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

THE ATTIC STELAI 237
and opened (inwards, but clearly shown in perspective) at top, with a boy leaning out;
this surely is the O'pa 8t6ptpo-rg.172
The O'pa o-vv8podL'8E (dual) is a much more difficult problem, for the term itself
suggests something for which we can find only one piece of evidence-a sliding door.173
The expression occurs (outside of Pollux, which is not an independent notice) so far
as I know only here and in I.G., 1I2, 2500, the record of the establishment of a
synoikia by the Eleusinians in Thriasian territory. There is a list of all the doors in
the building, with the final item preserved being one sawn-through door and eleven
thyrai syndromades.
There are several terms which are used to describe the usual pair of doors which
close together at the center,174 and it may be that syndromade was merely another of
these, applying to some slight variation in the way the actual closing was made. It seems
more likely, however, that the syndromas was a true folding door, that is, one made of
three or four leaves,'75 hinged 176 together to make a single or double door. Such a
door would be hung in the same way as an ordinary door, and so would leave no special
evidence in the archaeological remains, while yet its movement in closing might
accurately be described by its name. The conjecture that such doors existed at Delos
and at Pompeii has already been made 177 and a pair can be seen on a large standing
cupboard in a fresco from Herculaneumn,'78 but they have not been connected with the
term owvv8polta6.
Prices. Most prices which can be found are for temple doors 179 and so cannot be
172 This example is also noted by Robinson and Graham, Olynthus, VIII, p. 252, note 4a. It
should be remarked that Galen, 12,303 (Kuhn, XVIII, 1, p. 345) describes such a door but calls
it thyrai diktleides.
173 Certainly nothing in the doorways at Olynthos showed the slightest indication of any but
the type of closing described above. But the cuttings for the grille on the outer side of the doorway
of the Tholos at Delphi suggest a folding arrangement: Delphes, II, 2, p. 17. This reference I owe
to H. A. Thompson.
174 aUp@V gEvyos, Ovpat &KXL, KXatta'83E, Ovpa SurTX, 7rTVXeS, cav8s.
175 There are three-leaved doors pictured at Herculaneum (see Overbeck, Pomtpeji, Leipzig,
1884, fig. 77) but it is impossible to tell whether each leaf opened independently in its own doorway,
or whether this was a true folding door. Vitruvius (De arch. IV, 6, 5-6) speaks of a four-leaved
door; Klenk (op. cit., p. 14) assumes that this is an ordinary double door sawn through horizontally,
but this conclusion cannot be supported by any ancient evidence.
176 Hinges were found at Olynthos; see Robinson, Olynthus, X, pp. 299-301.
177
Delos, VIII, pp. 265-266, " Les baies des boutiques quelquefois beaucoup plus larges que
celles des habitations, etaient fermees soit par de veritables portes a vantaux, soit par des volets
mobiles. I1 semble que, dans le premier cas, l'un des vantaux etait plus large, et forme sans doute
de deux panneaux de rabattant l'un sur l'autre." Overbeck, op. cit., pp. 252-253, in treating the house
doors at Pompeii, assumes that the three-leaved doors of the House of the Fawn and the House of
Epidius Rufus had the middle panel hinged to one of its neighbors.
178
Overbeck, op. cit., fig. 301.
179
I.G., XI, 2, 199, line 76, notes payments of 570 drachmas to two workmen for doors, and
I.G., IV2, 102, line 37, lists a payment of 219 drachmas for doors of the ergasterion of the Ask-