A scholiast remarks on this custom of _prothesis_, or lying-in-state, that “the ancients laid their corpses before the doors and beat their breasts[92].” Becker finds considerable difficulty in reconciling this with Solon’s law ordering “the dead man to be laid out within the house according as he left orders.” If we were to interpret the expression, “before the doors,” as indicating that the ceremony took place outside the house, it would indeed be difficult to harmonize the two authorities; but modern scholars generally have seen that it is not a strained construction to interpret the phrase as meaning the vestibule or fore part of the house[93]. In the entrance-hall of the house, then, the body was laid out with the feet turned toward the door, to indicate, perhaps, that he was about to go forth on his last journey, never again to return to the habitations of the living[94]. From the fact that the head was placed on a rest[95] of some sort, it has been inferred[96] that the corpse was laid out on a _kline_ or bed. There is no passage in any author to substantiate this, but the paintings on the white lecyths present the fact very clearly[97]. There is also an account of a _prothesis_ in which they strew sweet marjoram and broken vine branches underneath the body[98]. Near the body[99], were placed the _lecyths_ or cruses which have been already in part described. These were afterwards to be burned or buried with the corpse. According to a scholiast, these lecyths were used by the Athenians as vessels for holding the unguents with which the dead were to be anointed, but their use for containing perfumes is now conceded[100]. There was a class of men at Athens whose occupation consisted in the manufacture and decoration of white lecyths[101]. These vases were not baked as hard as most other earthen vessels but were fashioned with great delicacy of manipulation. They were soft and fragile and rested on a circular broad base, they narrowed abruptly as they rose, then expanded suddenly into a cylindrical body of about the same diameter as the base, then contracted into a short neck on which was supported a cup-shaped mouth piece from the side of which started the small round handle that was attached at its lower end to the body of the vase. The upper and lower part were covered with a black coating or enamel[102]. The centre or body was painted white and, on that background, were drawn and painted the funeral scenes with considerable artistic skill and more or less accuracy of drawing and detail according to the grade of article that the artificer desired to make. The ultimate design of the workman was not to produce a work of art but an article of commerce, although, incidentally, figure-painting of a high order of merit was often attained[103]. They were not manufactured later than the second century before the Christian era[104], and represent the customs of the Athenians for a period extending through the fifth and fourth centuries.