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 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.
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]]
[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.
[376]. Xenoph. Œconom. ix. 6, sqq. Aristot. Œconom. i. 6.
[377]. Cicero ap. Columell. De Re Rust. xii. 3.
[378]. Odysseus had a storehouse of this kind in his palace at Ithaca.—Odyss. χ. 442, 459, 466.