Virgil.
“So shines a gem, illustrious to behold,
On some fair virgin’s neck, enchased in gold:
So the surrounding ebon’s darker hue
Improves the polish'd ivory to the view.”
Pitt.
These were named “houses of ivory,” probably because made in the form of a house, or palace; as the silver ναοὶ of Diana, mentioned Acts xix, 24, were in the form of her temple at Ephesus; and as we have now ivory models of the Chinese pagodas, or temples. In this sense we may understand what is said of the ivory house which Ahab made, 1 Kings xxii, 39; for the Hebrew word translated “house is used,” as Dr. Taylor well observes, for “a place, or case, wherein any thing lieth, is contained, or laid up.” Ezekiel gives the name of house to chests of rich apparel, Ezek. xxvii, 24. Dr. Durell, in his note on Psalm xlv, 8, quotes places from Homer and Euripides, where the same appropriation is made. Hesiod makes the same. As to dwelling houses, the most, I think, we can suppose in regard to them is, that they might have ornaments of ivory, as they sometimes have of gold, silver, or other precious materials, in such abundance as to derive an appellation from the article of their decoration; as the Emperor Nero’s palace, mentioned by Suetonius, was named aurea, or “golden,” because lita auro, “overlaid with gold.” This method of ornamental buildings, or apartments, was very ancient among the Greeks. Homer mentions ivory as employed in the palace of Menelaus at Lacedæmon:--
Χαλκοῦ τε στεροπὴν, καδδώματα ἠχήεντα
Χρυσοῦ τ’, ἠλέκτρȣ τε, καὶ ἀργύρȣ ἠ δ’ ἐλέφαντος.
Odyss. iv, 72.