04-16-2017, 01:09 PM
Just on the book Silk, it does discuss the "Price edict of Diocletian”, which was for the most part ignored by merchants. According to the edict raw silk was not to cost more than 12,000 denarii per Roman pound but the blatta (Tyrian) purple dyed silk was not to cost more than 150,000 denarii per pound which was roughly 13 times the price of plain raw silk so either the dyeing process was extremely expensive or the extra labor used to unpick the raw silk and re-weave it with other textiles to make gauzes and brocades, or both led to the huge difference, so it does not surprise me that the Roman/Graeco/Phoenician cities were keen on maintaining a monopoly of raw silk from the east going by the massive profit margins. 
Regards
Michael Kerr
Michael Kerr
"You can conquer an empire from the back of a horse but you can't rule it from one"
"You can conquer an empire from the back of a horse but you can't rule it from one"
