{"id":113243,"date":"2022-10-20T08:39:24","date_gmt":"2022-10-20T06:39:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/?post_type=ciekawostki&#038;p=113243"},"modified":"2022-10-20T08:41:26","modified_gmt":"2022-10-20T06:41:26","slug":"silk-was-popular-in-rome","status":"publish","type":"ciekawostki","link":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/curiosities\/silk-was-popular-in-rome\/","title":{"rendered":"Silk was popular in Rome"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>During the reign of <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/biografie\/oktawian-august\/\">Octavian Augustus<\/a> (27 BCE &#8211; 14 CE), <b>silk<\/b> was an extremely popular material. <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/ciekawostka\/gajusz-petroniusz-zwany-arbitrem\/\">Gaius Petronius<\/a> refers to him as <em>ventus textilis<\/em> (&#8220;woven wind&#8221;). However, this product was extremely expensive and it was difficult to get it because it was produced in distant China, a country that guarded its monopoly. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Octavian initially tried to curb the popularity of silk as his political opponents &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/biografie\/marek-antoniusz\/\">Mark Antony<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/biographies\/cleopatra-vii\/\">Cleopatra VII<\/a> &#8211; valued it tremendously and spread it within their sphere of influence. In the end, the material was so valued that the emperor decided to give up his idea.<\/p>\n<p>Silk was pulled raw from China and then used on the island of Kos to sew garments for ladies from <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/roman-geography\/roman-cities\/rome-eternal-city\/\">Rome<\/a> and other cities. <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/biographies\/seneca-the-younger\/\">Seneca the Younger<\/a>, a 1st-century Roman politician and philosopher and his ilk criticized <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/curiosities\/silk-and-seres-romans-about-chinese\/\">Chinese<\/a> material as demoralizing for women and as effeminate for men. This criticism, however, had no tangible effect on the popularity of silk in ancient Rome; until the <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/roman-constitution\/roman-empire\/causes-of-fall-of-roman-empire\/\">fall of Rome<\/a> in 476 CE silk was an extremely expensive material that reached the value of gold in terms of price.<\/p>\n<p>According to the accounts of Byzantine historians Theophanes and Procopius of Caesarea, the secret of silk was smuggled from China to <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/roman-geography\/roman-cities\/constantinople\/\">Constantinople<\/a> by two monks only around 550 CE.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":36573,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"kategorie_ciekawostek":[77],"class_list":["post-113243","ciekawostki","type-ciekawostki","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","kategorie_ciekawostek-unknown-facts"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ciekawostki\/113243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ciekawostki"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/ciekawostki"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ciekawostki\/113243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"kategorie_ciekawostek","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kategorie_ciekawostek?post=113243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}