"I do not spend my days indoors," said an Athenian once, "my wife is quite capable of managing our domestic affairs without my aid."[2] This probably expressed the feeling of most Athenian men, for they gave very little time to their houses. These were the places where the women of the family spent nearly all their hours, but where the men did little more than sleep and have their meals. In the summer time an Athenian house was probably a pleasant place, though we should have found it lacking in nearly everything that we consider necessary, but in the winter it would have been uncomfortably chilly and draughty. It has already been noticed that an Athenian house usually presented a blank wall to the street, for it was built round a court on to which all the rooms opened. The houses were generally of one story only, though a few occasionally had more, and the rooms drew all their light and air from the court. Socrates once said that a perfect house should be one that was cool in summer and warm in winter, and of such a convenient size that the owner could keep all his possessions in it with ease and security. The front door was always kept carefully shut and {199} bolted, but a knocker, often in the form of a ring in a lion's mouth, announced the visitor, who was admitted by the porter, a slave who sat in a small room just inside the door. The door opened into a courtyard, which in a good-sized house would be fairly large, but badly paved. This was the men's court. A row of columns all round the sides supported a roof which made a kind of verandah, from which small rooms opened. These rooms do not seem to have had any light or air except that which entered from the court, and they must have been dark and uncomfortable. They were used only by the grown sons of the family and by the male slaves. In the middle of the court stood an altar to Zeus the Protector of the Home, on which fragrant incense always burned, and fresh garlands of flowers and leaves would be placed on it every day. Leading out of the men's court was the dining-hall. There would be no table, for the guest did not go to the table, but the table, a low one, was brought to him as he sat or reclined on a beautifully carved couch. The most sacred spot in the house was in this room, the altar of Hestia, on which burned the sacred fire of the family hearth. There might be a row of large vases against one wall, and if one of them bore the inscription, "I am from the Games at Athens," the family would take care to preserve it as one of their greatest treasures, for the words meant that the vase had been a prize won by some member of the family in the Athenian Games.