The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1882-06-29
Tables in Ancient Times.

The Greek lady OF leisure in Athens
employed herself at the spinning
wheel, and had little need of table
and, beautiful in design and form Of
! all Greek furniture was, one strikine
natural characteristic proclaimed it.
self in the furnishing of the home
They never had that for which they
could find no practical use, and conse
quently as tables were only needed
for the purpose OF meals, they appeared
only at those times, were mere slabs
of wood, which were brought in a,
the dinner hour, and set down loosely
upon their legs. The meal over, the
table vanished with the empty
plates. In Homeric days each person
had a separate table, and it was only
when luxury crept. in that larger
table for the men became common
while the women dined at separate
ones. Then the custom of loungine
on couches, the elbows resting on the
table, became usual, and the ladies were
expected to sit while their lords as.
sumed the most comfortable attitude
they could find. Even then, however,
the table played so entirely subor.
dinate part that we never read of it as
being of handsome material or, indeed,
as being of any importance at all, ex.
cept to groan under the food, which was
of the most luxurious description.
The Romaps, on the contrary, held
their tables in the highest estimation;
they even made collections of them.
Seneca possessed 500 small ones. II
10 ourior,o 70 frooa IN &ba oooa1otc ~ 4
writer's give us of Roman luxury in
this respect sort OF likeness to the
taste of modern days. No article o
furniture in the Roman house cost so
much as the table. Those with Ole
foot, or pedestal, fetched enormous
prices. Pliny says that tables were
brought in the first instance from the
East and were called orbes, not because
they were round, but because they
we're massive plates of wood. cut from
the trunk of tree in its whole dame
ter. Yet, oddly enough. We hear very
little Of tables in the East or in ancient
history. Moses made table for the
Tabernacle, as if it were something un-
common, upon which to lay the shew
bread. Philo Judeus describes it as
having been two cubits long and one
and half high, and dwells upon it as a
remarkable piece of furniture.
Fashionable tables in the luxurious
Russian homes were called "monope.
dia," and were made of a massive plate
of wood, resting upon q column of
ivory; such tables were enormously ex-
pensive, and, according to Pliny, the
wood was brought from Mauretania,
and cut from the trunk of the citrus
tree. Some of these pieces of wood
were four feet in diameter, and the
ivory column which supported them
was extremely massive. The greatest
care was taken of such tables. They
were polished and covered with thick
cloths made generally of coarse linen,
the first indication we meet of the
modern table cloth. Cicero had such
table, for which he paid the enor-
nous sum of 1000, 900 sesterces. Just
as to-day the handsomest walnut tables
are those made of wood cut from the
trunk nearest the roots, so in the days
of Roman magnificence highest prices
we're paid for the tables made from the
last cut of the citrus tree, because the
wood was dappled and marked.