Textiles, Greece and Rome

A textile is a flexible, two-dimensional material produced by interconnecting fibers, which have generally been twisted into a yarn. Fiber is a basic unit of raw material having suitable length, pliability, and strength for conversion into yarns and fabrics. In ancient Greece and Rome, two basic fiber groups, divided on the basis of their origin into vegetal and animal, were used for textile manufacture. Vegetable fibers are derived from plants and include flax (see linen), hemp, nettle, esparto, and the lining of the bark of trees, such as linden, oak, and willow, known as bast. Tree-bast was more important in prehistoric times, but it occasionally turns up during the Greek and Roman periods as well, in particular in the rigging found in shipwrecks. Besides these locally available plant fibers, cotton was imported to Europe from the East (see Cotton). Keywords: ancient Near East history; Byzantine history; Late Antiquity; military history; nations and peoples; Roman history; war