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]
-----
Footnote 375:
This profusion of wearing apparel was laid up in trunks and
_mallekins_ of wickerwork. The former were called κιβωτοὶ, the latter
κίσται.—Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 233. Clem. Alexand. Pæd. iii.
Hesych. v. v. κιβωτὸς—κίστη. Mention is also made of presses.—Mazois,
Pal. de Scaur. p. 120.
Footnote 376:
Xenoph. Œconom. ix. 6, sqq. Aristot. Œconom. i. 6.
-----
In well-regulated families a second division took place, a separation
being made of such articles as might 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.
-----
Footnote 377:
Cicero ap. Columell. De Re Rust. xii. 3.
Footnote 378:
Odysseus had a storehouse of this kind in his palace at Ithaca.—Odyss.
χ. 442, 459, 466.
-----
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]
-----
Footnote 379:
Xen. Œconom. ix. 10. 57.
-----
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 restrained 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.
Footnote 380:
That the sycophants were sometimes troublesome, however, is certain;
that is to say, in later ages. Speaking of the time of his youth,
Isocrates says:—Οὐδεὶς οὔτ᾽ ἀπεκρύπτετο τὴν οὐσίαν οὔτ᾽ ὤκνει
συμβάλλειν. κ. τ. λ.—Areop. § 12. Cf. Bergmann. in loc. p. 362. But
their persecution must always have been confined to a very few
individuals, as people generally continued to display whatever they
possessed down to the final overthrow of the state.
Footnote 381:
Aristoph. Acharn. 398.—_Mitchell._ The learned editor fails to remark
how little this custom harmonizes with the fears which he imagines
rich people felt at Athens.
-----
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, imagines[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.
-----
Footnote 382:
On the attractive power of this substance, see Plat. Tim. t. vii. p.
118.
Footnote 383:
Athen. v. 45. Lys. Frag. 46. Orat. Att. t. ii. p. 647.
Footnote 384:
Deipnosoph. xi. 78.
Footnote 385:
α. 111. 138.
Footnote 386:
This is also the opinion of Potter, ii. 376, 377; and Damm. in v.
τράπεζα, col. 1822.
Footnote 387:
Odyss. τ. 259. Pind. Olymp. i. 26.
Footnote 388:
κ. 354, seq. 361, seq. In the letters attributed to Plato we find
mention made of silver tables. t. viii. p. 397. Sometimes, also, of
brass. Athen. ix. 75.
-----
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]
sometimes 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]
-----
Footnote 389:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xvi. 27.
Footnote 390:
Athen. xi. 27.
Footnote 391:
Athen. ii. 31.
Footnote 392:
Paradise Regained, iv. 114, seq. where see Mitford’s curious and
learned note. ii. 350, seq. and cf. Plin. v. 1. t. ii. p. 259. Hard.
not. a. 261. xiii. 29. t. iv. p. 746, sqq. Petronius speaks of the
“citrea mensa,” p. 157. Erhard. Symbol. ad Petron. 709, seq. shows
that Numidian marble was in use at Rome.
Footnote 393:
Potter, ii. 377.
-----
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.
-----
Footnote 394:
In the Antichita di Ercolano, we have the representation of a very
handsome armed chair, with upright back, beautifully turned legs, and
thick and soft cushions, with low footstool, t. i. tav. 29. p. 155.
Athen. xi. 72.
Footnote 395:
Pierres Gravées, du Cabinet du Duc d’Orleans, t. i. No. 46. Cf. No. 7,
representing Zeus thus seated.
Footnote 396:
Odyss. η. 162. Il. σ. 390, 422.
-----
Bedsteads 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 golden vine, the grape clusters of which were imitated by
jewels of various colours.
-----
Footnote 397:
Athen. xi. 48. i. 60. ii. 29. Plat. de Rep. t. vi. p. 468. Cf. Xenoph.
Memor. ii. 1, 30.
Footnote 398:
This bedstead was called δέμνιον; (Odyss. η. 336, seq.) when heaped
with soft mattresses it was πυκινὸν λέχος (345); εὐνὴ was the term
applied to the whole, bed and bedstead. Iliad. ω. 644. Odyss. δ. 297,
&c. Pind. Nem. i. 3.
Footnote 399:
Odyss. ψ. 189, seq. Schol. ad Il. γ. 448.
Footnote 400:
Plat. de Legg. t. viii. p. 397.
Footnote 401:
Athen. vi. 67. ii. 30.
Footnote 402:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 530.
Footnote 403:
Lucian. Luc., sive Asin. § 53. Bedsteads of solid gold are spoken of
in scripture.—Esther i. 6. Bochart. Geog. Sac. i. 6. 30.
Footnote 404:
Athen. xii. 9, 55.
-----
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]
-----
Footnote 405:
No. 34.
Footnote 406:
Il. β. 697. δ. 383.
Footnote 407:
Athen. xi. 72.
Footnote 408:
Athen. i. 32.
Footnote 409:
Xen. Mem. ii. 1. 30.
Footnote 410:
Palm. Exercit. in Auct. Græc. p. 191. We find mention in ancient
authors of certain tribes who went clad in garments covered with the
feathers of birds. Senec. Epist. 90.
-----
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 prevailed 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]
-----
Footnote 411:
Athen. vi. 37.
Footnote 412:
Athen. ii. 29, sqq.
Footnote 413:
Gitone, Nozze di Ulisse è Penelope, Il Costume, &c. tav. 67.
Footnote 414:
See the mattress on which the statue of Hermaphroditos reclines in the
Louvre.
-----
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]
-----
Footnote 415:
Il. β. 42, seq.
-----
In 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]
-----
Footnote 416:
Esther i. 6. Lament, iv. 5. Bochart. Geograph. Sac. i. 6. 30.
Footnote 417:
Geog. Sac. i. 6. 28, seq.
-----
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]
-----
Footnote 418:
Eustath. ad Odyss. α. p. 32. 30.
Footnote 419:
Athen. ii. 30.
-----
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!”
-----
Footnote 420:
In old times the whole bedroom was sometimes perfumed.—Iliad, γ. 382.
-----
Aristophanes, 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]
-----
Footnote 421:
Athen. ii. 30. Aristoph. Frag. incert. 2. Brunck.
Footnote 422:
Deipnosoph. xi. 55. Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 172.
Footnote 423:
Feith. Antiq. Homer, iii. 8. 4.
-----
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
sleeping-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, a 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]
-----
Footnote 424:
Very nearly the same customs prevail in Persia at the present day,
except that the rules of etiquette seem to be still more rigidly
observed. “It is a general custom with the kings of Persia to eat in
solitary grandeur. The late Shah, however, would sometimes have select
portions of his family to breakfast with him.” On which occasion,
“they used to squat round him in the form of a crescent, of which he
was the centre, and were all placed scrupulously according to
rank.”—Fowler, i. 48.
Footnote 425:
Athen. vi. 58. Vales. not. in Maussac. p. 282, where he corrects the
old reading of the text. Cf. Xenoph. Hellen. vii. 1. 38. Plut. Pelop.
§ 30. Artax. § 22. Valer. Max. vi. 3. extern. 2. Demosth. de Fals.
Leg. § 42, where the orator accuses Timagoras of having received a
bribe of forty talents.
Footnote 426:
Athen. ii. 31.
-----
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.
-----
Footnote 427:
Xen. Anab. i. 5. 5.
Footnote 428:
Nub. 10. Cf. Av. 122. Concionat. 838. ibique not. Pollux, vii. 382,
seq. x. 542.
-----
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]
Mention is likewise made among the ancients of purple tapestry,
inwrought with pearls and gold.[431]
-----
Footnote 429:
Cf. Poll. vi. 105.
Footnote 430:
Athen. xv. 42. Cf. Meineke. Curæ Crit. in Com. Frag. p. 7.
-----
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.
-----
Footnote 431:
Mazois, Pal. de Scaur, p. 103. Tibull. iii. 3, 17, seq. Athen. iv. 29.
Footnote 432:
Athen. i. 49.
Footnote 433:
Il. ι. 200.—The use of mats first prevailed, (Festus, in v. Scirpus.)
but, as luxury increased, superb carpets were substituted.—Æschyl.
Agam. 842. Tryphiod. Ἅλωσις Ἴλιου. 343, seq. Hemster. Comm. in Poll.
viii. 133. p. 287. Cf. Klausen. Comm. in Æschyl. Agam. p. 197, sqq.
Footnote 434:
Il. π. 224. Poll. vi. 2. Synes. Epist. 61.
Footnote 435:
Eidyll, xv. 125.
Footnote 436:
A beautiful simile, which Virgil has imitated—
“Muscosi fontes, et _somno mollior herba_.”—Eclog. vii. 45.
Shakespeare, too, has, without imitation, struck upon a similar
thought, where the amorous Troilus thus describes himself:—
“But I am weaker than a woman’s tear,
_Tamer than sleep_, fonder than ignorance.”
Troilus & Cressida, i. 1.
-----
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 their 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.”
-----
Footnote 437:
Athen. iv. 2, sqq. Cf. iii. 100.
Footnote 438:
Athen. iv. 42.
Footnote 439:
Deipnosoph. _ut sup._
Footnote 440:
Athen. ix. 75.
-----
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 other
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.
-----
Footnote 441:
Plat. De Rep. i. t. vi. p. 86. Cf. Tim. t. vii. p. 77.
-----
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.
-----
Footnote 442:
Athen. xi. 3. Poll. x. 122.
Footnote 443:
Le Comte de Caylus, Mem. de l’Acad. des Inscrip, t. xxiii. p. 353.
-----
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]
-----
Footnote 444:
Athen. xi. 14. Among the Egyptians were vases of papyrus. Bochart.
Geog. Sac. i. 240.
-----
Amber goblets not being, I believe, in fashion among the modern nations
of Europe, some doubt may 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.
Then 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]
-----
Footnote 445:
Bruyerin, De Re Cibaria, l. iii. c. 9. This goblet could by no means
have been a diminutive one, if Helen resembled her countrywomen
generally, who were celebrated for their large bosoms:
βαθύκολποι.—Anacr. v. 14. Bruyerin’s authority is Plin. Hist. Nat.
xxxii. 23. “Minervæ templum habet Lindos, insula Rhodiorum, in quo
Helena sacravit calycem ex electro. Adjicit historia, mammæ suæ
mensura.” This, I suppose, is what Rousseau calls “Cette coupe célèbre
à qui le plus beau sein du monde servit de moule.”—Nouv. Heloise,
1^{re} partie. Lett. 23. t. i. p. 144,—though, I confess, I am not
acquainted with the authors by whom it has been celebrated. Several
votive offerings, representing the female breast, may be seen in the
British Museum, among the Elgin Marbles. But the most curious relic of
the ancient female form is mentioned in the following passage: “In the
street just out of the gate of this villa I lately saw a skeleton dug
out; and by desiring the labourers to remove the skull and bones
gently, I perceived distinctly the perfect mould of every feature of
the face, and that the eyes had been shut. I also saw distinctly the
impression of the large folds of the drapery of the toga, and some of
the cloth itself sticking to the earth. The city was first covered by
a shower of hot pumice-stones and ashes, and then by a shower of small
ashes mixed with water. It was in the latter stratum that the skeleton
above described was found. In the Museum at Portici a piece of this
sort of hardened mud is preserved; it is stamped with the impression
of the breast of a woman, with a thin drapery over it. The skeleton I
saw dug out was not above five feet from the surface. It is very
extraordinary that the impression of the body and face should have
remained from the year 79 to this day, especially as I found the earth
so little hardened that it separated upon the least touch.”—Sir W.
Hamilton, Acc. of Discov. at Pompeii, p. 15.
Footnote 446:
Athen. xi. 14.
-----
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.
-----
Footnote 447:
Athen. xi. 15. Polyb. xii. 15. 6. xv. 35. 2.
-----
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 for 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]
-----
Footnote 448:
See ariner’s Account, chap. 9.
Footnote 449:
Athen. xi. 15.
-----
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 his 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]
-----
Footnote 450:
Iliad. ω. 234.
Footnote 451:
Athen. xi. 16.
Footnote 452:
Bentley, Dissert. on Phal. i. 175, sqq.
-----
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]
-----
Footnote 453:
Plin. xxxiii. 2. Juven. v. 42. Athen. iv. 29.
Footnote 454:
Athen. xi. 19.
Footnote 455:
Athen. xi. 25, states this from Philetas: but Kayser, in his edition
of that author’s fragments, seems to have overlooked this passage.
Footnote 456:
Athen. xi. 36. On the Cantharos, see § 48.
-----
Glass cups of much beauty were manufactured in great abundance at
Alexandria. Among these was the _Baucalis_, mentioned by Sopater the
parodist, who says:—
’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]
-----
Footnote 457:
Athen. xi. 28.
-----
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]
-----
Footnote 458:
Athen. xi. 28.
-----
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]
-----
Footnote 459:
We find in Winkelmann, Hist. de l’Art t. i. p. 23, the representation
of a glass grammateion, on which are the words: Bibe Vivas Multis
Annis. See a detailed description of this vase by the Marquis
Trivulsi, p. 46.
Footnote 460:
Athen. xi. 30.
-----
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 little 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]
-----
Footnote 461:
Theopomp. ap. Athen. xi. 34. 51.
Footnote 462:
Athen. xi. 35.
-----
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]
-----
Footnote 463:
Cf. Bentley on the Epist. of Phalaris i. 169–189.
Footnote 464:
Alexis, ap. Athen. xi. 42.
Footnote 465:
Hist. Plant. v. 4. 2. cum not. Schnei. t. iii. p. 426.
Footnote 466:
Athen. xi. 41. ἄλλοι δὲ ἱστοροῦσι, θηρίκλειον ὀνομασθῆναι τὸ ποτήριον
διὰ τὸ δορὰς θηρίων αὐτῷ ἐντετυπῶσθαι.
-----
We 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.
-----
Footnote 467:
Bœckh. Pub. Econ. of Athens, ii. 254.
Footnote 468:
Pind. Frag. Incert. 44. i. 244. Dissen. Comm. ii. 659. Jacob. Anthol.
vii. 336. Athen. xi. 51. Cf. Damm. v. κέρας.
Footnote 469:
Anab. vi. 1. 4. vii. 3. 24, seq.
-----
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]
-----
Footnote 470:
Xen. Conv. vii. 4. They were sometimes square and washed with silver.
Caylus, Rec. d’Antiq. t. vi. p. 398. Cf. Cœl. Rhodig. xv. 12, 13.
Plat. Tim. t. vii. 52, seq. 61. Lucian. Amor. § 39. Ter. Adelph. ii.
3. 61. Cicero in Pison. c. 29. Poll. vii. 95. x. 126, 164.
Footnote 471:
Athen. x. 31.
-----
The best, however, until those of glass came into use, were made of
silver or of a mixed metal, the exact composition 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]
-----
Footnote 472:
Theoph. de Lapid. §. 33.
Footnote 473:
It is to be observed, that before the application of quicksilver in
the construction of these glasses (which I presume is of no great
antiquity) the reflection of images by such specula must have been
effected by their being besmeared behind, or tinged through with some
dark colour, especially black, which would obstruct the refraction of
the rays of light. Nixon in Philosoph. Trans, t. iv. p. 602. Cf. Plin.
xxxvi. 26. § 67.
Footnote 474:
Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 742.
Footnote 475:
Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 741.
-----
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.[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.
-----
Footnote 476:
Plaut. in Mostell. i. 3. 101.
Footnote 477:
Plin. xxxiii. 45. Senec. Quæst. Nat. i. 4.
Footnote 478:
Paus. viii. 37. 7.
-----
Religion was the nurse of the fine arts, and first gave rise, not only
to sculpture and painting, but also 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]
-----
Footnote 479:
Plat. de Rep. t. vi. p. 86. Plin. Hist. Nat. vii. 39. xxxv. 36.
xxxiii. 56.
Footnote 480:
Athen. xi. 3. Menage, Observat. in Diog. Laert. vi. 32. p. 138. a. b.
Footnote 481:
Poll. i. 28.
Footnote 482:
Plat. de Rep. t. vi. p. 86.
-----
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
specimen 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]
-----
Footnote 483:
An elegant candelabrum, ornamented with the figure of a twisted
serpent, and a flight of birds resting here and there on the branches,
is found in the Mus. Cortonens. tab. 80.—They were sometimes of gilt
wood.—Winkelmann, i. 34.
Footnote 484:
Poll. ii. 72. vi. 103. x. 115. Soph. Ajax. 285, sqq.
Footnote 485:
Poll. x. 192.—On the brazen ladle (ἀρύταινα) for filling lamps with
oil, see Sch. Aristoph. Eq. 1087.
Footnote 486:
Athen. xi. 48.
Footnote 487:
Id. xv. 60.
Footnote 488:
Id xv. 61.
Footnote 489:
Id. xv. 59.
-----
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, quivers curiously adorned,
feathered arrows, and bows of polished horn, tipped at either end with
gold.
-----
Footnote 490:
The custom, also, in Lydia. Herod. i. 34.
Footnote 491:
Alcæi Frag. vi. p. 95. Anacr. ed. Glasg.
Footnote 492:
Κύπασσις of which Pollux furnishes us with an exact description: ὁ δὲ
κύπασσις, λίνου πεποίητο, σμικρὸς χιτωνίσκος, ἄχρι μέσου μηροῦ, ὡς Ἴων
φησὶ, βραχὺς λίνου κύπασσις, ἐς μηρὸν μέσον ἐσταλμένος. (vii. 60) That
is, “the _kupassis_ is a small linen chiton, reaching mid-thigh,
according to Ion, who says, ‘a short linen kupassis, descending to the
middle of the thigh.’”
-----
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]
-----
Footnote 493:
Hesych. v. Δελφικὴ μάχαιρα.
Footnote 494:
Athen. xi. 50, ὀξίνη, a vinegar cruet.—Sch. Aristoph. Eq. 1301. ὑρχη,
a pickle-jar.—Vesp. 676.
Footnote 495:
Athen. xiv. 60.
Footnote 496:
Plat. Hipp. Maj. t. v. p. 425, sqq.
Footnote 497:
Plat. Opp. t. v. p. 429. seq. Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 244.
-----
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, the
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]
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Footnote 498:
See a figure, probably, of that instrument in Mus. Chiaramont. tav.
21.
Footnote 499:
Athen. xiv. 60. Poll. x. 95, sqq.—We find mention, also, of the
cheese-rasp.—Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 251.
Footnote 500:
Aristoph. Acharn. 439. Brunck is vastly scandalised at the idea of the
Scholiast, that any man should have been so poor in Attica as to be
driven to mend his pots in the way commemorated in the text; but a
German commentator, who had looked more into kitchens, is satisfied
that the practice prevailed, and was perfectly rational. In fact,
similar contrivances are still resorted to, even in England.
Footnote 501:
Athen. iv. 58.
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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 piece
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.
Footnote 502:
Theoph. Histor. Plant. v. 9. 7.
Footnote 503:
Plat. de Rep. iv. t. vi. p. 194. Pollux. x. 146. vii. 113.
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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.
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Footnote 504:
Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 34, 302, 314. Plat. de Legg. t. viii.
116.
Footnote 505:
Theoph. de Lap. § 16.
Footnote 506:
Schol. Aristoph. Lysist. 308.
Footnote 507:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 312. Cf. Schol. Vesp. 145, 326.
Footnote 508:
Sch. Aristoph. Acharn. 587.
Footnote 509:
Plin. Hist. Nat. xv. 8.
Footnote 510:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 853. Athen. ii. 71.
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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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Footnote 511:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 319. Vesp. 238. κρεάγρα a flesh-hook. Sch.
Eq. 769.
Footnote 512:
Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 924.
Footnote 513:
Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 179.
Footnote 514:
Aristoph. Acharn. 34. Cooks’ tables were made of wicker-work or
olive-wood. Etym. Mag. 298. 36, seq.
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