Book 4 — CHAPTER II. HOUSEHOLD FURNITURE.

The movables in a Grecian house were divided into classes after a very characteristic manner. First, as a mark of the national piety, everything used in domestic sacrifices was set apart. The second division, placing women immediately after the gods, comprehended the whole apparatus of female ornaments^[375] worn on solemn festivals. Next were classed the sacred robes and military uniforms of the men; then came the hangings, bed-furniture, and ornaments of the harem; afterwards those of the men’s apartments. Another division consisted of the shoes, sandals, slippers, &c., of the family, from which we pass to the arms and implements of war, mixed up familiarly in a Greek house with looms, cards, spinning-wheels, and embroidery-frames, just, as Homer describes them in the Thalamos of Paris at Troy. Even yet we have not reached the end of our inventory in mere classification. The baking, cooking, washing, and bathing vessels formed a separate class, and so did the breakfast and dinner services, the porcelain, the plate of silver and gold, the mirrors, the candelabra, and all those curious articles made use of in the toilette of the ladies.^[376]

In well-regulated families a second division took place, a separation being made of such articles as 98might be required for daily use, from those brought forward only when routs and large parties were given. The movables of all kinds having been thus arranged in their classes, the next step was to deposit every thing in its proper place.^[377] The more ordinary utensils were generally laid up in a spacious store-room, called tholos,^[378] a circular building detached from the house, and usually terminating in a pointed roof, whence in after ages a sharp-crowned hat obtained among the people the name of Tholos. When a gentleman first commenced housekeeping, or got a new set of domestics, he delivered into the care of the proper individuals his kneading troughs, his kitchen utensils, his cards, looms, spinning wheels, and so on; and, pointing out the places where all these, when not in use, should be placed, committed them to their custody.

Of the holiday, or show articles, more account was made. These, being brought forward only on solemn festivals, or in honour of some foreign guest, were entrusted to the immediate care of the housekeeper, a complete list of everything having first been taken; and it was part of her duty, when she delivered any of these articles to the inferior domestics, to make a note of what she gave out, and take care they were duly returned into her keeping.^[379]

But the above comprehensive glance over the articles of furniture made use of in an Athenian gentleman’s establishment, though it may give some notion of the careful and economical habits of the people, affords no conception of the splendour and magnificence often found in a Grecian house: for, as we have already seen, their opinions are highly erroneous who imagine that in the Attic democracy the rich were by any prudential or political considerations 99restrained from indulging their love of ostentation by the utmost display they could make of wealth.^[380] In fact, not content with outstripping their neighbours in the grandeur of their dwellings, furniture, and dress, these persons had often the ludicrous vanity, when they gave a large party, to excite the envy of such dinnerless rogues as might pass, by throwing out the feathers of game and poultry before their doors.^[381] Indeed, since the Athenians exactly resembled other men, the exhibition of magnificence tended but too strongly to dazzle them; so that, among the arts of designing politicians, one generally was, to create a popular persuasion that they possessed the means of conferring important favours on all who obliged them.

To proceed, however, with the furniture. Though the principal value of many articles arose from the exquisite taste displayed in the design and workmanship, the materials themselves, too, were often extremely rare and costly. Porcelain, glass, crystal, ivory, amber,^[382] gold, silver, and bronze, with numerous varieties of precious woods, were wrought up with inimitable taste and fancy into various articles of use or luxury. Among the decorations of the dining-room was the side-board, which, though sometimes of iron, was more frequently of carved wood, bronze, or wrought silver, ornamented with the heads of satyrs and oxen.^[383] Their tables, in the Homeric age, were generally of wood, of variegated colours, finely polished, and with ornamented feet. Myrleanos, an obscure writer in Athenæus, 100imagines^[384] they were round, that they might resemble the disc of the sun and moon; but from the passage in the Odyssey,^[385] and the interpretation of Eustathius, they may be inferred to have been narrow parallelograms,^[386] like our own dining-tables. The luxury of table-cloths being unknown, the wine spilled, &c., was cleansed away with sponges.^[387] But the poet had witnessed a superior degree of magnificence, for he already, in the Odyssey,^[388] makes mention of tables of silver. The poor were, of course, content with the commonest wood. But as civilisation proceeded, the tables of the wealthy became more and more costly in materials, and more elegant in form.

It grew to be an object of commerce, to import from foreign countries the most curious kinds of wood,^[389] to be wrought into tables, which originally supported on four legs, rested afterwards on three, fancifully formed, or on a pillar and claws of ivory, or silver, as with us. There was a celebrated species of table manufactured in the island of Rhenea;^[390] the great, among the Persians, delighted in maple tables with ivory feet, and, in fact, the knotted maple appears at one time to have been regarded as the most rare and beautiful of woods.^[391] But the rage for sumptuous articles of furniture of this kind did not reach its full height until Roman times, when a single table of citron wood

(Gorgeous feasts

On citron tables or Atlantic stone)^[392]

101sometimes cost six or seven thousand pounds sterling. Already, however, in the best ages of Greece, their tables were inlaid with silver, brass, or ivory, with feet in the form of lions, leopards, or other wild beasts.^[393]

In more early times, before the effeminate Oriental habit of reclining at meals obtained,^[394] the Greeks made use of chairs which were of various kinds, some being formed of more, others of less costly materials, but all beautiful and elegant in form, as we may judge from those which adorn our own drawing-rooms, entirely fashioned after Grecian models. The thrones of the gods represented in works of art, however richly ornamented, are simply arm-chairs with upright backs, an example of which occurs in a carnelian in the Orleans Collection,^[395] where Apollo is represented playing on the seven-stringed lyre. This chair has four legs with tigers’ feet, a very high upright back, and is ornamented with a sculptured car and horses. They had no Epicurean notions of their deities, and never presented them to the eye of the public lounging in an easy chair, which would have suggested the idea of infirmity. On the contrary, they are full of force and energy, and sit erect on their thrones, as ready to succour their worshipers at a moment’s warning. In the Homeric age these were richly carved, like the divans, adorned with silver studs, and so high that they required a footstool.^[396] The throne of the Persian kings was of massive gold, and stood beneath a purple canopy, supported by four slender golden columns thickly crusted with jewels.

102Bedsteads were generally of common wood such as deal,^[397] bottomed sometimes with planks, pierced to admit air, sometimes with ox-hide thongs,^[398] which in traversing each other left numerous open spaces between them. Odysseus’s bedstead, which the hero was sufficient joiner to manufacture with his own hands, was made of olive-wood, inlaid with silver, gold, and ivory. Sometimes the bed was supported by a sort of netting of strong cord, stretched across the bedstead, and made fast all round.^[399] Later ages witnessed far greater luxury,—bedsteads of solid silver,^[400] or ivory embossed with figures wrought with infinite art and delicacy,^[401] or of precious woods carved, with feet of ivory or amber.^[402] Occasionally, also, they were veneered with Indian tortoiseshell, inlaid with gold.^[403] This taste would appear to have flowed from the East, where among the kings of Persia still greater magnificence was witnessed even in very early times. Thus, speaking of the royal feast celebrated at Susa, the Scripture says, there were in the court of the garden of the king’s palace “white, green, and blue hangings, fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rings, and pillars of marble. The beds were of gold and silver, upon a pavement of red, and blue, and white, and black marble.” A similar style of grandeur is attributed by Hellenic writers to the Persian king, who, according to Chares,^[404] reclined in his palace on a couch shaded by a spreading 103golden vine, the grape clusters of which were imitated by jewels of various colours.

Four-post bedsteads were in use in remoter ages, as appears from a white sardonyx in the Orleans Collection,^[405] representing the surprisal of Ares and Aphrodite, by Hephæstos. There is a low floating vallance fastened up in festoons, the tester is roof-shaped, and the pillars terminate in fanciful capitals. The figure of an eagle adorns the corners of the bedstead below. From a painting on the walls of Pompeii we discover, that the peculiar sort of bedstead at present found almost universally in France was likewise familiar to the ancients, made exactly after the same fashion, and raised about the same height above the floor. With regard to the beds themselves they were at different times manufactured from very different materials, and those of some parts of Greece enjoyed a peculiar reputation. From a phrase in Homer,^[406] it would appear that, in his times, beds were stuffed in Thessaly with very fine grass. Those of Chios and Miletos were famous^[407] throughout Greece. In other parts of the country, persons of peculiar effeminacy slept on beds of sponge.^[408] Sicily was famous for its pillows, as were also several other Doric countries. At Athens the rich were accustomed to sleep upon very soft beds, placed on bedsteads considerably above the floor;^[409] and sometimes, it has been supposed, adorned with coverlets of dressed peacocks’ skins with the feathers on.^[410]

But the Greeks appear to have consulted their ease, and sunk more completely into softness and effeminacy, in proportion as they approached the East. Among the Peloponnesians most persons lived hard and lay hard; greater refinement and luxury 104prevailed in Attica; but in Ionia and many of the Ægæan isles the great—although there were exceptions as in the case of Attalos—fell little short in self-indulgence of Median or Persian satraps. Some idea may be formed of their habits in this respect from the description of a Paphian prince’s bed by Clearchos of Soli.^[411] Over the soft mattresses supported by a silver-footed bedstead, was flung a short grained Sardian carpet of the most expensive kind. A coverlet of downy texture succeeded, and upon this was cast a costly counterpane of Amorginian purple. Cushions, striped or variegated with the richest purple, supported his head, while two soft Dorian pillows^[412] of pale pink gently raised his feet. In this manner habited in a milk-white chlamys the prince reclined. Their bolsters in form resembled our own;^[413] but the pillows were usually square, as in France, though occasionally rounded off at both ends, and covered with richly chequered or variegated muslins. To prevent the fine wool or whatever else they were stuffed with from getting into heaps, mattresses were sewn through as now, and carefully tufted that the packthread might not break through the ticking.^[414]

Among the Orientals it is common at present for persons to sleep in their day apparel; but even in the heroic ages it was already customary in Greece to undress on going to bed. When Agamemnon is roused before dawn by the delusive dream, the whole process of the morning toilette is described. First, says the poet, he donned his soft chiton which was new and very handsome; next his pelisse; after which he bound on his elegant sandals and suspended his silver-hilted sword from his shoulder. Thus accoutred he issued forth, sceptre in hand, towards the ships.^[415]

105In Syria, children luxuriously educated are said to have been rocked in their cradles wrapped in coverlets of Milesian wool.^[416] The sheep of Miletos were, in fact, the Merinos of antiquity; and their wool being celebrated for its fineness and softness, it was not only employed in manufacturing the best cloths, but also in stuffing the mattresses of kings and other great personages who thought much of their ease. And as the vulgar imagine they become great by habiting themselves in garments similar to those of their princes, like the honest man who sought wisdom through reading by Epictetus’ lamp, the stuffs, couches, and coverlets of Miletos got into great vogue among the ancients. Virgil, Cicero, Servius, Columella, and many other writers speak accordingly of their excellence, and their testimonies have, with wonderful industry, been collected by the learned Bochart.^[417]

But though Miletos had a reputation for this kind of manufacture, it by no means enjoyed a monopoly. The scarlet coverings of Sardis, and the variegated stuffs of Cyprus, produced by the famous weaver Akesas and his son Helicon,^[418] appear in many instances to have obtained a preference over all others. Pathymias, too, the Egyptian, distinguished himself in the same line.^[419]

All these bed-coverings were commonly perfumed with fragrant essences,^[420] for which reason the voluptuous poets of antiquity dwell with a sort of rapture on the pleasure of rolling about in bed. Ephippos exclaims:—

“How I delight

To spring upon the dainty coverlets;

Breathing the perfume of the rose, and steeped

In tears of myrrh!”

106Aristophanes, likewise, and Sophron, the mimographer, make mention of these fragrant counterpanes, which were extremely costly, and inwrought, according to the latter, with figures of birds.^[421] Elsewhere Athenæus relates that the Persian carpets contained representations of men, animals, and monsters.^[422] Their blankets, like our own, were plain white; but even so far back as the heroic ages, the upper coverings, as being partly designed for show, were of rich and various colours.^[423]

There seems to be good ground for believing, that if the Greeks did not borrow their philosophy from the East, they at least derived from them many of the vain and luxurious habits which at length rendered that philosophy of none effect. No one appears to have paid a single visit to Persia, or Syria, or Egypt, without bringing back along with him some pestilent new freak in the matter of dress or furniture, wholly at variance with republican simplicity. We might adduce numerous anecdotes in proof of this. For the present we confine ourselves to the following. Among the Persians, renowned in all ages for sensual indulgences, it was judged of so much importance to enjoy soft and elegantly arranged beds, that in great houses persons were employed who attended only to this. An anecdote in illustration has been preserved by Athenæus. Timagoras, or, according to Phanias, Entimos of Gortyna, envying Themistocles his reception at the court of Persia, undertook himself a toad-eating expedition to that country. Artaxerxes, whose ear could tolerate more flatterers than one, took the Cretan into favour, and made him a present of a superb marquee, a silver-footed bedstead, with costly furniture, and, along with them, sent a slave, as a Turkish pasha would send a cook or a pipe-lighter, because, in his opinion, the Greeks who prepared 107sleeping-places for so many Persians at Marathon and Platæa, understood nothing of bed-making.

Entimos evidently excelled the great Athenian in the arts of a courtier. In fact, he was the very prototype of Hajji Baba, and enjoyed even still greater influence over the Shah than the illustrious barber’s son of Ispahan. Charmed by his cajolery, Artaxerxes invited him to his private table, where, usually, none but princes of the blood were admitted,^[424] an honour, as Phanias assures us, which no other Greek ever enjoyed. For, though Timagoras of Athens performed kou-tou before the throne,^[425] whereby he obtained great consideration among a nation of slaves, and was hanged when he got home, he was not invited to hob-and-nob with his majesty, but only enjoyed the distinction of having certain dishes sent him from the king’s table. To Antalcidas, the Spartan, Artaxerxes sent his crown dipped in liquid perfume, an agreeable compliment, but which he more than once paid to Entimos, whose extraordinary favour at court in the long run, however, awakened the envy of the Persians. The canopy of the marquee presented to this Cretan was spangled with bright flowers, and, among the other articles of which the imperial gift consisted, were a throne of massive silver, a gilded parasol, several golden cups crusted with jewels, a hundred maple-tables with ivory feet, 108a hundred goblets of silver, several vases of the same precious metal, a hundred female slaves, an equal number of youths, with six thousand pieces of gold, besides what was furnished him for his daily expenditure.^[426]

A gentleman travelling in Ireland witnessed the ingenuity of that ready-witted people in applying the same thing to various uses: first, he saw the tablecloth, on which he had eaten a good supper, transferred as a sheet to his bed, and, next morning, his kind hostess, offering her services to put him in the right way, converted the same article into a mantle, which she wrapped about her shoulders. The Greeks were almost equally ingenious. With them what was a cloak by day became sometimes a counterpane at night,^[427] in addition, perhaps, to the ordinary bed-clothes; for it is clear they loved to be warm, from the somewhat reproachful allusion of Strepsiades in the “Clouds” to the five sisyræ,^[428] rolled snugly up in which, his son, Pheidippides, could sleep while thoughts of his debts bit the old man like so many bugs, and roused him hours before day to consult his ledgers. All kinds of stromata were, in Plato’s time, divided into two classes, first, coverings for the body, such as cloaks, mantles, and so on; secondly, bed-clothes, properly so called.

The walls of their chambers were frequently hung with Milesian tapestry, a custom to which Amphis alludes in his Odysseus:

A. Milesian hangings line your walls, you scent

Your limbs with sweetest perfume, royal myndax^[429]

Piled on the burning censor, fills the air

With costly fragrance.

B. Mark you that, my friend!

Knew you before of such a fumigation?^[430]

109Mention is likewise made among the ancients of purple tapestry, inwrought with pearls and gold.^[431]

Carthage enjoyed celebrity for its manufacture of carpets and variegated pillows,^[432] a piece of luxury which, as we have seen above, had already been introduced in the heroic ages; for Homer, in innumerable passages, speaks of rare and costly carpets, and these were not only spread over couches and seats, but over the floor likewise.^[433] Rolled up, they would occasionally appear to have served for pillows. The manufacture of carpets had, moreover, been carried to considerable perfection, for the poet speaks of some with a soft pile on both sides, which were evidently very splendid.^[434] Theocritus,^[435] too, in his Adoniazusæ, enumerates, among the luxuries of the youthful God,

Carpets of purple, softer far than sleep,^[436]

Woven in Milesian looms.

But in nothing did the Greeks display a more gorgeous or costly taste than in what may be termed their plate, which was not only fabricated of the rarest materials, but wrought likewise with all the elaborateness and delicacy and richness of design within the reach of art. Among the Macedonians, after 110their Eastern conquests, gold plate appears not to have been uncommon; for at the grand supper described by Hippolochos in his letter to Lynceus, every guest is said to have used it.^[437] The predilection for this sort of magnificence they acquired in Asia, where, at a banquet given to Alexander, the whole dessert was brought in tastefully covered with gold-leaf.^[438] In the reign of his father, Philip, the precious metals were rare in Macedonia. Indeed, that crafty old monarch, possessing but one gold cup in the world, had so good an opinion of his courtiers that, to prevent their thieving it, he slept every night with it under his pillow.^[439] Gold was, more early, plentiful in Attica. Alcibiades, with tastes and habits unsuited to a democracy, carried so far his love of display as to make use of thuribles, or censers, and wash-hand basins of pure gold.^[440] But the ostentatious son of Clinias, though extravagant, was in this respect only a type of his nation. Every rich citizen of Athens aimed at the same degree of splendour; and, in describing his town-house or favourite villa, might, with little alteration, have adopted the language of the poet:—

——“My house within the city

Is richly furnished with plate and gold,

Basins and ewers to lave her dainty hands:

My hangings all of Tyrian tapestry.

In ivory coffers have I stuffed my crowns;

In cypress chests my arras, counterpanes,

Costly apparel, tents, and canopies,

Fine linen, Turkey cushions bossed with pearl,

Vallance of Venice, gold in needle-work,

Pewter and brass, and all things that belong

To house or housekeeping.”

Socrates, in the Republic, speaking of what the prevailing fashion required to be found in a city, makes out a list of good things, not much inferior upon the whole to Shakspeare’s,—beds, tables, and 111other furniture; dainties of all kinds; perfumes, unguents, sauces, &c.; to which the philosopher adds apparel, shoes, pictures, tapestry, ivory, and gold:^[441] and these rare materials, as farther on he observes, were wrought into utensils for domestic purposes.

One of the most plentifully furnished departments of a Greek house was the Kulikeion, or “cupboard,” usually closed in front with a curtain,^[442] where they kept their goblets, cups, and drinking-horns, under the protection of a statue of Hermes, who, as god of thieves, would, it was supposed, be respected by his children. The form and workmanship of these materials varied, no doubt, according to the taste and means of the possessor; but they were in general distinguished for the elegance of their outline, the grace and originality of the sculpture, the fineness, delicacy, and minute finish of the execution. It is well known, as an able antiquarian^[443] has remarked, to what an excess the luxury of the table was carried among the ancients, and how much they surpassed us in the dimensions, the massiveness, the workmanship, the quality, and the variety of their drinking apparatus.

Many persons, however, seem chiefly to have valued their plate as a mark of their wealth and magnificence; among whom may be reckoned Pythias of Phigaleia, who, when dying, commanded the following epitaph to be inscribed upon his tomb:—

Here jolly Pythias lies,

A right honest man, and wise,

Who of goblets had very great store,

Of amber, silver, gold,

All glorious to behold,

In number ne’er equalled before.^[444]

Amber goblets not being, I believe, in fashion among the modern nations of Europe, some doubt 112may be experienced respecting the veracity of our friend of Phigaleia; but the ancients had other gobletary legends to bring forward in support of it. Helen,^[445] it is said, justly proud of her beautiful bosom, dedicated in one of the temples of Rhodes, as a votive offering, an amber goblet, exactly of the size and shape of one of her breasts, which, had it come down to posterity, might have furnished artists with a perfect model of that part of the female form. However this may be, the ancients, in remote ages, set a great value on their cups, particularly such as were considered heir-looms in the family, and laid apart to be used only on extraordinary occasions. Hence Œdipos, in the old Cyclic poet, is seized with fierce anger at his son, who had, contrary to his will, brought forth his old hereditary goblets to be used at an ordinary entertainment.

113Then Polyneices of the golden locks,

Sprung from the Gods, before his father placed

A table all of silver, which had once

Been Cadmus’s, next filled the golden bowl

With richest wine. At this old Œdipos,

Seeing the honoured relics of his sire

Profaned to vulgar uses, roused to anger,

Pronounced fierce imprecations, wished his sons

Might live no more in amity together,

But plunge in feuds and slaughters, and contend

For their inheritance: and the Furies heard.^[446]

Agathocles, tyrant of Sicily, appears to have been an amateur of cups, and would sometimes while exhibiting his collection to his friends make a good-humoured allusion to his original occupation. “These golden vessels,” said he, “have been made out of those earthenware ones which I formerly manufactured.”^[447] Drinking-bowls in fact made no inconsiderable figure in ancient times. They were bestowed as the prizes in gymnastic contests, and in Greece men boxed and wrestled for the cup as horses run for it in England. Parasites, like the jester of Louis XIV., used sometimes to carry home the cups and dishes set before them at dinner; but the tables were often turned when the subject gave and the prince pocketed the dole.

A curious legend has been preserved to us connected with the subject of cups. Several princes uniting, in remote times, to send a colony to Lesbos, were commanded by an oracle to cast a virgin, during their voyage, into the sea, as a sacrifice to Poseidon. Obedience, in those superstitious ages, was seldom refused to such injunctions. The maiden was precipitated into the waves, but Enallos, one of the chiefs, in whom love had quenched the reverence 114for oracles, immediately plunged in to save her. Neither the chief, however, nor the virgin appeared again, and the fleet proceeded. The remainder of the tradition may be illustrated by an event said to have taken place in the Tonga islands.^[448] They were probably near some uninhabited isle, and instead of rising to the surface of the sea, emerged into a cavern elevated considerably above its level, and opening perhaps upon the land. “God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,” says a modern writer, and so Enallos found it. By means unrevealed in the ancient narrative, the hero and his bride continued to subsist on the rock, and many years afterwards, when the colony was already flourishing, he one day presented himself before his old friends at Methymna, and entertained them with a very romantic account of his residence among the Nereids at the bottom of the sea, where he was honoured with the care of Poseidon’s horses when sent out to grass. At length, however, getting on the back of a large wave it bore him upwards and he escaped from the deep, bearing in his hand a golden cup, the metal of which was so marvellously beautiful that in comparison ordinary gold appeared no better than brass.^[449]

Even the loftiest and least worldly-minded of the Homeric heroes, Achilles, set great value on a favourite drinking-cup, which he preserved for his own particular use, and for pouring out libations to Zeus alone. Priam^[450] was careful to include a rare goblet in the ransom of Hector’s body, and a similar gift aided in alluring Alcmena from the paths of virtue.^[451] But the most famous bowl of antiquity was that of Heracles, which, more capacious than the barber’s basin in Don Quixote, served its illustrious owner in the double capacity of a drinking-cup and a canoe; for when he had quenched his thirst, he could set 115his bowl afloat, and, leaping into it, steer to any part of the world he pleased. Some, indeed, speak of it as a borrowed article, belonging originally to the Sun, and in which the god used nightly to traverse the ocean from West to East.^[452]

To pass, however, over the goblets of mythology. It was fashionable to possess plate of this kind finely sculptured with historical arguments; and history has preserved the names of Cimon and Athenocles, two artists who excelled in this style of engraving. These cups were sometimes of silver gilt, sometimes of massive gold crusted with jewels.^[453] In addition to the two artists named above, we may enumerate Crates, Stratonicos, Myrmecides of Miletos, Callicrates the Lacedemonian, and Mys, whose “Cup of Heracles,” celebrated in antiquity, had represented upon it the storming of Ilion, with this inscription,

Troy’s lofty towers by Grecians sacked behold!

Parrhasios’ draught, by Mys engraved in gold.^[454]

The names by which the ancients distinguished their several kinds of goblets are too numerous to be here given. Some were curious—“Amalthea’s Horn,” “The Year,” &c. Rustics made use of two-handled wooden bowls in which, when thirsty, they drew fresh milk from the cow in the fields.^[455] There was a big-bellied cup with a narrow neck which being shaped like a purse, participated with this very necessary article in the name of Aryballos.^[456]

Glass cups of much beauty were manufactured in great abundance at Alexandria. Among these was the Baucalis, mentioned by Sopater the parodist, who says:—

116’Tis sweet in early morn to cool the lips

With pure fresh water from the gushing fount,

Mingled with honey in the Baucalis,

When one o’er night has made too free with wine,

And feels sharp thirst.^[457]

The glass-workers of Alexandria procured earthenware vessels from all parts of the world, which they used as models for their cups. Even the great sculptor Lysippos did not disdain to employ his genius in the invention of a new kind of vase. Having made a collection of vessels of many various shapes, and diligently studied the whole, he hit upon a form entirely new, and presented the model to Cassander, who having just then founded the city of Cassandria, was ambitious of originating an invention of this kind. He was desirous, perhaps, of recommending by the elegance of his drinking-cups the Mendæan wine exported in great quantities from his city.^[458]

There was a peculiar kind of cup called Grammateion, from the letters of gold chased upon its exterior.^[459] Alexis mentions one of this sort in the following lines:

A. But let me first describe the cup; ’twas round,

Old, broken-eared, and precious small besides,

Having indeed some letters on’t.

B. Yes letters;

Eleven, and all of gold, forming the name

Of Saviour Zeus.

A. Tush! no, some other god.^[460]

A very handsome sort of cup was imported from Sidon. It had two handles, and was ornamented with small figures in relief. Drinking-vases were also formed from the large horns of the Molossian and Pœonian oxen; and these articles were commonly rimmed with silver or gold.^[461] Small cups were made 117little account of. There was even one kind of bowl which, for its enormous capacity, was called the Elephant.

A. If this hold not enough, see the boy comes

Bearing the Elephant!

B. Immortal gods!

What thing is that?

A. A double-fountained cup,

The workmanship of Alcon; it contains

Only three gallons.^[462]

A very celebrated cup among the Athenians was the Thericlean,^[463] originally invented by Thericles, a Corinthian potter, contemporary with Aristophanes. This ware was black, highly varnished, with gilt edges;^[464] but the name came afterwards to be applied to any vessel of the same form from whatever materials manufactured. There were accordingly Thericlea of gold with wooden stands. The cups of this kind, made at Athens, being very expensive, an inferior sort, in imitation, was produced at Rhodes, which, as far more economical, had a great run among the humbler classes. The Thericlean was a species of deep chalice with two handles, and bulging but little at the sides. Theophrastus^[465] speaks of Thericlea turned from the Syrian Turpentine tree, the wood of which being black and taking a fine polish, it was impossible at a glance to distinguish them from those of earthenware. The paintings on these utensils appear to have been various. Sometimes a single wreath of ivy encircled them immediately beneath the golden rim; but it seems occasionally to have been covered with representations of animals, which gave rise to a forced and false etymology of the name.^[466]

118We have already observed, that the use of drinking-horns^[467] was not unknown to the ancients. In fact, it seems, in very remote ages, to have been customary to convert bulls’ horns into cups with very little preparation; and the practice of quaffing wine from this rude kind of goblet had by some been supposed to have suggested the idea to artists of representing Bacchos with horns, and to poets the epithet of the Bull Dionysos. He was moreover worshiped at Cyzicos under the form of a bull. Afterwards, as taste and luxury advanced, these simple vessels were exchanged for horns of silver, which Pindar attributes to the Centaurs.^[468] Xenophon^[469] found drinking-horns among the Paphlagonians, and afterwards even in the palace of the Thracian king Seuthes. Æschylus speaks of silver horns, with lids of gold, in use among the Perrhæbians, and Sophocles, in his Pandora, makes mention of drinking-horns of massive gold. Philip of Macedon was accustomed among his friends to drink from the common horn. Golden horns were found among the inhabitants of Cythera. Horns of silver were in use at Athens; and, among the articles enumerated as sold at a public auction, mention is made of one of these vessels of a twisted form.

Mirrors constituted another article of Hellenic luxury. These were sometimes of brass,^[470] whence the proverb:

As forms by brass, so minds by wine are mirrored.^[471]

The best, however, until those of glass came into use, were made of silver or of a mixed metal, the exact 119composition of which is not now known. Another kind was fashioned from a species of carbuncle found near the city of Orchomenos,^[472] in Arcadia. Glass mirrors^[473] also came early into use, chiefly manufactured, at the outset, by the Phœnicians of Sidon. The hand-mirrors were usually circular,^[474] and set in costly frames. To prevent their being speedily tarnished they were, when not in use, carefully enclosed in cases.^[475]

There were mirrors, too, of polished silver, fashioned so as to magnify immensely the objects they reflected.^[476] They invented also large cups containing within many diminutive mirrors, so that when any one looked into them, his eye was met by a multitude of faces all resembling his own.^[477] In a temple of Hera in Arcadia, was a mirror fixed in the wall, wherein the spectator could at first scarcely, if at all, discern his own image, while the throne of the goddess and the statues of the other deities ranged around were most brilliantly reflected.reflected.^[478] Many sorts of mirrors appear to have been made for the purpose of playing off practical jokes. For example, looking in one of these, a handsome woman would find her visage transformed into that of a Gorgon, so as to appear terrible even to herself. Others again were so very flattering, that a half-starved barber, viewing his figure therein, appeared to be gifted with the thewes of a Heracles. Another sort distorted the countenance, or inverted it, or showed merely the half.

Religion was the nurse of the fine arts, and first gave rise, not only to sculpture and painting, but 120also to those private collections of statues and pictures^[479] in which we discover the germs of our modern galleries^[480] and museums. The first step was made towards these when the Greek set up the images of his household gods upon his hearth. Thence, step by step, he proceeded, improving the appearance, enriching the materials, increasing the number of his domestic deities, with which niche after niche was filled, till his private dwelling became in some sort a temple. The religious feeling, no doubt, made way, in many cases, for a passion for show, or a nascent taste for the beautiful; so that rude figures in terra-cotta, wood, or stone, were gradually replaced by exquisite statues in ivory, gold, or silver,^[481] or the fairest marble, breathing beauty and life, with eyes of gems, and clothed with majesty as with a garment. Hence flowed the passion for mimetic representations and all the plastic arts. The gods were transferred from the fireside to the temple, to the agora, to the senate-house, to the innumerable porticoes everywhere abounding in Greece.^[482]

On their superb candelabra,^[483] &c., matter for a curious volume might be collected. The lamps in common use,^[484] though sometimes very beautiful in shape, were of course fictile,^[485] such as we find in great numbers among the ruins of Greek cities, both in the mother-country, and in their Egyptian and other colonies. Sometimes, however, they were of bronze, silver, or massive gold. A very beautiful 121specimen in this last metal was found, by Lord Belmore, among the ruins of an Egyptian temple, a short time before my visit to the Nile. In many houses were magnificent chandeliers, suspended from the ceiling, with numerous branches, which filled the apartments^[486] with a flood of light. The most remarkable article of this kind which I remember was that set up as a votive offering to Hestia, in the Prytaneion of Tarentum, by Dionysios the Younger, which held as many lamps as there are days in the year.^[487] Among people of humble condition wooden chandeliers, or candlesticks, were in use.^[488] In remoter ages they burned slips of pine-branches, the bark of various trees, &c., instead of lamps. They were acquainted with the use of horn and wicker lanterns.^[489]

Another kind of decoration of Greek houses we must not overlook,—their armour and implements of war,^[490] with which the poet Alcæos^[491] loved to adorn his chambers, though, like Paris, he cared little to make any other use of them. “My spacious mansion,” exclaims he, “gleams throughout with brazen arms. Even along the ceiling are ranged the ornaments of Ares, glittering helmets, surmounted by white nodding plumes; greaves of polished brass are suspended on the walls, with cuirasses of linen, while, here and there, about my apartments, are scattered hollow shields. Elsewhere, you behold scimitars of Chalcis, and baldricks, and the short vest which we wear beneath our armour.”^[492] Besides the articles enumerated by the poet, there were shield-cases, sheaths for their spears, 122quivers curiously adorned, feathered arrows, and bows of polished horn, tipped at either end with gold.

From these gorgeous and costly commodities the reader, we fear, will be reluctant to accompany us into the kitchen, where we must pick our way among kneading-troughs, pots and pans, Delphian cutlery^[493] and honey-jars.^[494] But as without these the warriors, as Homer himself acknowledges, could make but little use of their weapons, it is absolutely necessary we should inquire into their cooking conveniences. To commence, however, we must allow^[495] Clearchos of Soli, to enumerate a few of the articles found among the furniture of this important part of the house. There was, first, says he, a three-legged table, then a chytra, or earthen pot, which, as in France, was always preferred for making soup. It was not, however, of coarse brown ware, as with us; for, Socrates, in his conversation with Hippias on the Beautiful, observes that, when properly made, round, smooth, and well-baked, the chytra was very handsome, particularly that large sort which contained upwards of seven gallons. It had two handles, and was evidently glazed.^[496] In stirring the chytra while boiling, the Attic cook made choice of a ladle turned from the wood of the fig-tree, which, it is said, communicated an agreeable flavour to the soup, and, in Socrates’s opinion, was preferable to one of gold which, being very weighty, might chance to crack the pot, spill the broth, and extinguish the fire.^[497]

There was used in the kitchen a sort of candelabrum, or lamp-stand, which Clearchos merely names. Then followed the mortar, the stool, the sponge, the cauldron, the kneading-trough, the mug, the oil-flask, 123the rush-basket, the large knife, the cleaver,^[498] the wooden platter, the bowl, and the larding-pin.^[499] Pollux, who had, doubtless, served an apprenticeship to Marcus Aurelius’s cook, gives a formidable list of culinary utensils, from which we must be content to select the most remarkable. First, however, we shall show how important a piece of sponge was to an Athenian cook. It often saved him his dinner; for, if any of his stewpans, crocks, or kettles, had suffered from the embraces of Hephæstos, in other words, had got a hole burnt in them, a bit of sponge was drawn into the aperture, and on went the cooking operations as before.^[500] In some houses culinary utensils were regarded as a nuisance, the presence of which was not to be constantly endured, and, accordingly, when the master desired to treat his friends, cookey was despatched early in the morning to hire pots and kettles of a broker. To this custom Alexis alludes in his Exile:

How fertile in new tricks is Chæriphon,

To sup scot-free and everywhere find welcome!

Spies he a broker’s door with pots to let?

There from the earliest dawn he takes his stand,

To see whose cook arrives; from him he learns

Who ’tis that gives the feast,—flies to the house,

Watches his time, and, when the yawning door

Gapes for the guests, glides in among the first.^[501]

But we must not pass over the Pyreion or Trypanon,^[502] the clumsy contrivance which supplied the place of our lucifers, phosphorus, and tinder-boxes. This was a hollow piece of wood, in which another 124piece was turned rapidly till sparks of fire flew out.^[503] Soldiers carried these fire-kindlers along with them as a necessary part of their kit.

The ordinary fuel of the Greeks consisted chiefly of wood and charcoal,^[504] (kept in rush or wicker baskets,) though the use of mineral coal was not altogether unknown to them.^[505] In Attica, where wood was always scarce, they economically made use of vine-cuttings,^[506] and even the green branches of the fig tree with the leaves on.^[507] The charcoal of Acharnæ, the best probably in the country, was sometimes prepared from the scarlet oak.^[508] To prevent the wood, used in their saloons, halls, and drawing-rooms from smoking, it was often boiled^[509] in water or steeped in dregs of oil. The use of the bellows^[510] was known in Hellas from the remotest antiquity. They had likewise a kind of osier flap, with a handle, and shaped like a fan, which at times supplied the place of a pair of bellows.

There were chopping-blocks^[511] both of wood and stone, mortars,^[512] fish-kettles, frying-pans, and spits of all dimensions,^[513] some being so diminutive that thrushes and other small birds could be roasted on them. Their ends in the heroic ages rested on stone hobs, but afterwards andirons were invented, probably of fanciful shape as in modern France. Occasionally they would appear to have been manufactured of lead. To these we may add the ovens, the bean and barley-roasters, the sieves of bronze and other materials, the wine-strainers in the form of colanders, the crate for earthern-ware, and the chafing-dish.^[514]

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