inscriptions, though not specially numerous, mention the following: wool-workers, linen-workers, makers of

outer garments, dyers, leather-workers, tanners, potters, bakers, slave-dealers and bronze -smiths. The

dealers in garments and the salve-dealers would have a good market in a road-centre. Garments were sold

ready made, being all loose and free; and from the mention of dealers in outer garments we may infer the

existence of special trades and guilds for other classes of garments. The woman of Thyatira, a seller of

purple, named Lydia, who was so hospitable to St. Paul and his company at Philippi (Acts 16:14), belonged

doubtless to one of those guilds: she sold not simply purple cloth but purple garments, and had emigrated

to push the trade in Thyatiran manufactures in the Macedonian city. The purple in which she dealt cannot

be regarded as made with the usual dye, for that was obtained from a shell-fish found chiefly on the

Phoenician and the Spartan coasts. The colour in which Lydia dealt must have been a product of the

Thyatiran region; and Monsieur Clerc, in his work on the city, suggests what is at once seen plainly to be

true, that the well-known Turkey-red was the colour which is meant. This bright red is obtained from

madder-root, which grows abundantly in those regions. It is well known that the ancient names of colours

were used with great laxity and freedom; and the name purple, being established and fashionable, was used

for several colours which to us seem essentially diverse from one another.

Figure 29: The Thyatiran bronzesmith

A special interest attaches to Figure 29. The divine smith, Hephaestus, dressed as a workman, is here seated

at an anvil (represented only by a small pillar), holding in his left hand a pair of forceps, and giving the

finishing blow with his hammer to a helmet, for which the goddess of war, Pallas Athene, is holding out her

hand. Considering that a guild of bronze -smiths is mentioned at Thyatira, we cannot doubt that this coin

commemorates the peculiar importance for the welfare of Thyatira of the bronze -workers' handicraft; and we

must infer that bronze work was carried to a high state of perfection in the city.