§225. The Chairs.--The primitive form of seat (_sedīle_) among the Romans as elsewhere was the stool or bench with four perpendicular legs and no back. The remarkable thing is that it did not give place to something better as soon as means permitted. The stool (_sella_) was the ordinary seat for one person (Fig. 70), used by men and women resting or working, and by children and slaves at their meals as well. The bench (_subsellium_) differed from the stool only in accommodating more than one person. It was used by senators in the _cūria_, by the jurors in the courts, and by boys in the school (§120), as well as in private houses. A special form of the _sella_ was the famous curule chair (_sella curūlis_), having curved legs of ivory (Fig. 71). The curule chair folded up like our camp-stools for convenience of carriage and had straps across the top to support the cushion which formed the seat. [Illustration: FIGURE 72. THE SOLIUM] [Illustration: FIGURE 73. CATHEDRA] §226. The first improvement upon the _sella_ was the _solium_, a stiff, straight, high-backed chair with solid arms, looking as if cut from a single block of wood (Fig. 72), and so high that a footstool was as necessary with it as with a bed (§224). Poets represented gods and kings as seated in such a chair, and it was kept in the _ātrium_ for the use of the patron when he received his clients (§§182, 198). Lastly, we find the _cathedra_, a chair without arms, but with a curved back (Fig. 73) sometimes fixed at an easy angle (_cathedra supīna_), the only approximation to a comfortable seat that the Romans knew. It was at first used by women only, being regarded as too luxurious for men, but finally came into general use. Its employment by teachers in the schools of rhetoric (§115) gave rise to the expression _ex cathedrā_, applied to authoritative utterances of every kind, and its use by bishops explains our word cathedral. Neither the _solium_ nor the _cathedra_ was upholstered, but with them both were used cushions and coverings as with the _lectī_, and they afforded like opportunities for skillful workmanship and lavish decoration. [Illustration: FIGURE 74. MENSA DELPHICA] [Illustration: FIGURE 75. ADJUSTABLE TABLE]