Book 6 — CHAPTER V. INDUSTRY: HOUSE-BUILDERS, CARPENTERS, CABINET-MAKERS, TURNERS, MUSICAL INSTRUMENT-MAKERS, POTTERS, GLASS-WORKERS, ETC.

Another flourishing branch of industry was that of quarrying stones for building, carried on wherever marble, or freestone, or tufa, or granite, was found.^[1003] The stones were usually fashioned by the axe, or saw,^[1004] in the quarry, and drawn thence by ropes. In many cases, however, as where cheapness or despatch was aimed at, bricks were substituted,^[1005] made, in addition to the materials at present employed, from powdered tufa.^[1006]

In the preparation of mortar and cement the Greeks exhibited extraordinary ingenuity.^[1007] They made use, in the first place, of lime procured by burning coarse marble in the ordinary way, or, secondly, 177obtained from sea-shells, or stones picked up on the banks of rivers. A superior kind of cement was made from those stones used in the manufacture of gypsum, which was so firm and durable, that it was frequently found to outlast the materials which it had been employed to unite. It was prepared by being reduced to powder, and mixed with water, and afterwards well stirred with a piece of wood, since it was too hot to admit of the hands being used. When removed from old walls it might be burnt and prepared a second and a third time, as originally from the stone.^[1008] This, in Syria and Phœnicia, was used in facing the walls of houses, and in Italy for whitening them, as well as in the making of various mouldings and ornaments within.^[1009]

Frequently, also, it appears to have been employed like plaster of Paris in the casting of statues, as was that composed of powdered marble, in repairing such as by accident had been broken. An example of this was observed in the cheek of a sphynx dug up in the island of Capri.^[1010] Instead of water, however, a tough glue, composed of the hides and horns of bulls, was employed in mixing it.^[1011]

In the roofing of houses pantiles were commonly made use of;^[1012] instead of which, as they were fragile and easily broken by hailstones, tiles of Pentelic marble, invented by Byzes of Naxos,^[1013] were 178often substituted in the case of temples, as that for example of Zeus at Olympia. It is mentioned incidentally by Dioscorides, that physicians used to reduce acacia-wood to powder by burning it in the tile-kilns.^[1014]

Respecting the business of house-painters our information is exceedingly scanty; we may infer, however, that they excelled in the imitation of woods and marbles, since they were employed in imitating on the polished surface of one stone the veins and colours characteristic of another.^[1015] Some persons covered the walls of their apartments with historical subjects,^[1016] or landscapes, or the figures of animals in fresco.^[1017] In later ages ceilings were painted, or inlaid with coloured stones,^[1018] or abaculi, so as to imitate the feathers and hues of a peacock’s tail.^[1019]

Timber for house-building,^[1020] the choice of which was regulated by law,^[1021] abounded in most parts of Greece, though the best and straightest was obtained 179from Macedonia and Arcadia,^[1022] particularly from a hollow valley near a place called Cranè, never visited by the sun, and fenced round by rocks on all sides from the winds.^[1023] Very particular rules were laid down respecting the time and manner of felling trees;^[1024] first, wood cut in spring was most easily barked; second, if this operation was neglected it bred worms, which furrowed its whole surface like written characters; third, such as was cut when the moon was below the horizon was thought harder and less liable to decay.^[1025] It may here, perhaps, be worth observing, that stones and other substances were often found grown into the trunks of wild olive-trees. This was particularly the case with that which grew in the market-place of Megara. The oracle had foretold, that when this tree should be cut down the city would be sacked and destroyed, which was brought to pass by Demetrius. On this occasion the tree being felled and sawed into planks, greaves and other articles of Athenian workmanship were found in the heart of it.^[1026] Fragments of the timber remained in the time of Theophrastus.

In cutting hard wood carpenters made use of a blunt axe,^[1027] which thus became sharper, while soft wood produced the contrary effect.^[1028] It was customary before timber was committed to the saw to soak it for some time in water;^[1029] and it is said to 180have been rendered incombustible by a solution of alum and certain kinds of vinegar.^[1030] The tools of the Greek carpenter as near as possible resembled our own; they had the saws small and great, the plane, the axe, the chisel, the square, the gimlet, the augur,^[1031] the compass,^[1032] and, in short, whatever else could be useful in their trade. Among the paintings of Herculaneum^[1033] we find the representation of a carpenter’s workshop, where two winged genii are busily employed with the mallet and the saw. In making lines, &c., they used the ruddle now employed.^[1034]

Among the kinds of timber in most general use was the silver fir, thought to be extremely durable, in illustration of which Theophrastus relates the following circumstance: it happened at Pheneos, in Arcadia,^[1035] that, owing to the obstruction of the torrent-beds, the plain was converted into a lake. To traverse this they constructed bridges of fir, and when the flood rose still higher, bridge upon bridge was erected in succession. Afterwards when the waters had worked themselves a passage and ebbed off, the whole of the wood of these bridges was found in the completest preservation.^[1036] The other kinds of timber were the elm, used for doors, hinges, and weasel traps;^[1037] the cypress,^[1038] cedar, and juniper for wainscoting, beams, and paneled ceilings; the Arcadian, and the Idæan yew,^[1039] which latter was sometimes fraudulently substituted for cedar; the Eubœan walnut, and the beech, which, not being 181subject to the rot, were resorted to for piles and substructions.^[1040] The former of these trees, which grew to an extraordinary size, was likewise applied to the roofing of houses, chiefly because, by a loud crackling noise, it gave notice when it was about to break, and thus afforded the inmates leisure to effect their escape. This happened at the public baths of Antandros, where the company foreseeing from this warning sound the catastrophe that was approaching, rushed forth into the streets, and thus avoided being overwhelmed beneath the ruins.^[1041]

The box, the ilex, and the lotos, they employed for door-pivots, which were seasoned by being immersed in cow-dung.^[1042]

Cart and wheel wrights,^[1043] necessarily pretty numerous, made use in their trade of the following kinds of wood,—the scarlet oak,^[1044] in countries not abounding with ilex, as Laconia and Elis, for carts, ploughs, and other rustic implements; the oxya, the fir, and the elm, for chariot-bodies;^[1045] the ilex, the box, the ash, and the mast-bearing beech, for axletrees. The wood of all glutinous trees is naturally flexible, but more especially that of the mulberry and the wild fig, for which reason these, together with the platane, and the poplar, were used for making the bended rims of chariot-seats, and the circles of wheels.^[1046] For spokes, the wood of the cornel tree was preferred, and that of the box, the yew, the maple, and the carpinus—hedge-beech, or hornbeam—for the yokes of oxen. In old times the bodies of carts were often formed of basket-work. It may be remarked by the way, that the Greeks understood the use of the drag-wheel.^[1047]

182It has long been made a question among the learned^[1048] whether the ancients were or were not acquainted with the saddle, properly so called. It may now be determined in the affirmative, since, besides the several testimonies of classical writers, which are much too clear to be set aside, we find in several Herculanean pictures exact representations of saddles, both on horses and asses, with girths and cruppers exactly as in modern times.^[1049] It is evident, too, that they are constructed upon wooden frames, to which Herodotus may possibly allude where he speaks of saddles made of tanned human skins.^[1050] Packsaddles for sumpter-asses are of constant occurrence in history; and that they were tolerably thick may be inferred from the fact, that numbers of daggers were concealed in them by Aratos in his attempt upon Argos.^[1051] I shall here mention, also, by the way, and without entering into any discussion, that horses and asses were occasionally shod by the ancients,^[1052] though the practice was doubtless not universal.

The trade of the cooper^[1053] was in less general request than in modern times; his principal employment being the making of tubs, with flour and water-casks; their wine having been chiefly preserved in jars.^[1054] Latterly, however, small kegs got into use, as well probably as larger casks even for wine. Pump-makers, together with the pump itself,^[1055] came in late, and of fire-engines they possessed barely the first rudiments.^[1056]

In speaking elsewhere of the household furniture of the Greeks we necessarily anticipated much of what was to be said respecting cabinet-makers and 183upholsterers. Some few particulars, however, omitted in that place, shall be here introduced. With respect to the price of furniture at Athens,^[1057] it seems much better to be silent than by a few imperfect conjectures to confine the mind of the reader. We know absolutely nothing of the matter.

Among the Egyptians, the roots of the Persea,^[1058] a beautiful fruit-tree, said to have been poisonous in Persia,^[1059] furnished the materials not only of statues but of bedsteads and tables, which were of a rich dark colour and received a fine polish.^[1060] There was likewise, in Syria, a species of wood the blackness of which was interveined with ruddy streaks, so that it looked like variegated ebony. From this were manufactured bedsteads, chairs, and other expensive articles of furniture.^[1061] The maple-tree grows both on plains and mountains. In the latter situation its wood is of a pleasant reddish colour, finely veined and solid,^[1062] on which account it was much used in superior cabinet-work. The zygian maple, in general beautifully clouded, was so hard, that it required to be steeped in water before it could be wrought.^[1063] Of all woods the ancients considered that of the 184cypress^[1064] the most durable, and it is related in confirmation of this opinion, that the doors of the temple of Artemis at Ephesos, which were made of it, had already lasted four centuries in the time of Theophrastus.^[1065] It took the finest polish, and was therefore employed in costly cabinet-work. The wood of the tree called thuia (a species perhaps of wild cypress), abounding in CyrenèCyrenè, and the Oasis of Jupiter Ammon,^[1066] was thought to be incorruptible; and from its roots, which were beautifully clouded, the most delicate articles of furniture were manufactured. Next to these the wood of the mulberry-tree was preferred, which exhibited a dusky grain like that of the lotos.^[1067] Expensive bedsteads were sometimes made of oxya and citron-wood, the feet of which, among the Persians, were often turned from the wood of the doom-palm,^[1068] as they were formed among the Greeks from amber.^[1069] Statues,^[1070] which ought in truth to be regarded as articles of furniture, were carved from cedar, cypress,^[1071] lotos, box, and of a smaller size from the roots of olive-trees, because they did not crack.^[1072] Besides these which were perhaps the more common, we find mention in ancient writers of images of ebony, oak, yew, maple, beech, palm,^[1073] myrtle, pear, linden, and vine, to which may be added the fig-tree which was frequently preferred on account of its soft texture, 185lightness, shining whiteness, and close-grain. Occasionally statues of horses were carved of ebony and ivory. As during the prevalence of certain winds several of these kinds of woods were liable to sweat,^[1074] the vulgar, who understood nothing of the cause, regarded the circumstance as a prodigy.^[1075]

From the knotted wood of the fir-tree, tablets for painting or writing on were made, the inferior kinds of which were very common; but there was a superior and very beautiful sort used only by the opulent.^[1076]

Another piece of furniture in all Greek houses was the chest or coffer^[1077] in which money and plate, or costly garments, were deposited. Articles of this description were frequently manufactured of the finest and most aromatic woods, as cedar for example, and adorned on all sides, as well as on the cover, with numerous figures in relief, sometimes in gold or ivory, as in the case of the celebrated coffer of Cypselos preserved in the treasury at Olympia.^[1078] Generally, however, they were made of humbler materials; sometimes veneered with thin planks of yew, which took a high polish. Persons of inferior means substituted for these, mallequins of fine basket-work, or plaited from the bark of cherry or linden-tree.^[1079] We may here remark by the way, that bread-baskets were manufactured from willows and the twigs of chestnut-trees,^[1080] cleanly peeled, 186and that in Egypt articles of this description were generally woven or plaited from the leaves of the date and doom-palm, and probably variegated in colour as they are at present. At the court, however, bread-baskets were at one period of gold, but fashioned so as to resemble the rush-baskets in use among the earlier Greeks.^[1081]

Lanterns, too, in the first instance, were of basketwork,^[1082] though afterwards manufactured, as in modern times, with thin plates of horn or ivory.^[1083]

In some parts of Greece when individuals, not possessing costly furniture, desired to give a grand entertainment, they hired whatever articles they stood in need of, as seats, beds, vases, &c., of a broker, whose business, in the island of Samos, was once carried on by the tyrant Polycrates.^[1084]

As ivory entered largely into the making of furniture among the ancients,^[1085] the reader will not regret to find here an explanation of the means by which it was rendered soft and tractable. This secret appears hitherto to have escaped the modern writers on Art. Monsieur Dutens^[1086] and the Milanese editors of Winkelmann^[1087] observe, that the ancients possessed the art of softening ivory without, however, giving any intimation that they understood in what the secret consisted. But the whole matter was extremely simple, since they merely steeped the piece of ivory about to be worked in a fermented liquor, called zythos,^[1088] prepared from barley, and drank commonly, 187with or without a mixture of honey, by all persons in Gaul. Many of these ivory ornaments were produced by the turning-lathe. They turned also from the knots of the Arcadian fir large bowls of a shining black colour.^[1089] There was even a kind of stone which, being soft when drawn from the quarry, was turned and cut into bowls, plates, and other articles for the table, which were susceptible of a high polish, and became hard by constant exposure to the air.^[1090]

It was, probably, to the turner’s art that the Greeks owed many of those straight and elegant kinds of walkingsticks,^[1091] particularly affected by the opulent, and called Persian, doubtless because the use of them came originally from Asia. Others preferred the Laconian scytale,^[1092] fashioned usually from a piece of whitethorn, and philosophers, sticks of olive-wood.^[1093] Rustics then, as now, were in the habit of carrying twisted and uncouth walkingstaves, bent sometimes atop, and of heavy materials. The straight light stem of the malachè,^[1094] and birch, and elder,^[1095] were likewise in use; while some carried sticks made from the agnus castus or the laurel, which were believed to possess the virtue of preserving those who bore them from accident or injury.^[1096] The making of umbrellas or parasols, which opened and closed like 188our own,^[1097] no doubt constituted a separate branch of industry. These articles, it may be observed, were manufactured with great elegance, with handles gracefully ornamented, and furnished at the periphery^[1098] with numerous elongated drops. It was, probably, the same tradesmen in whose shops were found those folding-seats, or camp-stools, invented by Dædalos, the use of which seems to have been very common at Athens.^[1099]

Respecting the manufacture of musical instruments, we have but a few particulars to communicate, though it formed a profitable branch of industry in every part of Greece. Musical instruments were divided by the ancients into three kinds:^[1100] those which were played by means of the breath,—the pipe, the trumpet, and the flute; those whose harmony resided in their strings, as the lyre and the cithara; and those which produced sound by beating or clashing against each other, as cymbals and the drum. The best trumpets, supposed to have been an invention of the Tyrrhenians,^[1101] were obtained from Italy, though on many occasions great sea-shells were substituted for those larger instruments. In the East, trumpets were 189sometimes manufactured of cow-hide, though the usual materials were brass and iron, with a little bone for the mouth-piece.^[1102] There were two kinds,—the straight and the crooked.

Of the pipe of barley-straw,^[1103] invented by Osiris, nothing need be said except, that its use and manufacture formed the amusement of shepherds. The fashioning of the common pipe constituted an important branch of industry, particularly in Bœotia, where the reed^[1104] from which it was made abounded in the Orchomenian marshes,^[1105] between the Cephisos and the Melas, in the place called Pelecania.^[1106] The season for cutting, which prevailed up to the age of Antigones, was the month Boedromion; but, for the improvement of the instrument, that musician altered the time, which thenceforward was in the months Scirophorion and Hecatombion.^[1107] The reeds were prepared in the following manner: being cut, they were piled in a heap with their leaves on, and left in the open air during the whole winter. Having in spring been cleared of their outer integuments, well rubbed and exposed to the sun, they were, during the summer, cut into lengths at the knots, and left a little longer in the open air.^[1108] The 190internodial spaces did not fall short of two palms in length, and the best portions of the reed used for making the double pipe^[1109] was about the middle.^[1110] Pipes and flutes^[1111] were likewise manufactured of the leg-bones of stags, at least in Bœotia. The lotos-wood^[1112] transverse flute was an invention of the Africans. The elymœan flute made of boxwood owed its origin to the Phrygians, and was played during the worship of Cybelè. That called hippophorbos was invented by the last dwellers of Libya, who habitually played on it while pasturing their great droves of horses in the desert.^[1113] It appears to have been a very simple instrument, fashioned of a piece of laurel-wood, by removing the bark and scooping out the pith. Its sharp shrill sound which could be heard far and near, delighted the ears of the horses, who probably, like the Turks, estimate the merit of music by its loudness. The monaulos, a favourite invention of the Egyptians, spoken of by Sophocles in his Thamyris, was usually played in marriage concerts.^[1114] The lugubrious funeral-pipe of the Carians was a Phrygian invention. There existed among the Thebans a curious instrument of this kind, probably used in hunting, made from the bones of fawns, with a coating of bronze.^[1115] The Tyrrhenians, like the rude sportsmen of Europe, drew music from the horn. Among the Phœnicians was a small flute made of goose-bones, not exceeding a span in length, called gingras^[1116] in honour of Adonis, so named in their language, which emitting a plaintive and melancholy note, was doubtless 191much used in the wailing orgies of that divinity. Its character being exceedingly simple, it was habitually put into the hands of beginners,^[1117] and seems to have been very common at Athens. The most extraordinary pipes, however, enumerated by ancient writers, were the ones in which those Scythian tribes denominated by the Greeks, Cannibals, Black Cloaks, and Arimaspians, delighted; and manufactured from the leg-bones of eagles and vultures.^[1118] The Celts and the islanders of the ocean, our own forefathers, doubtless eschewed the music of vultures’ legs, and contented themselves with the notes of the syrinx.^[1119]

In earlier times there was a flute appropriated to each mode, or grand division of the national music, but afterwards Pronomos of Thebes,^[1120] invented one equally well suited to every mode. Even the manufacture of mouth-pieces, and flute-cases formed a considerable branch of industry. The materials from which the above instruments were chiefly made, were, in addition to those already mentioned, branches of the elder tree and dwarf laurel, bones of asses and kids, ivory and silver.^[1121] Organs, and hydraulic organs, the latter invented by the Alexandrian barber Ctesibios, to whom antiquity was likewise indebted for the knowledge of the pump, were reckoned by the ancients among wind-instruments.^[1122]

Of stringed-instruments the most common was the lyre,^[1123] manufactured from many kinds of fine wood, and sometimes of ivory.^[1124] The bridge was usually of ilex.^[1125] The cithara,^[1126] introduced at Athens by Phrynis,^[1127] was made sometimes of horn with wooden 192pegs,^[1128] though mention occurs of one formed entirely of solid gold, adorned with figures in relief of the Muses, Orpheus, and Apollo, and thickly studded with emeralds and other precious stones.^[1129] The magadis,^[1130] sometimes reckoned among wind-instruments, was unquestionably stringed, since we find Timotheus, accused at Sparta of innovating in the number of its chords, pointing out to his accuser an ancient statue of Apollo, in which the god was represented playing on a magadis with an equal number.^[1131] In proof of its antiquity it may be remarked, that Lesbothemis, a sculptor, who flourished in a remote age at Mytilene, where this instrument was always in high favour,^[1132] represented one of the Muses with the magadis in her hand. The pectis, said to have been an invention of Sappho, and by some confounded with the magadis, ought rather perhaps to be regarded as a modification of that instrument.^[1133] The epigoneion, so called from its inventor Epigonos, by birth an Ambraciot, though afterwards made a citizen of Sicyon, was a kind of harp with forty strings, resembling, probably, those many-chorded instruments represented on the monuments of Egypt and Ethiopia. This Epigonos, is said to have been the first person who in playing dispensed with the use of the plectron.^[1134] The ancient Arabs forestalled Signor Paganini, and drew a world of sweet sounds from an instrument of one chord:^[1135] the Assyrians had their pandoura, with three strings.^[1136] Among the Scythians was found the pentachordon, stringed with thongs of raw bull-hide, and played on by a plectron of goat’s hoof. The Libyans, more especially the Troglodytes, filled their caverns with the 193music of the psithura, otherwise called the ascaron, an instrument a cubit square, which produced sounds resembling the tinkling of castanets. Cantharos attributes its invention to the Thracians. To these we may add the drum, the tambourine,^[1137] with cymbals, and castanets, sometimes of brass, and sometimes of shells, played on by women in honour of Artemis.

The business of the potter^[1138] was held in considerable estimation among the Greeks, so that several celebrated cities rivalled each other in their productions. Among these, Athens,^[1139] Samos, and Rhodes held the first rank.^[1140] Even the Bœotian Aulis obtained some degree of reputation for its earthenware.^[1141] But that made at Kolias,^[1142] in Attica, from the clay there found, and richly painted with figures in minium, appears to have been the most beautiful known to antiquity.

The number of rough articles produced was prodigious, seeing that oil, and wine, and salt-fish, and pickles, and a variety of other commodities were exported in jars; while almost all culinary operations were carried on in earthern vessels. Such of these as found their way to Egypt, after the conquest of that country by the Persians, were filled with Nile water, and transported into the desert, on camels, to slake the thirst of the wayfarers on that arid waste.^[1143] Perhaps, the largest articles of 194earthenware, however, were the corn-jars, some of which are said to have contained nearly a quarter of grain, in lieu of which plaited corbels were sometimes used.^[1144] Much art and elegance was displayed in the forms, varnishing, and painting of fictile vases, some of which, of light and graceful contour, were made without bottoms, wholly for ornament.^[1145] The colours employed in the painting of vases, more particularly those intended to hold the ashes of the dead, were generally light and durable; and the ease and beauty of the figures prove that the ancient potters paid great attention to the arts of design. The ornaments were extremely various, sometimes consisting of representations of the gods, as Heracles, Pan, or the genii, sometimes of oakleaves, garlands, or festoons, arranged with taste and elegance.^[1146] Athenæus speaks of a kind of porcelain called Rhossican,^[1147] covered with the forms of flowers, upon which Cleopatra expended five minæ per day. Another branch of the potter’s business consisted in the manufacturing of lamps,^[1148] which were so generally in use, that, throughout the Greek and the Roman world, the sites of cities, the ruins of temples, and the sepulchral chambers excavated beneath the earth, lavishly abound with them, entire or in fragments.^[1149] Hyperbolos is said to have amassed a considerable fortune by selling lamps of an inferior quality.^[1150] Wax-candles, however, were likewise in use, at least in 195later ages,^[1151] and with the same materials they fashioned artificial pomegranates and other ornaments, together with small portable images of animals, men, and gods, which, like our figures of plaster of Paris, were sold, as well as those of clay, about the streets. Some notion, too, may be formed of the price, since we find that a figure of Eros fetched a drachma.^[1152]

The manufacture of glass^[1153] was carried to a very high degree of perfection among the ancients.^[1154] They understood the methods of blowing, cutting, and engraving on it; could stain it of every rich and brilliant colour so as to imitate the most precious gems,^[1155] from the ruby and the amethyst to the turquoise and the beryl; they could fashion it into jars, and bowls, and vases, exhibiting all the various hues of the peacock’s train, which, like shot-silks and the breast of the dove, exhibited fresh tints in every different light,—fading, quivering, and melting into each other as the eye changed its point of view.^[1156] 196Squares of glass were produced, perfectly polished and transparent without, but containing figures of various colours in their interior.^[1157] Glass, likewise, was wrought into bassi and alti rilievi, and cast, as gems were cut, into cameos.^[1158] The manufacturers of Alexandria excelled in the working of glass,^[1159] with which they skilfully imitated all kinds of earthenware, fabricating cups of every known form.

It is added, moreover, that a certain kind of earth was found in Egypt, without which the best kind of coloured glass^[1160] could not be produced. Petronius informs us, that, in the reign of Tiberius, a skilful experimentalist discovered the art of rendering this substance malleable, but that the emperor, from some freak of tyranny, put the man to death, and thus his secret was lost to the world.^[1161] A similar act of cruelty was perpetrated by the public authorities at Dantzic, who, in the seventeenth century, caused an able mechanician, who had invented a superior kind of ribbon-loom, to be strangled.^[1162]

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