with, and surrounded by, all the circumstances of pomp known to their age.1 In those days the greatest men did not disdain to apply themselves to agriculture, to have their dwellings surrounded by the signs and implements of the pursuit in which they were engaged. And as in southern Italy the ancient nobles erected shops in front of their palaces or villas, in which the produce of their land was disposed of, so in the Homeric houses the same space was occupied by the farm-yard enclosed by strong and lofty walls, surrounded by battlements, within which were their heaps of manure, harrows, ploughs, carts, and waggons, and stacks of hay and corn; and hither, too, in the evening were driven in their numerous flocks and herds, to protect them from the nightly marauders. The great entrance gates were in the heroic ages guarded by ban dogs, which afterwards made way for porters, and in still later times were succeeded by eunuchs.6 5 3 Occasionally for the canine doorkeepers were substituted in commercial states gold and silver representations, more likely to attract than repel thieves; for example, at the entrance to Alcinoös's palace were groups of this description, attributed to the wonder-working Hephæstos. A coarse imitation of this practice prevailed among the Romans, for we find 1 Il. 6. 657, sqq. 2 A similar taste prevailed among the Merovingian princes of France: "The mansion of "the long-haired kings was sur"rounded with convenient yards "and stables for the cattle and "the poultry; the garden was "planted with useful vegetables; "the various trades, the labours "of agriculture, and even the "arts of hunting and fishing were "exercised by servile hands for "the emolument of the sovereign; "his magazines were filled with "corn and wine, either for sale 66 or consumption, and the whole "administration was conducted "by the strictest maxims of pri"vate economy."-Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ii. 356. 3 Hesych. v. avdñs. 4 Feith. Antiq. Hom. iii. 10. p. 242. 5 Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 145. 6 Plat. Protag. t. i. p. 159. Cf. Aristid. t. i. p. 518. Jebb. 7 Odyss. n. 93. in Petronius that Trimalchio had his court guarded by a painted mastiff, over which in good square characters were the words "Beware of the dog. 2 Along the walls of this enclosure the cattle-sheds would in remoter ages appear to have been ranged, where afterwards stood suites of chambers for the domestics, or piazzas, or colonades, to serve as covered walks in extremely hot or bad weather. Within, on either side the gateway, chiefly among the Dorians, rose a pillar of conical shape, sometimes an obelisk, in honour of Apollo or of Dionysos, or, according to others, of both, while in the centre was an altar of Zeus Herceios, on which family sacrifices were offered up. At its inner extremity you beheld a spacious portico, adjoining the entrance to the house, where in warm weather the young men often slept. From the descriptions of the poet, however, it would appear to have been something more than a common portico, resembling rather the porches of our old English houses, roofed over and extending like a recess into the body of the house itself. In the dwellings of the great, this part of the building, adorned with numerous statues, was probably of marble finely polished if not sculptured, and being merely a chamber open in front could not in those fine climates be by any means an unpleasant bedroom, particularly as it usually faced the south and caught the early rays of the sun. Here Odysseus' slept during his stay with Alcinoös, as did likewise Priam and the Trojan Herald while guests of Achilles in his military hut." In this porch were seats of handsome polished 1 Satyr. c. 29. p. 74. Hellenop. 2 Sch. Aristoph. Vesp. 875. Here the Romans sacrificed to Janus, the Greeks to Apollo. Macrob. Saturn. l. i. c. 9. Poll. iv. 123. Comm. p. 790. 790. Cf. Poll. i. 22, seq. Muret. in Plat. de Rep. p. 635. Soph. Edip. Tyr. 16. 4 Odyss. n. 345. Cf. II. 4. 243. Hesych. v. πρόδομος. 5 Il. . 673, sqq. Cf. Feith. 3 Eustath ad Od. x. 376. p. Antiq. Hom. iii. 10. p. 244. stone, as in the palace of Nestor at Pylos, which, to render them more shining, would appear to have been rubbed with oil.1 Similar seats are found to this day before the houses of the wealthy at Cairo and other cities of the East, where in the cool of the evening old men habitually take their station, and are joined for the purpose of gossip by their neighbours. In the larger towns of Nubia an open space planted with dates, palms, or the Egyptian fig-tree, more shady and spreading than the oak, and furnished with wooden seats, collects together the elders, who there enjoy what the Englishman seeks in his club, and the Greek found in his lesche -the pleasure of comparing his opinions with those of his neighbours. When, in after times, this plain porch had been succeeded by a magnificent peristyle or colonnade, the primitive custom of sleeping in the open air was abandoned; but here the master of the house with his guests took their early walk to enjoy the morning sun. It was customary among all ranks at Athens to rise betimes, as it generally is still in the warm countries of the South. Socrates and his young friend, the sophist-hunter, coming to the house of Callias, soon after day-break, find its owner taking the air with several of his guests in the colonnade, the young men moving in the train of their elders, and making way for them as they turn round to retrace their steps. There was usually at Athens a similar peristyle on both sides of the house-one for summer the other for winter, and door gene 2 rally opened from the women's apartment into that communicating with the garden, where the ladies enjoyed the cool air in the midst of laurel copses, fountains, and patches of green sward,3 interspersed with rose-trees, violet-beds, and other sweet shrubs and flowers. 1 Odyss. y. 406, sqq. Cf. π. 343, seq. 2 Plat. Protag. t. i. p. 160. 3 Plat. Epist. t. viii. p. 403. Athen. v. 25. Poll. ix. 466. The town-houses of Homeric times had generally no aulè, but the porch opened directly into the street, since it is here that, in the description of the shield, we find the women standing to behold the dancers and enjoy the music of the nuptial procession.' Afterwards, as the taste for magnificence advanced, the whole façade of the corps de logis was richly ornamented, while the outer gates were purposely left open, that the passers-by might witness the splendour of the owner. Occasionally, likewise, the great door, leading from the portico into the house, was concealed by costly purple hangings, which, being passed, you entered a broad passage, having on either side, doors leading into the apartments on the ground floor, and conducting to an inner court, surrounded by a peristyle, where the gynæconitis," or harem, commenced. 3 The apartments of palaces displayed, even in very early times, the taste of the Greeks for splendour and magnificence. The walls were covered with wainscoting inlaid with gold and ivory, as we still find in the East whole chambers lined with motherof-pearl. At first, the gold was laid on in thin plates, which, in process of time, led to the idea of gilding. Even Phocion, who affected great simplicity and plainness, had the walls of his house adorned with laminæ of copper," probably in the same style as that subterraneous chamber discovered, during the last 1 Il. σ. 496. Cf. Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 93. Casaub. 2 Hesych. v. évάia. ad Theoph. Char. p. 330. Compare the whole character of the "Vain Man," pp. 57-59. Etym. Mag. 346. 10. 3 Athen. v. 25. Hesych. v. avλɛía. Suid. in v. t. i. p. 491. d. 4 "The doors (at Tanjeers) are "richly carved, and placed in "arches shaped like an ace of "spades, a form so completely "oriental, that there is no mis It ap century, in the excavations made at Rome. pears, too, that, occasionally, the walls of the apartments at Athens, as at Herculaneum and Pompeii were decorated with paintings in bright colours,' probably in the same style, though as much superior in beauty and delicacy of execution, as art, in the age of Pericles, was superior to art in the days of Nero. Still the paintings discovered in the excavated Italian cities,-sometimes grotesque and extravagant, as where we behold the pigmies making war upon the cranes, winged geniuses at work in a carpenter's or shoemaker's shop, or an ass laden with hampers of wine, rushing forward to engage a crocodile, whilst his master pulls him back by the tail -sometimes rural and elegant, consisting of a series of wild landscapes, mountains dotted with cottages, sea-shores, harbours, and baths, Nymphs and Cupids angling on the borders of lakes, beneath trees of the softest and most exquisite foliage,-may enable us to form some conception of the landscapes with which Agelarcos adorned the house of Alcibiades. 3 5 The halls and saloons on the ground-floor were paved with marble or mosaic work, which often, if we may judge from the specimens left us by their imitators, represented pictures of the greatest elegance, containing, among other things, likenesses of the loveliest divinities of Olympos. These mosaics were wrought with minute shards of precious marbles of various colours, interspersed with pieces of amber, and, probably, also, of glass, as was the fashion in Italy, where whole hyaline floors have been found consisting either of one piece or of squares so finely joined together, that the sutures |