As these apartments were less exposed than any other portion of the building, and far more carefully guarded, it became customary, as in the East it still is, to lay up in the Thalamos, more especially in the dark basement story, much valuable property, such as arms, gold, silver, the wardrobe of both sexes, and even oil and wine. Among the Romans, or, indeed, among the Greeks, of a later age,[324] this step would scarcely have been taken, lest the ladies should have grown too assiduous in their attention to the skins. But in remoter ages these sordid fears had no existence. Accordingly, we find the prudent Odysseus, who apprehended, perhaps, the tricks of his domestics, stowing away his casks of choice old wine in the Thalamos, doubtless, considering it safer there, under the keeping of Euryclea, than it would have been anywhere else in the palace.[325] ----- Footnote 324: Plut. Paral. Vit. § 3. Footnote 325: Odyss. β. 337, 345. χ. 442. Schol. 459. 466. Poll. vii. 397. ----- In later and more civilized ages, the Thalamos was still used for the same purposes; for, in the establishment of Ischomachos, a pattern of Attic economy, we find that the more valuable portion of the family wardrobe, with the plate and other costly utensils, was there deposited. Corn, according to the suggestions of common sense, they laid up in the driest rooms, wine in the coolest. The apartments into which most sunshine found its way were appropriated to such employments and to the display of such furniture as required much light.[326] Their dining-rooms, where, also, the men usually sat when at home, they carefully contrived so as to be cool in summer and warm in winter, though, in severe weather, a good fire was often found necessary.[327] The same judicious principle commonly regulated the erection of their habitations, which were divided into two sets of apartments, suited to the two great divisions of the year. As we have already remarked, the principal front looked towards the south, that it might catch the rays of the wintry sun, whose more vertical summer beams were excluded by broad verandahs, or colonnades. ----- Footnote 326: Xen. Memorab. iii. 8, 9. Footnote 327: Anaxand. ap. Athen. ii. 29.—So also thought Socrates, who observes, that in winter every one will have a fire who can get wood. And, though he himself wore the same garments all the year round, he considered it, apparently, a judicious practice in others to put on warm clothing.—Xen. Œcon. xvii. 3. Sch. Aristoph. Acharn. 716. When the dining-room was not furnished with a chimney, braziers were kindled outside the door, and carried in when the worst fumes of the charcoal had evaporated.—Plut. Symp. vi. 7. -----