The ancients understood well the art of washing and plating articles formed of the inferior metals with gold and silver, as well as many ingenious devices for soldering, mixing, varying the colours, frosting the surface, and inlaying and flowering one metal with another. Statues in Attica were commonly lacquered with gold;[816] and, from the remotest antiquity, the art of gilding appears to have flourished in Greece, since we find mention of it in Homer, who speaks of gilding[817] the horns of victims offered up to the gods. The ancients, unquestionably, employed much thicker gold leaf in this process than the moderns; from which it has been inferred, that they were incapable of reducing it to greater tenuity. But, besides that, when the leaves were too thin, the quicksilver which they employed as a glue appeared through, and dimmed the splendour of the gold, they seem to have aimed at that very duration which causes us to admire the fragments of their gilding that still exist:—in the subterraneous chambers, for example, of the Villa Borghese on the Palatine hill, where the figures in gold scattered over a ground of celestial blue, look as fresh as if just laid on.[818] Metals of all kinds were likewise gilt—as copper, and silver, and bronze. In gilding marble the leaf was attached to the stone with white of egg, which was likewise employed, instead of quicksilver, by dishonest workmen, who could thus make use of a much thinner leaf.[819] The moderns in gilding marble substitute the juice of garlic and figs. The practice of gilding wood and leather was also common in antiquity, as we find mention of gilt wooden statues and beads,[820] and harness, and sandal-thongs. The walls and roofs of chambers were covered, moreover, with gilding, and this ornament was laid as well on wainscot as stucco.[821] The conjecture of a modern writer,[822] that the ancients were acquainted with the art of gilding in ormolu seems to be unfounded. ----- Footnote 816: That is if Pollux has been rightly interpreted, ii. 214. vii. 163, with the notes of the commentators, t. iv. p. 486. t. v. p. 472. Footnote 817: Odyss. γ. 437, seq. Macrob. Saturn. i. 17. Ovid. Metam. vii. 161, seq. x. 271, seq. Cf. Herod. ii. 63. Footnote 818: “Les deux chambres souterraines du palais des empereurs sur le mont Palatin dans la villa Borghèse, nous offrent des ornemens dorés aussi frais que s’ils venoient d’être faits, quoique ces chambres soient fort humides à cause de la terre qui les couvre. On ne peut voir sans admiration les bandes de bleu céleste en forme d’arcs, et chargées de petites figures d’or, qui décorent ces pièces. La dorure s’est aussi conservée dans le ruines de Persépolis.” Winkelm. Hist. de l’Art. t. ii. p. 91. Footnote 819: On the gilding of the ancients see Beckmann, Hist. of Inventions. Vol. iv. p. 176, seq. Winkelmann, Hist. de l’Art. t. i. p. 34. t. ii. p. 90, seq. 647. Goguet. t. iv. p. 53, sqq. Footnote 820: