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tTHE HEKOIC AGE THE TROJAN WAR. 57built. There was a direct entrance from the court to thehall, which was the common place of resort. 1 Movableseats (epovot)stood along the sides of the walls.Every thingglistenedwith brass. On one side was a place of deposit,was thewhere the arms were kept. In the back-groundhearth, and the seat for the lady of the mansion, when shemade her appearance below. Several steps conducted fromthence to a higher gallery, near which were the chambersof the women, where they were employed in household labours, especially in weaving. Several outhouses for thepurpose of grinding and baking were connected with thehouse ;others for the common habitations of the male andfemale slaves; and also stables for the horses. 2 The stallsfor cattle were commonlyin the fields.Astonishment is excited by the abundance of metals, bothof the precious and baser ones, with which the mansionswere adorned, and of which the household utensils weremade. 3 The walls glittered with them ;the seats were madeof them. Water for washing was presented in golden ewerson silver salvers; the benches, arms, utensils were ornamented with them. Even if we suppose that much, calledgolden, was only gilded,we still have reason to ask, whencethis wealth in precious metals ? Homer gives us a hint respecting the silver, when he speaks of it as belonging toAlybe, in the land of the Halizones.4 Most of the gold probably came from Lydia, where this metal in later times wasso abundant, that the Greeks were for the most part suppliedwith all they used from that country.As there was nocoined money, 5and as the metals were in consequence usedin commerce as means of exchange, the manufacturing ofthem seems to have been one of the chief branches of mechanic industry. Proofs of this are found in the preparationof arms and utensils.We need but call to mind the shieldof Achilles, the torch-bearingstatues in the house of Alcinous/1The above-mentioned mansions of Menelaus and Alcinous best illustratethis style of architecture ; although the description of the mansion of Ulyssesis in some parts more minute.2Thus with Menclaus, Od. iv. 40.8Above all in the mansion of Menelaus.4II. ii.Catalog, v, 364. Without doubt in the Caucasian chain of mountains ; even if the Halizones and the Chalybes were not the same.BThis was probably one of the chief reasons why so much of it was manufactured,* OdLvii. 100.