Sometimes, at least, roofed with cypress-wood, as we learn from Mnesimachos, in his Horsebreeder: βαίν’ ἐκ θαλάμων κυπαρισσορόφων ἔξω, Μάνη.—Athen. ix. 67. Footnote 317: We find ladies, however, sometimes dining with their children in the Aulè.—Demosth. in Ev. et Mnes. § 16. ----- It has by many been supposed, that the Thalamos was a chamber particularly appropriated to the use of young unmarried ladies; but, since we find Helen and Penelope inhabiting the Thalamos, it may be presumed that it was common to all the females of the house. Hector, in his visit to Paris, finds him in the Thalamos, turning about and polishing his arms, as if he meant to use them, while, close at hand, are Helen and her maids engaged in weaving or embroidery. The word was often used in the same signification as Gynæconitis,[318] or “the harem;” and, therefore, when Theocritus[319] speaks of a “maiden from the Thalamus,” and Phocylides, with the suspicious caution of a more vicious age, advises that young women be kept in “well-locked Thalamoi,” it is clear that the female apartments generally are meant. These were, in Sparta, called οα̈ (which, as is well known, in the common language of Greece, signifies eggs), whence, according to Clearchos,[320] the fable which describes Helen proceeding from an egg, because born and educated in the chambers so called. Throughout the Iliad and the Odyssey we find the poet speaking of this part of the house as inhabited by women. Here lived Penelope,[321] far from the brawls of the suitors who crowded the halls of the Domos; and here Ares pressed his suit with success to Astyoche and Polymela, who both became the mothers of valiant sons.[322] From which, among many other circumstances, it is manifest that, in those ages, the sexes met easily, even the entrance to the harem not being impracticable to a lover. ----- Footnote 318: Hesych, v. γυναίκ. p. 866. Cyrill. Lex. Ms. Bren. Bret. ad Hesych. l. c. Footnote 319: Eidyll. ii. 136. Phocyl. v. 198. Footnote 320: Athen. ii. 50. Cf. Sch. Aristoph. Vesp. 68. Footnote 321: Odyss. ο. 516. Footnote 322: Il. β. 514. π. 184. ----- The bedchambers of the young unmarried women appear to have flanked the great central hall of the Thalamos, and here the female slaves likewise slept, apparently in recesses, near the chamber-doors of their mistresses, as we find particularly remarked in the case of Nausicaa and her maids. At Athens, the door of communication between the Andron[323] and the Gynæconitis was kept carefully barred and locked to prevent all intercourse between the male and female slaves, the keys being entrusted solely to the mistress of the house. ----- Footnote 323: Cf. Poll. vi. 7. Cœl. Rhodig. xvii. 24. -----