Whether the primitive Iberians ate as well as slept upon their cave or cabin floor, or whether--as some classics call upon us to believe--they used a kind of folding-chair (_dureta_) and (more advanced and comfort-loving than the Andalusian rustics of this day) devoured their simple meal from benches or supports constructed in the wall, is not of paramount importance to the history of Spanish furniture. The statements of those early authors may be granted or rejected as we please; for not a single piece of furniture produced by prehistoric, or, indeed, by Roman or by Visigothic Spain, has been preserved. But if we look for evidence to other crafts, recovered specimens of her early gold and silver work and pottery show us that Roman Spain grew to be eminently Roman in her social and artistic life. This fact, together with the statements of Saint Isidore and certain other writers of his day, would seem to prove that all the usual articles of Roman furniture were commonly adopted by the subjugated tribes, and subsequently by the Visigoths;--the Roman eating-couch or _lectus triclinaris_, the state-bed or _lectus genialis_, the ordinary sleeping-bed or _lectus cubicularis_, made, in prosperous households, of luxurious woods inlaid with ivory, or even of gold and silver; lamps or candelabra of silver, copper, glass, and iron[1]; the _cathedra_ or chair for women, the _bisellium_ or seat for honoured guests, the _solium_ or chair for the head of the house, the simpler chairs without a back, known as the _scabellum_ and the _sella_, and the benches or _subsellia_ for the servants. Further, the walls were hung with tapestries or rendered cheerful by mural painting; while the fireplace[2] and the brasier (_foculus_) have descended to contemporary Spain. [1] Documents, quoted by the Count of Clonard, of Alfonso the Second, San Genadio, Froylan, and the Infanta Urraca. [2] According to Miquel y Badía, the _focus_ of the Romans is the present _clar de foch_ of Cataluña; "a square platform of brick or stone raised somewhat from the ground, surrounded by a bench (_escó_), and large enough to serve for roasting beasts entire." Swinburne wrote from Reus in 1775;--"we here for the first time saw a true Spanish kitchen, viz., an hearth raised above the level of the floor under a wide funnel, where a circle of muleteers were huddled together over a few cinders." Advancing to a period well within the reach of history, we find that early in the Middle Ages Spain's seigniorial mansions and the houses of the well-to-do were furnished in a style of rude magnificence. Roman models, derived from purely Roman and Byzantine sources through the Visigoths, continued to remain in vogue until the tenth or the eleventh century.[3] Then, as the fashion of these declined, the furniture of Christian Spain was modified in turn by Moorish, Gothic, and Renaissance art; or two of these would overlap and interact, or even all the three.