Museum of Antiquity: A Description of Ancient Life

by L. W. Yaggy; T. L. Haines

Their couches evinced no less taste than the fauteuils. They were of wood, with one end raised, and receding in a graceful curve; and the feet, as in many of the chairs, already described, were fashioned to resemble those of some wild animal.

Egyptian tables were round, square, or oblong; the former were generally used during their repasts, and consisted of a circular flat summit, supported like the monopodium of the Romans, on a single shaft, or leg, in the centre, or by the figure of a man, intended to represent a captive. Large tables had usually three or four legs, but some were made with solid sides; and though generally of wood, many were of metal or stone; and they varied in size, according to the purposes for which they were intended.

Of the furniture of their bed-rooms we know little or nothing; but that they universally employed the wooden pillow above alluded to is evident, though Porphyry would lead us to suppose its use was confined to the priests, when, in noticing their mode of life, he mentions a half cylinder of well polished wood "sufficing to support their head," as an instance of their simplicity and self-denial. For the rich they were made of Oriental alabaster, with an elegant grooved or fluted shaft, ornamented with hieroglyphics, carved in intaglio, of sycamore, tamarisk, and other woods of the country; the poor classes being contented with a cheaper sort, of pottery or stone. Porphyry mentions a kind of wicker bedstead of palm branches, hence called bais, evidently the species of framework called kaffass, still employed by the modern Egyptians as a support to the divans of sitting rooms, and to their beds. Wooden, and perhaps also bronze, bedsteads (like the iron one of Og, King of Bashan), were used by the wealthier classes of the ancient Egyptians; and it is at least probable that the couches they slept upon were as elegant as those on which their bodies reposed after death; and the more so, as these last, in their general style, are very similar to the furniture of the sitting-room.

The oldest specimen of a bedstead is that mentioned by Homer as joined together by Odysseus in his own house. He had cut off the stem of an olive-tree a few feet from the ground, and joined to it the boards of the bed, so that the trunk supported the bed at the head. It therefore was immovable. The antique bed must be considered as the prolongation of the diphros. The cross-legged diphros prolonged became the folding bed; that with perpendicular legs the couch. The former could easily be moved and replaced; they are perhaps identical with the beds frequently mentioned in the "Odyssey," which were put into the outer hall for guests. One of them is shown as the notorious bed of Prokrustes in a picture on a vase. The diphros corresponds to the couch resting on four legs, at first without head and foot-board, which were afterwards added at both ends. By the further addition of a back on one of the long sides, it became what we now call a chaise longue or sofa. This sleeping kline was no doubt essentially the same as that used at meals. The materials were, besides the ordinary woods, maple or box, either massive or veneered. The legs and backs, and other parts not covered by the bed clothes, were carefully worked. Sometimes the legs are neatly carved or turned, sometimes the frames are inlaid with gold, silver, and ivory, as is testified in the "Odyssey," and elsewhere.

The bedding mentioned in Homer did not consist of sumptuous bolsters and cushions, as in later times. It consisted, even amongst the richer classes, first of all of the blankets of a long-haired woolen material, or perhaps a kind of mattress. Hides, as spread by the poor on the hard floor, were sometimes put under the blankets, and other additional blankets, so as to soften the couch. The whole was covered with linen sheets. The light blankets served to cover the sleeper, who sometimes used his own dress for this purpose; sometimes they consisted of woolen blankets woven for the purpose. After Homer's time, when Asiatic luxury had been introduced into Greece, a mattress was placed immediately on the bed-straps. It was stuffed with plucked wool or feathers, and covered with some linen or woolen material. Pillows, like the mattresses stuffed with wool or feathers, were added to complete the bedding, at least in more luxurious times. (The cut on page 78 gives a good idea of the looks of an ancient Roman and Grecian bed.) Of a similar kind were the klinai placed in the sitting-rooms, lying on which, in a half-reclining position, people used to read, write and take their meals. They were covered with soft blankets of gorgeous colors, while one or more cushions served to support the body in its half-sitting position, or to prop the left arm.

Tables were used by the ancients chiefly at meals, not for reading and writing. The antique tables, either square with four legs, or circular or oval with three connected legs, afterwards with one leg, resemble our modern ones, but for their being lower. Mostly their slabs did not reach higher than the kline; higher tables would have been inconvenient for the reclining person. In Homeric and even in later times, a small table stood before each thronos. The use of separate dishes for each guest is comparatively new. Originally the meats were brought in on large platters, divided by the steward, and each portion put on the bare table. In want of knives and forks the fingers were used. The pastry was put in baskets by the tables. Whether the Homeric tables were as low as the later ones, when lying instead of sitting had become the custom, we must leave undecided, in want of sculptural evidence. The legs of the tables were carefully finished, particularly those of the tripods, which frequently imitated the legs of animals, or at least had claws at their ends. The four-legged tables were more simple in design. The material was wood, particularly maple; later on, bronze, precious metals, and ivory were introduced.

For the keeping of articles of dress, valuable utensils, ornaments, bottles of ointment, and documents, larger or smaller drawers and boxes were used. Chests of drawers and upright cupboards with doors seem to have been unknown in earlier times; only in few monuments of later date (for instance in the wall-painting of a shoemaker's workshop at Herculaneum) we see something resembling our wardrobe. The wardrobes mentioned by Homer doubtless resembled our old-fashioned trunks. The surfaces showed ornaments of various kinds, either cut from the wood in relief or inlaid with precious metal and ivory. Some smaller boxes with inlaid figures or painted arabesques are shown from pictures on vases. The ornamentation with polished nails seem to have been very much in favor—a fashion re-introduced in modern times. The most celebrated example of such ornamentation was the box of Kypselos, in the opisthodomos of the temple of Hera at Olympia. It dates probably from the time when the counting by Olympiads was introduced, and served, according to Botticher, for the keeping of votive tapestry and the like. According to Pausanias, it was made of cedar-wood, and elliptic in shape. It was adorned with mythological representations, partly carved in wood, partly inlaid with gold and ivory, encircling the whole box in five stripes, one over the other.

Locks, keys and bolts, known at an early period for the closing of doors, were later applied to boxes, as is sufficiently proved by the still-existing small keys fastened to finger-rings, which, although all of Roman make, were most likely not unknown to the Greeks. For doors these would have been too small.

The furniture of Greek houses was simple, but full of artistic beauty. This was particularly displayed in vessels for the keeping of both dry and fluid stores, as were found in temples, dwellings and even graves. Only the last-mentioned have been preserved to us. Earthen vessels are the most numerous. The invention of the potter's wheel is of great antiquity, and was ascribed by the Greeks in different places to different mythical persons. The Corinthians named Hyperbion as its inventor. In the Kerameikos, the potters' quarter of Athens, Keramos, the son of Dionysos and Ariadne, was worshiped as such. The name of the locality itself was derived from this "heros eponymos." Next to Corinth and Athens (which latter became celebrated for earthen manufactures, owing to the excellent clay of the promontory of Kolias), Ægina, Lakedæmon, Aulis, Tenedos, Samos and Knidos were famous for their earthenware. In these places the manufacture of painted earthenware was concentrated; thence they were exported to the ports of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea for the markets of the adjoining countries. Owing to the beautiful custom of the ancients of leaving in the graves of the dead the utensils of their daily life, a great many beautiful vessels have been preserved which otherwise would have shared the destruction of the dwellings with much less fragile implements. From the pictures on these vases we derive, moreover, valuable information as to the public and private habits of the Greeks. The greatest number of graves in their original condition, and filled with vessels, are found in Italy.