Footnote 1132: Id. 36. Footnote 1133: Poll. iv. 59. Footnote 1134: Etym. Mag. 605. 45. Footnote 1135: Poll. iv. 60. Footnote 1136: There was likewise an instrument of four chords. Etym. Mag. 514. 34. Footnote 1137: See a representation of this instrument, with a portrait painted on the bottom of it. Antich. di Ercol. t. iv. p. 151. ----- The business of the potter[1138] was held in considerable estimation among the Greeks, so that several celebrated cities rivalled each other in their productions. Among these, Athens,[1139] Samos, and Rhodes held the first rank.[1140] Even the Bœotian Aulis obtained some degree of reputation for its earthenware.[1141] But that made at Kolias,[1142] in Attica, from the clay there found, and richly painted with figures in minium, appears to have been the most beautiful known to antiquity. ----- Footnote 1138: On the potter’s wheel, see Suidas. v. κωλιάδος κεραμῆες. t. i. p. 1511. b. Footnote 1139: Aristoph. Acharn. 901, seq. Footnote 1140: Athen. xi. 37. Footnote 1141: Pausan. ix. 19. 8. Footnote 1142: Schol. Aristoph. Lysist. 2. Chandler, Travels, ii. 166. Lucian observes somewhat jocularly that in some parts of Africa the natives were driven to the use of ostrich’s eggs for goblets, because no potter’s clay was found in their country. De Dipsad. § 7. Cf. Plin. Nat. Hist. x. 1. Bochart. Hierozoic. Compend. ii. 16. ----- The number of rough articles produced was prodigious, seeing that oil, and wine, and salt-fish, and pickles, and a variety of other commodities were exported in jars; while almost all culinary operations were carried on in earthern vessels. Such of these as found their way to Egypt, after the conquest of that country by the Persians, were filled with Nile water, and transported into the desert, on camels, to slake the thirst of the wayfarers on that arid waste.[1143] Perhaps, the largest articles of earthenware, however, were the corn-jars, some of which are said to have contained nearly a quarter of grain, in lieu of which plaited corbels were sometimes used.[1144] Much art and elegance was displayed in the forms, varnishing, and painting of fictile vases, some of which, of light and graceful contour, were made without bottoms, wholly for ornament.[1145] The colours employed in the painting of vases, more particularly those intended to hold the ashes of the dead, were generally light and durable; and the ease and beauty of the figures prove that the ancient potters paid great attention to the arts of design. The ornaments were extremely various, sometimes consisting of representations of the gods, as Heracles, Pan, or the genii, sometimes of oakleaves, garlands, or festoons, arranged with taste and elegance.[1146] Athenæus speaks of a kind of porcelain called Rhossican,[1147] covered with the forms of flowers, upon which Cleopatra expended five minæ per day. Another branch of the potter’s business