§149. The Familia Urbana.--The number of slaves kept by the wealthy Roman in his city mansion was measured not by his needs, but by the demands of fashion and his means. In the early days a sort of butler (_ātriēnsis_), or major domo, had relieved the master of his household cares, had done the buying, had kept the accounts, had seen that the house and furniture were in order, and had looked after the few servants who did the actual work. Even under the Republic all this was changed. Other slaves, the _prōcūrātor_ and _dispēnsātor_, relieved the _ātriēnsis_ of the purchasing of the supplies and the keeping of the accounts, and left to him merely the supervision of the house and its furniture. The duties of the slaves under him were, in the same way, distributed among a number many times greater. Every part of the house had its special staff of servants, often so numerous as to be distributed into _decuriae_ (§133), with a separate superintendent for each division: one for the kitchen, another for the dining-rooms, another for the bedrooms, etc. §150. The very entrance door had assigned to it its special slave (_ōstiārius_ or _iānitor_), who was often chained to it like a watchdog, in order to keep him literally at his post. And the duties of the several sets were again divided and subdivided, each slave having some one office to perform, and only one. The names of the various functionaries of the kitchen, the dining-rooms, and the bedchambers are too numerous to mention, but an idea of the complexity of the service may be gained from the number of attendants that assisted the master and mistress with their toilets. The former had his _ōrnātor_, _tōnsor_, and _calceātor_ (who cared for the feet); the latter her hairdressers (_ciniflōnēs_ or _cinerāriī_) and _ōrnātrīx_; and besides these each had no less than three or four more to assist with the bath. The children, too, had each his or her own attendants, beginning with the _nūtrix_, and continuing in the case of the boy with the _paedagōgus_ and _pedisequī_ (§123). [Illustration: FIGURE 31. LECTICA]