Very nearly the same customs prevail in Persia at the present day, except that the rules of etiquette seem to be still more rigidly observed. “It is a general custom with the kings of Persia to eat in solitary grandeur. The late Shah, however, would sometimes have select portions of his family to breakfast with him.” On which occasion, “they used to squat round him in the form of a crescent, of which he was the centre, and were all placed scrupulously according to rank.”—Fowler, i. 48. Footnote 425: Athen. vi. 58. Vales. not. in Maussac. p. 282, where he corrects the old reading of the text. Cf. Xenoph. Hellen. vii. 1. 38. Plut. Pelop. § 30. Artax. § 22. Valer. Max. vi. 3. extern. 2. Demosth. de Fals. Leg. § 42, where the orator accuses Timagoras of having received a bribe of forty talents. Footnote 426: Athen. ii. 31. ----- A gentleman travelling in Ireland witnessed the ingenuity of that ready-witted people in applying the same thing to various uses: first, he saw the tablecloth, on which he had eaten a good supper, transferred as a sheet to his bed, and, next morning, his kind hostess, offering her services to put him in the right way, converted the same article into a mantle, which she wrapped about her shoulders. The Greeks were almost equally ingenious. With them what was a cloak by day became sometimes a counterpane at night,[427] in addition, perhaps, to the ordinary bed-clothes; for it is clear they loved to be warm, from the somewhat reproachful allusion of Strepsiades in the “Clouds” to the five _sisyræ_,[428] rolled snugly up in which, his son, Pheidippides, could sleep while thoughts of his debts bit the old man like so many bugs, and roused him hours before day to consult his ledgers. All kinds of stromata were, in Plato’s time, divided into two classes, first, coverings for the body, such as cloaks, mantles, and so on; secondly, bed-clothes, properly so called. ----- Footnote 427: Xen. Anab. i. 5. 5. Footnote 428: Nub. 10. Cf. Av. 122. Concionat. 838. ibique not. Pollux, vii. 382, seq. x. 542. ----- The walls of their chambers were frequently hung with Milesian tapestry, a custom to which Amphis alludes in his Odysseus: A. Milesian hangings line your walls, you scent Your limbs with sweetest perfume, royal myndax[429] Piled on the burning censor, fills the air With costly fragrance. B. Mark you that, my friend! Knew you before of such a fumigation?[430] Mention is likewise made among the ancients of purple tapestry, inwrought with pearls and gold.[431] ----- Footnote 429: Cf. Poll. vi. 105. Footnote 430: Athen. xv. 42. Cf. Meineke. Curæ Crit. in Com. Frag. p. 7. -----