EDIT(i mistakenly put ming..but its not..also i misread what it said..it wasnt printed until about 420 but it was written in 250 ....if i understood it correctly, thanks for the info and the answers..im just a Casual fan of history and value the service communities like this provide..THANK YOU) greetings, im mostly just a reader(very grateful for what you guys do and the pod cast!) and from what i undertood , the pope had to have some guys smuggle silk worms/eggs and the food they eat along with the secret of how to make silk...but i just read this on the ancient rome sub...i guess its a description of the romans by china dated to around the ming dynasty if i understood correctly, it says the romans raised silk worms... so im confused.. did europe have the worms but not the method to make silk? or was it lost knowledge? or what am i missing? thanks for your time http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/weilue/weilue.html#section11 "This region has pine trees, cypress, sophora, catalpa, bamboo, reeds, poplars, willows, parasol trees, and all sorts of plants.15 The people cultivate the five grains [traditionally: rice, glutinous and non-glutinous millet, wheat and beans], and they raise horses, mules, donkeys, camels and silkworms.16 (They have) a tradition of amazing conjuring. They can produce fire from their mouths, bind and then free themselves, and juggle twelve balls with extraordinary skill.17"
The Eastern Roman Empire learned how to produce silk in the 6th century. This was thanks to the Emperor Justinian organizing spies (Nestorian monks) to steal the secrets and the wherewithal for silk production from China.
The source of the history of the monks smuggling the silk worms out of China is Procopius (an Early Byzantine historian).
http://traumwerk.stanford.edu/philolog/2011/08/byzantine_silk_smuggling_and_e.html
According to him, the monks were operating on behalf of the Emperor Justinian.
First monks were sent to India (as spies) to investigate ways to import silk more cheaply into Constantinople. The silk trade had been going on for a long time. But control of most of it had become monopolized by the Persians, who seem to have been driving up the price. The Eastern Roman Empire was aware that silk could be purchased in India, and transported across the Indian Ocean to Egypt and thence to Constantinople. The monks were sent to investigate this route.
The monks returned, and suggested to Justinian that there were problems with securing enough silk inexpensively enough through India, but that China was the only true source of silk, and investigations there might be valuable.
Justinian dispatched the monks (at least some of the same ones who had been to India) to China (probably overland this time, bypassing Persia to the north).
The monks managed to discover how silk was produced in China, and around 550 CE, they smuggled back either silkworm eggs, or young larvae, reportedly hidden in bamboo canes.
Presumably, they also smuggled back mulberry plants (as silk worms eat only these).
The Byzantines set up their own silk production (eventually in the Morea, in Greece, and in Anatolia) and began exporting silk across Europe and the middle east, breaking the Chinese monopoly (and the Persian trade monopoly).
The Byzantines both saved a lot of money by making their own silk, and earned a lot by exporting it. By the tenth century, however, the secrets of silk production had spread beyond their control as the town of Catanzaro in Calabria in Italy began producing silk, followed by many other places in Italy, and eventually Spain and France.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk
Eventually, the area around Lyon, France became the center of European silk production.
So, from the time of the late Roman Empire, Europe produced silk. This greatly reduced the importance of the "Silk Road", as a trade route.
Most silk is produced from cultivating silkworms, which was a technique that became known to the Byzantines in the sixth century CE (recognising that the Byzantines are the continuation of the Roman empire). However, there were other methods of making silk, by collecting it from the cocoons of wild silk moths, which were used in Greece (specifically the island of Cos) and India.
Source: Valerie Hanson The Silk Road: A New History
Edit: I have no comment on your link, except that its highly likely that any information about Rome/China will contain inaccuracies, and Rome doesn't produce rhinoceros products either (its native to Africa and South East Asia).