Of the holiday, or show articles, more account was made. These, being brought forward only on solemn festivals, or in honour of some foreign guest, were entrusted to the immediate care of the housekeeper, a complete list of everything having first been taken; and it was part of her duty, when she delivered any of these articles to the inferior domestics, to make a note of what she gave out, and take care they were duly returned into her keeping.[379] ----- Footnote 379: Xen. Œconom. ix. 10. 57. ----- But the above comprehensive glance over the articles of furniture made use of in an Athenian gentleman’s establishment, though it may give some notion of the careful and economical habits of the people, affords no conception of the splendour and magnificence often found in a Grecian house: for, as we have already seen, their opinions are highly erroneous who imagine that in the Attic democracy the rich were by any prudential or political considerations restrained from indulging their love of ostentation by the utmost display they could make of wealth.[380] In fact, not content with outstripping their neighbours in the grandeur of their dwellings, furniture, and dress, these persons had often the ludicrous vanity, when they gave a large party, to excite the envy of such dinnerless rogues as might pass, by throwing out the feathers of game and poultry before their doors.[381] Indeed, since the Athenians exactly resembled other men, the exhibition of magnificence tended but too strongly to dazzle them; so that, among the arts of designing politicians, one generally was, to create a popular persuasion that they possessed the means of conferring important favours on all who obliged them. Footnote 380: That the sycophants were sometimes troublesome, however, is certain; that is to say, in later ages. Speaking of the time of his youth, Isocrates says:—Οὐδεὶς οὔτ᾽ ἀπεκρύπτετο τὴν οὐσίαν οὔτ᾽ ὤκνει συμβάλλειν. κ. τ. λ.—Areop. § 12. Cf. Bergmann. in loc. p. 362. But their persecution must always have been confined to a very few individuals, as people generally continued to display whatever they possessed down to the final overthrow of the state. Footnote 381: Aristoph. Acharn. 398.—_Mitchell._ The learned editor fails to remark how little this custom harmonizes with the fears which he imagines rich people felt at Athens. -----