The frequency of open hostilities between the Emperor of Constantinople
and the monarchs of Persia, together with the increasing rivalry of their
subjects in the trade with India, gave rise to an event which produced a
considerable change in the silk trade. As the use of that article, both in
dress and furniture, became more general in the court of the Greek
emperors, who imitated and surpassed the sovereigns of Asia in splendour
and magnificence; and as China, in which, according to the concurring
testimony of oriental writers, the culture of silk was originally known,
_(Herlelot. Biblioth. Orient.)_, still continued to be the only country
which produced that valuable commodity; the Persians improving the
advantages which their situation gave them over the merchants from the
Arabian Gulf, supplanted them in all the marts of India, to which silk was
brought by sea from the east. Having it likewise in their power to molest
or to cut off the caravans, which, in order to procure a supply for the
Greek empire, travelled by land to China through the northern provinces of
their kingdom, they entirely engrossed that branch of commerce.
Constantinople was obliged to depend on the rival power for an article
which luxury reserved and desired as essential to elegance. The Persians,
with the usual rapacity of monopolists, raised the price of silk to such
an exorbitant height, that the Emperor Justinian eager, not only to obtain
a full and certain supply of a commodity which was become of indispensible
use, but solicitous to deliver the commerce of his subjects from the
exactions of his enemies, endeavoured, by means of his ally, the christian
monarch of Abyssinia, to wrest some portion of the silk trade from the
Persians. In this attempt he failed; but when he least expected it, he, by
an unforeseen event, attained in some measure (A.D. 55.) the object which
he had in view. Two Persian monks having been employed as missionaries to
some christian churches which were established (as we are informed by
Cosmas) in different parts of India, had penetrated into the country of
the Seres, or China. There they observed the labours of the silk-worm, and