rooms lying near the back or
garden-door as it was termed. Between these latter and the domestic
offices, which lay on the right and left of the women's apartment, were
the sleeping-rooms; these served also as places of security for the
valuables of the house. The walls of the men's apartment were painted of
a reddish-brown color, against which the outlines of some white marble
carvings, the gift of a Chian sculptor, stood out in sharp relief.
The floor was covered with rich carpets from Sardis; low cushions of
panthers' skins lay ranged along the colonnade; around the
artistically wrought hearth stood quaint Egyptian settees, and small,
delicately-carved tables of Thya wood, on which lay all kinds of musical
instruments, the flute, cithara and lyre. Numerous lamps of various
and singular shapes, filled with Kiki oil, hung against the walls. Some
represented fire-spouting dolphins; others, strange winged monsters from
whose jaws the flames issued; and these, blending their light with that
from the hearth, illumined the apartment.

In this room a group of men were assembled, whose appearance and dress
differed one from the other. A Syrian from Tyre, in a long crimson robe,
was talking animatedly to a man whose decided features and crisp, curly,
black hair proclaimed him an Israelite. The latter had come to Egypt
to buy chariots and horses for Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah--the
Egyptian equipages being the most sought after at that time. Close to
him stood three Greeks from Asia Minor, the rich folds of whose
garments (for they wore the costly dress of their native city Miletus),
contrasted strongly with the plain and unadorned robe of Phryxus, the
deputy commissioned to collect money for the temple of Apollo at Delphi,
with whom they were in earnest conversation. Ten years before, the
ancient temple had been consumed by fire; and at this time efforts were
being made to build another, and a more beautiful one.

Two of the Milesians, disciples of Anaximander and Anaximenes, were
staying then in Egypt, to study astronomy and the peculiar wisdom of
the Egyptians at Heliopolis, and the third was a wealthy merchant and
ship-owner, named Theopompus, who had settled at Naukratis.

[Anaximander of Miletus, born 611-546, was a celebrated
geometrician, astronomer, philosopher and geographer. He was the
author of a book on natural phenomena, drew the first map of the
world on metal, and introduced into Greece a kin