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The Luxury Of Silk


As the name implies, silk was the most representative and favorite of the goods traded on the Silk Road. Colorful silk fabrics dazzled the eyes of the people in the vast Roman Empire. The rich and powerful paid huge sums of gold to obtain it.

In The Deadliest Lie, Miriam comments on the splendid dress of the women strolling about the main thoroughfare, the Canopic Way:

Speaking of the streets, you should have seen the Way tonight. Throngs of Greeks and Romans, Egyptians and Arabians, Asians and Afrasians, Iberians and Indians, Carthaginians and Babylonians, Syrians and Assyrians strolling about, the ladies studded with gems, their graceful necks wreathed in silver and gold, the breeze peppered with their foreign tongues, flashing the colors of their silky robes, everyone celebrating the spicy coolness of the evening in the day-like radiance of the Way’s oil-fed torches.

It is estimated that Rome exported as much as 143 tons of gold each year to buy silk. Consequently, the Roman Senate issued, in vain, several edicts to prohibit the wearing of silk, on economic and moral grounds: that the import of Chinese silk caused a huge outflow of gold and that silk clothes were considered decadent and immoral.

But silk was the ideal commodity for transport. It was light in weight and in high value. Likewise, the Miriam bat Isaac books are light in weight and high in value. The only difference is that they are low in price, especially considering the hours of entertainment they provide. Interested? Just click here.


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