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

216 W. KENDRICK PRITCHETT
distinguished klinteres, which had backs, from diphroi, and Hesychius makes the
difference clear by defining a klinter as a diphros anaklitos: evidently one did not lean
back in a plain diphros.
The diphros is said by Athenaeus (V, 192 e-f) to be meaner than the thronos or
klismos (see Od., XX, 259), but this is contradicted by its frequent mention in other
authors as the seat of a wealthy or lordly man (as in Od., XIX, 97, 101; XXI, 177)
and by the fact that it was the term used to designate the chair of a Roman magistrate.28
The diphros could be very plain and cheap, but it was not necessarily so;
its essential characteristic seems to have been lightness and portability, for it was a
diphros that was most commonly brought out for visitors.29 The diphros was made
of wood, but Demosthenes 30 mentions a stool with silver feet, and Richter pictures
some with elegantly carved legs; among the treasures of Athena were five diphroi
with round feet and one with silver feet.3' In Homer the diphros often had a sheepskin
thrown over it; later a comfortable stool might have a cushion, and we find in
Plato's Republic (I, 328 c) the phrase KaOc7rOo . . . ETW TtvOs ITpoO-KEfaXatoV TE Kac
&Opov. The kind of stool which was carried on the head of a girl in the Panathenaic
procession can be seen in the Parthenon frieze 32 or in the terracotta figure in Richter,33
and the four stools listed among the Parthenon treasures were probably thus carried.34
There is also epigraphical mention of wicker stools with round cushions in a temple
in Andania.35
Stools shown in sculpture or vase-painting usually have four legs, but the fact
that Eupolis 36 mentioned a &fpog OeT-7aXWtKos TETLpaTrov suggests that a three-legged
was possible. A folding stool was called &Obpog oKAa8&og; therefore the plain diphros
may be thought of as always having fixed legs. The seat might be rectangular or
round, and so might the legs, which were ordinarily made each of a single piece of
wood fixed to the corners of the seat by nails or pegs. The diphros is often mentioned
among the furniture of the bedroom,37 and it can have the special sense of toilet stool.38
Price. In our text of the Attic Stelai the price of a diphros is given once (II, 223)
as 1 obol and again as 11(II, 227). A reconsideration of the photograph and the
28 =
sella curulis, Polybios, VI, 53, 9; cf. Plutarch, Caes., 66.
29
See Gow, ad Theokritos, 14, 41; 15, 3.
30
XXIV, Against Tirnokrates, 129.
81
I.G., II2, 1394, lines 13-14. C.I.G., 3071, line 9, lists an ebony diphros.
82
Daremberg-Saglio, Dictionnaire, s.v. Panathenaia, fig. 5496.
33 Op. cit., fig. 105. The Sctpooo'pos is mentioned in Aristophanes, Aves, 1550 ff. and Eccl., 730-
744. See also the relief from Lokroi Epizephyrioi, Ausonia, III, 1908, p. 204, fig. 53.
34 I.G., 12, 288, line 216.
35 I.G., V, 1, 1390, lines 23-24.
36 Frag. 58; Kock, C.A.F., I, p. 272. See also Pollux, X, 48.
37 II., III, 424; Pollux, X, 47.
38
Pollux, X, 45; Aristeides, Or., 49(25), 19; Plutarch, Lyc., 20.