 

 different to what the Sogdian prince expected. 



At this time Persia was under the sway of Chos- 

 roes, a king, who, to a love for his people, united 

 soundness of policy. He wisely saw that it would 

 tend to no good to increase the wealth of a prince 

 whose territories lay so close to his own, and who 

 had been actuated by schemes of ambition. To 

 show, therefore, his contempt for the merchandise 

 of the Sogdian prince and his mercantile followers, 

 he purchased up all their goods, and to prove how 

 little he valued them, committed the whole to the 

 flames. Besides the motives above stated, he con- 

 sidered it would be more for the advantage of his 

 people to carry on a direct traffic with China through 

 the Gulf of Persia. In the furtherance of these views, 

 an alliance was entered into between the Persians 

 and Chinese, to the exclusion of the Turks, who, 

 in their turn, sought the aid of the Romans. They 

 iigain appointed Maniak as envoy to Persia, but 



