In many respects the poor of southern climates have the advantage of those of the north.[359] The atmosphere itself forms their clothing, and during a great part of the year it is immaterial to them where they sleep. But at Athens, however temperate the climate, a shelter from the cold in winter is desirable, and here, therefore, as in every other part of Greece, the practice was to erect houses where, as in the Caravanserais of the East, any man, native or stranger, might enter and obtain shelter for the night. These buildings were called Leschæ, erected without doors, to intimate that all were welcome; and in them, accordingly, beggars and wanderers of every description congregated round great fires in winter and bad weather, both to sleep and converse.[360] Even the citizens, particularly at Sparta, met in the Leschæ, to enjoy the delights of gossiping; whence any idle assemblage was called a Leschè.[361] In a fragment of the lost oration of Antiphon against Nicoles, mention is made of these edifices, which served as a refuge for the destitute. They were erected by the state; and, to cast over them an air of sanctity, dedicated to Apollo, who thence obtained the surname of Leschenorios.[362] Nowhere were these humane institutions so numerous as at Athens, where, according to Proclus,[363] there existed no fewer than three hundred and sixty, in which the indigent, who had no home, might congregate together and keep themselves warm at the nation’s expense. ----- Footnote 359: Beggars sometimes sat down on the ground to eat what was given them at the doors of the charitable. Thus in Antiphanes one says,—“What dost thou say? Bring me hither to the door something to eat; and then, like the beggars, I will despatch it, seated on the ground, and who will see?” Athen. ii. 87. Footnote 360: Etym. Mag. 18. 1, seq. 561. 11. Odyss. σ. 328, et Eustath. ad loc. Cf. Hesiod. Opp. et Dies, 493, et 500, seq. with Bœckh. Inscript. i. p. 133. Horat. Serm. i. vii. 3. Footnote 361: Pausan. iii. 14. 2. 15. 8. x. 25. 1. Siebel. ad loc. Footnote 362: Harpocrat. in v. λέσχαι. Suid. in v. ii. 27, seq. Etymol. Mag. p. 18, v. ἀδολεσχία. Footnote 363: Ap. Meurs. Athen. Att. iii. vi. 158. ----- In addition to these the public baths served as an asylum to such of the poor as had no home, or were unable to provide themselves with fuel in their own dwellings. Here they would seem to have pressed so eagerly about the furnaces as to be sometimes scorched and blistered;[364] and the crowd of poor wretches in this necessitous condition would appear to have been occasionally so great as to deteriorate the state of the atmosphere by their breath,[365] on which account they were exposed to be driven forth by the bath-keepers. ----- Footnote 364: