The Greeks, in the earlier historic days, lived a simpler life than the Egyptians. It must have been very rare in the time of Pisistratus of Athens, or at any time before the Persian War, that a household possessed more than one or two raised seats, which seats could be called chairs and were considered as places of honor. There were stools (klismos, threnus, klisie, diphr6s), of which, however, the exact forms cannot be dis tinguished one from the other.. And it is prob able that the exact use of each name varied from time to time, and even from town to town. The name thronos was applied to a dignified seat probably always furnished with a hack and arms. Such a seat was given to each guest to whom honor was to be done. It appears, then, that the table used for eating was small and low, not necessarily lower than the thronos or couch, as shown in ancient bas-reliefs and the. like, because in these an effort at perspective or at showing the whole figure of the person seated or reclining may be allowed for, but the table was evidently a movable object, brought on occasion and set beside the chair or couch. One is reminded of the similar custom during the Middle Ages, when, a guest of honor being seated in his armchair with a canopy over his head, a table was brought by the servants and put before him, upon which his meal was served, and which was then removed. A Greek interior was undoubtedly very bare of furniture. On the other hand, the beginnings of disposable wealth and of the taste for luxury are marked by the introduction of such massive and solid pieces as marble seats in courtyards, and in gardens fountains with decorated basins to receive the water, and tables of marble with massive uprights, while at the same time what few pieces of wooden and metallic furniture were placed in the living rooms were more richly adorned. Paintings upon the walls and mosaic floors were more in the way of Greek taste in the matter of decorative interiors than were pieces of movable furniture.
The Roman world under the' later Republic and the Empire, recognizing both Oriental and Greek customs, and introducing other conveniences and richer adornments, used seats of many forms, among others bronze throne-like chairs and mar ble chairs of very rich sculpture for the atrium and the peristyle or inclosed garden. Such seats as these required cushions, and the modern artist of archaeological proclivities who represents Greek ladies in their thin and scanty dress, seated upon marble exedfie, is undoubtedly guilty of an error which is not to be excused by the fact that he finds such things in ancient bas-re liefs. Cushions were used in the amphitheatres to lay upon the stone seats, and so they were by the rowers of galleys. It does not follow that all representations in ancient art are accurate in minute detail, a fact which is well known to those who have tried to restore Greek and Ro man costume from the statues and relief sculp ture of antiquity.
With both Greek and Roman antiquity we have to keep in mind the much less universal closing of the apartments. It is a matter not perfectly understood how the people of Central Italy could have lived so much in the open air, and the same is true of where, though there is a warm summer, there is cool weather in the autumn and spring, and in the winter there are cold rains. Something like it is seen in Central Italy of our own time. Interiors so imperfectly closed were not likely to be very much filled with mova ble furniture. The tendency would be always toward a few massive and costly pieces, and everything else of a slight and temporary char acter.
Similar traditions seem to have been of weight under the Byzantine emperors, but with this be einning of modern times there is noticeable a great addition to the elaboration of forms applied to seats and other utensils of woodwork. The number of pieces. bedsteads, couches. thrones, or armchairs of different kinds, is constantly in creasing throughout the Middle Ages, both in the Byzantine Empire and in the kingdoms of West ern Europe, and this distinction is maintained: that in the East inlaying and painting in bril liant colors is the accepted form of decoration, while in the West at a very early time carving begins to supersede such flat adornment and be comes very soon the one chosen style of decora tion. A Byzantine armchair or small square
table will be covered with the most delicate zig zags and simple alternations of rounded and an gular forms, inlaid in ivory and in metal upon wood of different colors, or, in cheaper pieces, these simple patterns are reproduced with paint ing. But this custom, which still held in the countries which are now France, Germany, Spain, and Great Britain until the twelfth century, was even then modified by the use of carving, and in the thirteenth century elaborate sculpture drove it out completely. Then was seen the more curi ous phenomenon which occurs under the Romans; as the form in sculpture becomes more compli cated and takes the eye more perfectly, so that it comes to be thought a nobler thing than color, so painting ceases to be applied to stat uary and even to architectural relief. In the same manner in France in the thirteenth century the elaborate sculpture in wood was still touched with gold and color, but with the fourteenth cen tury that seems to have been abandoned and a court cupboard or a chair covered with carving was left in the natural color of the wood, the slightest protection only, by means of oil or the like, being allowed it. The small number of pieces of furniture which even a wealthy family would possess made possible the rich decoration bestowed upon each piece. In a strong castle of the fourteenth century the mistress might have indeed possessed her own large bedroom high in the walls, and with large windows opening on the court, and perhaps a spacious closet, or even a considerable series of closets for storage in im mediate connection with it, but in her bedroom she lived, going only to the great hall for one meal in the day, and this rather from a sense of duty as the chatelaine than because it was agreeable to her. Her bedroom then would be furnished with a very elaborate carved and perhaps painted and inlaid bedstead, which might be entirely fixed like a bunk in an officer's cabin in modern times, or the closed bedplace of a French peasant down to the middle of the nine teenth century, or might be movable in itself, but having a permanent and heavy tester from which curtains hung around the bed. It would have also a great bench on either side of the fireplace, and perhaps a carved and cushioned throne near the bed, which throne was the consecrated and traditional seat of the lord of the manor, the seigneur. Other seats were afforded by stone benches in the deep jambs of the windows and by light and not decorative wooden stools which could be moved about freely. There would be in addition only a table of no great pretensions, be cause it was continually covered by one or an other form of cloth, and at least one cabinet with richly carved doors opening into one, two, or three compartments not very elaborately sub divided. The greater part of the clothing of the family and of the curtains and the like which were not in immediate use were stored away in chests, which might be arranged along the walls of corridors or among the closets of which men tion has been made. Only a few and more costly articles would be kept in the cabinet of the bed room, and with these the two or three manu script volumes of some importance in leather covers and with clasps, which formed the only accessible books. Writing materials and the necessity of writing materials were unknown to the lords. These were the business of their secretary or scribe or clerk, usually an ecclesi astic, who would carry his inkhorn and tab lets about with him. The conditions were alto gether favorable for the production of furniture of extreme richness and of great beauty. There was so little of it to make, and that little was so universally a matter of careful thought and preparation, that adornment came as a matter of course.