The Silk Smugglers

Silk was the most prized cloth in the Roman world, and for centuries the secret of making it lay far to the east. Raw silk reached the empire along long caravan routes and passed through the hands of Persian merchants, who controlled the trade and set the price. With Rome and Persia so often at war, Justinian looked for another way.

Procopius, writing in the 550s, tells how certain monks who had lived in a land he calls Serinda came to Justinian and explained that silk was made by worms. Persuaded by the emperor's promises, they went back and returned with the eggs, which were kept warm in dung until they hatched and the worms were fed on mulberry leaves. Theophanes of Byzantium, a later writer whose account survives only in summary, says a Persian smuggled the eggs out in a hollow cane. Where Serinda lay is still debated; Sogdiana and Khotan are among the guesses. Byzantine silk, above all imperial purple, became famous in its own right.