[921] Grapaldus De Partibus Ædium.
[922] Plin. xxxiii. cap. 4. Virgil. Æn. iii. ver. 580. Juvenal, sat. xiv. ver. 117.
[923] Lib. vii. cap. 3.
[924] The name atrium had its rise from the walls of such places being black with smoke. Isidorus, xv. 3. This derivation is given also by Servius, Æn. lib. i. ver. 730.
[925] Seneca, ep. 44. Cicero in Pison. cap. i. Juvenal, sat. viii. ver. 6.
[926] In the Equites of Aristophanes the houses of the common people are called γύπαι and γυπάρια, because γὺψ signifies fuliginosum or fuscum. On account of the smoke they were called also μέλαθρα. Lycophron, 770, and 1190. Μέλαθρον αἰθαλόεν, domicilium fuliginosum, occurs in Homer, Iliad. ii. ver. 414, of which expression and i. ver. 204, the scholiast very properly gives the following explanation: ἀπὸ τοῦ μελαίνεσθαι ὑπὸ τοῦ κάπνου, quoniam a fumo reddebantur nigræ. For the same reason, according to the scholiasts, Apollonius Rhodius, lib. ii. ver. 1089, calls the middle beam of the roof μέλαθρον. Columella, i. 17, says, “Fuligo quæ supra focos tectis inhæret:” among us the soot adheres to the funnel of the chimney, and not to the roof or ceiling.
Tecta senis subeunt, nigro deformia fumo;
Ignis in hesterno stipite parvus erat.—Ovid. Fast. lib. v. 505.
In cujus hospitio nec fumi nec nidoris nebulam vererer.—Apuleii Metam. 1.
Sordidum flammæ trepidant rotantes
Vertice fumum.—Horat. iv. od. 11.
It may be here said, that the above passages allude to the hovels of the poor, which are black enough among us. These are not, however, all so smoky and so covered with soot both without and within; for though this may be the case in some villages, the houses of the common people in our cities may be called dirty rather than smoky. These passages of Roman authors speak principally of town-houses. The house in which Horace wished to entertain his Phyllis was not a mean one, for, he tells her a little before, “Ridet argento domus.” [Black huts or hovels, such as are described in the above remarks, having merely a hole in the roof, or an open window for the escape of smoke, are still common in Ireland, and in some of the less-frequented villages of the Continent. Indeed they are met with even in England. But in all cases the buildings appear to be very ancient.]