[473] Men in former days preferred to show by their dress their station and the company they belonged to. Guilds had their ceremonial dresses, and their “liveries,” and their cognizances, and considered it an honour to wear them. See Rock, “Church of our Fathers,” ii. p. 115.
[474] Aristotle, De Mirab. Auscult., xcvi.
[475] Asterius, Bishop of Amasis, in the fourth century, describes both hangings and dress embroidered with lions, panthers, huntsmen, woods, and rocks; while the Church adopted pictorial representations of Christian subjects. Sidonius alludes to furniture of like character. See Yule, “Marco Polo,” p. 68.
[476] “Katalog der Theodor Graf’schen Fünde in Ægypten,” von Dr. J. Karabacek, Wien, 1883.
[477] Semper, “Der Stil,” p. 28.
[478] Unfortunately this axiom may be reversed. Taste only belongs to a small class, and mankind follows it, whether good or bad, if it only be the fashion.