Note 261 — Chapter I · PRIVATE DWELLINGS.

But even from a fragment of Bacchylides we may infer the magnificence of Grecian houses; for the poor man who drinks wine, he says, sees his house blazing with gold and ivory:

χρυσῷ δ᾽ ἐλεφαντί τε

μαρμαίρουσιν οἶκοι.

Athen. ii. 10.

Men had by this time advanced considerably from the state in which they are supposed to have built their huts in imitation of the swallow’s nest. Vitruv. ii. 1.