Wearing silk is immoral in the Roman Empire

With his expansion far into eastern Asia, Alexander had opened a vast section of the Silk Road. In the following centuries, the Graeco-Bactrians, the Indo-Greeks, and the Sogdians played an important role as middlemen in this chain where goods were exchanged between East and West. 

The road between China and the eastern Mediterranean was nearly 6,500 kilometers long. Travel was dangerous, and robberies were frequent. The goods changed hands on the way. In this process, each intermediary increased the price to cover their own expenses and make a profit. 

To reduce the expenses, especially those for the silk from China, the Romans opened a sea route by the 1st century AD. It started near Hanoi in modern Vietnam, with stopovers in harbors on the coasts of India and Sri Lanka, all controlled by China. The shipments eventually reached Roman-controlled ports in Egypt and the northeastern coast of the Red Sea. From there, they could handily be distributed around the Mediterranean. 

Two centuries earlier, from the 1st century BC onward, silk had become the luxury fashion par excellence. In those days, the Romans still thought silk was obtained from tree leaves. Pliny the Elder tells us that the Seres (Chinese) used the woolen substance from the tree leaves, which they soaked in water and then combed off the white down from the leaves. 

Chinese silk was sold at exorbitant prices. It was far more expensive than gold, which caused a colossal outflow of this precious metal. In fact, the acquisition of silk hurt the Roman economy badly. 

In pure despair, the Roman Senate issued several edicts to prohibit wearing silk, more so since they had decided that silk clothes were decadent and immoral. Seneca (c.3 BC - 65 AD) goes as far as declaring: I can see clothes of silk, if materials that do not hide the body or even one's decency, can be called clothes ... Wretched flocks of maids labor so that the adulteress may be visible through her thin dress so that her husband has no more acquaintance than any outsider or foreigner with his wife's body. 

It is surprising to read that in the 1st century AD, women were still (or again) considered a man’s property, although men themselves didn’t shy away from wearing silk outfits!