The priests were assisted in their duties in the temples by a large number of attendants and servants. Some of these only took part occasionally in a procession or sacrifice, and, as this was regarded as an honour, they gave their service without return. Some were permanent temple servants, who either performed for pay certain menial services connected with the worship and the care of the temple, or else were slaves and the property of the god. Among these were included the so-called “temple-sweepers” (νεωκόροι), men and women whose duty it was to clean and care for the temple. There were also heralds, sacrificial servants, butchers, bearers of the sacred vessels, singers and musicians, etc., concerning whom inscriptions give us a good deal of information. Even these positions, so long as the services to be performed were not menial but honourable, were an object of ambition to citizens, or regarded as a valuable privilege inherited by certain families; thus, for instance, at Olympia, the descendants of Pheidias had charge of the statue of Zeus, which was the masterpiece of their ancestor. The two forms in which the worship of the ancients chiefly consisted were prayer and sacrifice. Prayer, either to all the gods together or to some single one, consecrated the beginning and end of the day; combined with libations, it attended the beginning and end of the meals, and was, in fact, an essential part of every important action of daily life. These prayers were, of course, of a general character, but there were other occasions when special prayers were used, adapted to particular cases; thus it was a matter of course that in the assemblies of the people the blessing of the god should be invoked on the discussion. When they set out to war they called on the help of the god in the coming fight, and similarly private citizens asked for divine aid in their undertakings and help in difficulties, though some wiser men--and especially those who had had a philosophical training--could not disguise from themselves that it was a foolish hope to expect that their prayers should necessarily be heard, and they looked upon prayer rather as a religious consecration of human actions. Kneeling and folding the hands were unknown to the ancients. In praying they stood and stretched out their hands to the region which they supposed to be the dwelling of the godhead invoked; thus, they held them upward when praying to one of the Olympian deities, forward when praying to a sea god, and down to the ground if the prayer was addressed to one of the infernal deities, at the same time trying to attract his attention by stamping on the ground. The commonest position was towards the east; when they prayed in the temple they turned towards the altar and the statue of the god, and sometimes even embraced the altar. In fact, the worship of the temple statues led to a very sensual conception of prayer; they not only threw