the attic stelai - The American School of Classical Studies at Athens

THE ATTIC STELAI 215
2. /3aOpov(II, 145; III, 11; V, 12). Bench, stool. Bathron is used for 'that on
which anything steps or stands ' (Liddell-Scott-Jones) 19 there are three treatments
of the word as an article of furniture in Daremberg-Saglio, Dictionnaire. Girard
(II, 468), citing Plato, Protagoras 325 e, translates the word as 'escabeau,' a stool
or backless seat, and gives several illustrations from vases depicting school scenes.20
Saglio (IV, 1111), equating bathron with Latin scamnum and scabellum, regards
it as a footstool. Sometimes it was independent of the bed or chair; sometimes
attached.2' It served to help the person get up, or as a footrest. Chapot (IV, 1551),
equating it with subsellium, regards the bathron as a seat in the form of a bench, often
large enough for several people.22 The most detailed study of the word is that of Hug
in R.E., s.v. subselliun. He refers to frescoes from Pompeii, reproduced in Bliimner,
Technologie, I2, pp. 309 ff., which illustrate this particular type of bench.
In the Attic Stelai, bcathron is grouped in II, 145, with thronoi and diphros; in
V, 12, with wooden household articles; and in III, 11, the entry is placed a few lines
away from those for beds. The most appropriate of its various meanings for our
context, therefore, seems to be 'seat, bench' (Liddell-Scott-Jones, no. 5), or ' stool.'
Price. The price of one bathron, in III, 11, if the restoration of the singular
number, as seems probable, is correct, is one drachma one obol.
3. &4pog (I, 235; II, 146, 223, 227). Backless stool. The diphros is usually
taken to mean a stool without arms or back; 23 however, the word is sometimes used
by ancient authors as a general term for any kind of seat.24 It is also used on occasion
for that part of a chair on which one sat, whether or not the chair had a back, for
Erotian 25 says Gas, yaip &cfipos aPaKV'X&o-/OV E'XCOV 0EooTaXKos 7rapa Tots 74aXaL'Ovs XE7yEra&,
and cites Hippokrates, Art., 7, where a person is to sit in a chair (yE'ya E8oo 93Eo-o-aLX-
KOV), upon the seat (ET& r4^ &4pp), resting his arm on the back (v'E`p Tovi a`vaKXAcr,ov) .26
Yet despite these special uses, diphros did ordinarily mean a backless stool; Plutarch 27
19 Cf. Boisacq, Dictionnaire4, s.v. Batvw. For inscriptional meanings of /3aopov, not found in
Liddell-Scott-Jones, see Ebert, Fachausdriicke, p. 62. Cf. I.G., II2, 1672, line 149.
20
Cf. Demosthenes, XVIII, De Corona, 258.
21
For illustrations, see Deonna, Le mobilier De'lien, Paris, 1938, p. 11. It should also be noted
that v'ro'/acOpov was used for footstool (I.G., II2, 1485, line 54).
22
Ehrenberg (People of Aristophanes2, p. 101, note 3) has asked the question whether bathra
in Phrynichos, frag. 3 (Kock, C.A.F., I, p. 370) refers to the seats in the theatre. The word would
here seem, as Meineke concluded, to refer to the benches in the courtroom or the lecture room.
23 Richter, op. cit., pp. 30 ff.; Hug, R.E., s.v. Stuhl. The latter article is the most detailed and
contains useful bibliography, but epigraphical references are still made to C.I.A.
24
For instance, Aelian, Var. Hist., IX, 3; Herodotos, III, 146.
25 IV, 36, s.v. Mos.
26 Hug, op. cit., seems not to know this passage, for in discussing the Thessalian diphros, which
is also mentioned by Pollux (X, 47; VII, 112) and Athenaeus (XIII, 568 d), he says we have no
way of knowing what sort of pieces these Thessalian stools were, but that they probably were
decorated with color and had soft seats.
27Lyc., 9.