Author unknown, Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (c. 100 C.E.)—The unknown author of this mariner's handbook was familiar with trade along the sea routes from the Red Sea ports to India, and among the commodities that came to the Roman Empire from the east were Indian cotton, raw silk, silk yarn and silk cloth and "mallow cloth" or jute, a rough fiber used nowadays for gunny sacks.

Herodotus, The Histories (c. 425 B.C.E.)—The main subject of The Histories is the Persian War of 480–479 B.C.E. when Persia attempted to invade Greece, but Herodotus tells why the Athenian women abandoned the Dorian peplos for the Ionian linen chiton in the last years of the sixth century B.C.E.—it was because the Athenian women used the safety-pins that fastened the peplos at the shoulders to stab a man...