BOMBYCIDAE. General Topics. By Dr. A. Seitz. 
435 
nexion with the Sogdians who proved to be a nation of conquerors, and the Persian king Chosru once bought 
the whole stock of silks from the Turanians, in order to burn it publicly and thereby to put an end to the 
principal instigation for the intercourse between the Persians and his Turkestan federal or tributary states. 
These interruptions of the trade may have induced Justinianus to think of introducing the silk-culture in Europe. 
And when two Persian monks offered him to procure breeding-material of B. mori he enthusiastically took this 
opportunity, and in 555 the two monks brought him a great number of lepidopteral eggs, and thus this energetic 
regent, by his incessant endeavours, succeeded in raising the silk-culture and industry in Byzantium to such 
an extent that it became later on the emporium for the silk trade of the whole world. 
The expansion of christianism meant a new stage in the history of silk, as its use for liturgic garments 
offered a new way for gorgeous display. On the improvement of ornamentation the taste and modifiability 
grew more refined, and the variety of colouring, tissues and embroidery of the silks gave the opportunity of 
reforming the art in more than one respect; but partly the political conditions of the western countries, partly 
an internal exhaustion, and probably also the bad effects of the Byzantine super-culture did not allow a lasting 
rise; a narrow-minded policy of taxes and certain social institutions hostile to civilization led to a stagnation 
of the silk-production and silk-industry, which reached a threatening degree when the conquering period of 
the Islam upset the frail Anterior-Asiatic and Eastern nations. 
The Arabian epoch of the 7tli to 10th century all of a sudden brought the whole silk-culture to the 
height of prosperity. This is not the place to pursue the causes of this fact; but if I mention the esteem of 
the Arabian race for handicraft, particularly for artistic trade, their trading talent having remained to them 
up to this day, the eminent part played by garments of every kind, carpets, draperies, and home decorations 
in the daily life of the Arabians, their fondness of bodily not very fatiguing plaited work, weaver’s work, 
embroidery and jewellery-work, one easily understands the paradise provided by the Arabian culture to the 
silk-trade. And besides the insane taxes and royalties by which the silk culture and industry had hitherto 
been restrained, had quite suddenly been removed; the rapid expansion of the conquerors’ new culture through¬ 
out the Mediterranean district, the vast opportunity for home and harem work of the oriental women whose 
sense for art and production was otherwise confined; the most unique taste in colours and decorations being 
a national peculiarity of the conquering tribes, and many other circumstances had to effect favourably the 
improvement of the silk-culture. In short, it developed to a prosperity which neither the luxurious Byzantine 
period nor the Christianity so enthusiastic for church-splendour had been able to bring about. The Mohammedan 
commercial towns of Bagdad, Basra, Mossul, Damascus being emporia for silks grew to be of a great mercantile 
importance, and from these towns, being the principal places of manufacture, the threads of silk production ran 
across all the Mediterranean coasts to the Atlantic coast of Spain and Portugal. 
Since those times the cultural conditions of the states and empires have often been changed; the silk- 
culture, however, in a more or less prosperous development remained in the whole orient, especially in Central 
and Anterior Asia, South-Eastern Europe, the northern provinces of Italy, in Southern France, in single parts 
of Spain, and to a slight degree also in small districts of the old Danubian monarchy and in few places of Switzer¬ 
land. In all the countries situate outside of a certain zone extending from Japan and Southern China across 
Central Asia and Northern India through Persia, Anatolia, Syria, the Balkan Peninsula, the southernmost 
parts of Russia, the district of Goricia, along the southern slope of the Alps and through Southern France, 
the breeding of Bombyx mori coidd not be adopted successfully and permanently. 
The geographical frontier of the silk-countries is restricted partly by physical (climatic) conditions, 
and partly the cultural state of the peoples inhabiting them do not permit of a prosperous development of the 
breeding of larvae. The East Asiatic competition for which China and Japan are particularly fit on account 
of the frugality of their inhabitants, pre-supposes low wages in those countries that wish to make a profit by 
the silk-culture. Only where the breeding-localities can remain unheated without the summer-frosts destroying 
or hurting the breeding, we may reckon to have a positive profit, but in all the countries where the permanent 
dampness of -summer does not occur in conjunction with stifling heat like in hot-houses, the breeding must 
be dissuaded. 
Finally, not each of the races of B. mori having been developed in the five millennia since silk-breeding 
is being carried on by mankind, is fit for all the breeding-countries. By ample experiments that were made in 
the breeding-establishments to be found nowadays in all the civilized countries fit for breeding, in many cases 
,the race of B. mori fit for the conditions there had first to be cross-bred, and this proceeding is still being 
adhered to up to this day. 
