Ethel Beatrice Abrahams

“ Solon’s sumptuary law regulating women’s dress must have been enacted during the first years of the sixth century, so that we may conclude that these dainty ladies with their chitons, cloaks, and scarfs represent the height of luxury in dress which was possible after the passing of that law: their self-satisfied smile seems to be inviting approval of the degree of elegance to which their ingenuity could attain, even though a stern law-giver had limited the number of their garments to three. ”

“ For the dress of the classical period, the evidence from extant art is abundant, and I have based my study chiefly upon it. Sculpture and vase-paintings have furnished the majority of my illustrations. I have noted many references to dress scattered up and down the ancient authors, and a passage from the fifth book of Herodotus has furnished a starting-point for the classification into Doric and Ionic dress. ”

“ As time went on, the dimensions of the Doric dress became more ample, or at least were represented so in art; both pouch and overfold become deeper and the folds of the garment generally grow fuller; the distance of the shoulder pins from the points which hang immediately under the arms becomes proportionately larger, no longer being an exact sixth of the whole width of the dress. The most perfect examples in art of the Doric dress in its full development are to be found in the maidens of the Parthenon frieze and the Caryatids of the Erechtheum. ”

“ The Athenians thought the deed of the women more horrible even than the fate of the troops. As, however, they did not know how else to punish them, they changed their dress, and compelled them to wear the costume of the Ionians. Till this time the Athenian women had worn a Dorian dress, shaped nearly like that which prevails at Corinth. Henceforth they were made to wear the linen tunic, which does not require brooches.
“In very truth, however, this dress is not originally Ionian, but Carian; for anciently the Greek women all wore the costume which is now called the Dorian.”—Rawlinson. ”

“ Having advanced so far, they feel themselves equal to facing the problem of representing drapery in sculpture. It is not to be supposed that at this stage of artistic development they would invent difficulties which did not naturally present themselves, nor would they attempt to represent anything that they had not actually seen; therefore, we must conclude that the Athenian ladies of the period actually wore a dress corresponding closely to that reproduced in art. ”

“ It will be safer, therefore, in considering the different garments which constitute the dress, to leave the question of colour out of account altogether, and to base our arguments only on their form. Many who maintain that the skirt is part of the chiton, are of the opinion that the upper garment is the ordinary himation with a small overfold, fastened on the shoulder and down the arm. ”

“ He admits that the folds will only keep in place on a “motionless wearer of imperturbable patience,” and therefore supposes that the dress was evolved for use on the wooden xoana. It seems unlikely that a special dress of such an elaborate nature should have been evolved to drape these early wooden images, and there is no reason to suppose that the series of Acropolis statues are merely reproductions of such images. They appear much rather to represent the grand Athenian ladies who dedicated themselves symbolically to their patron goddess by setting up statues of themselves in her honour. ”

“ Coming down to historic times, we find that before the Persian wars both men and women wore their hair long. After the middle of the fifth century a change took place, the men cutting their hair short for the most part, the women binding it up. The story of the Lacedæmonians combing their long hair when the Persians were close upon them is familiar (Herodotus, VII., 208) . Extant monuments show us that before the Persian wars the men adopted various methods of disposing of their long hair: sometimes we see it worn loose with a simple fillet tied round the head ”

“ If we are to consider the monuments, both sculpture and vases, as giving a realistic picture of Greek life, we [p. 54] shall see that men frequently wore only the himation; but it is difficult to believe that this was so, except, perhaps, in the height of summer.
The methods of draping the himation were the same for men as for women, except that after the period of the early black-figured vases we do not find men represented wearing it laid on both shoulders like a shawl ”

“ A word or two must be said about the diminutives of χιτών—namely, χιτώνιον, χιτωνάριον, and χιτωνίσκος. We should naturally expect the words to mean a small or short chiton, but this does not seem always to be the case. The χιτώνιον and χιτωνάριον are frequently described as διαφανές, “transparent,” [122] and Eustathius (iii., 1166) explains the words as referring to a fine and luxurious dress worn by women. In the inscription to Artemis Brauronia [123] we read more than once of a χιτώνιον ἀμοργῖνον—that is, a garment made of linen from Amorgos, which we know was very fine and expensive ”

“ The date of the change of fashion is impossible to fix. We find the athletes of Myron and Polycleitus represented with short hair, but long-haired Apollos are found considerably after their date. The change took place, in all probability, shortly after the Persian wars; it then became the fashion for Ephebi to cut off their long hair, which they consecrated to Apollo and Artemis or to a river god. [174] When once the change had come about, long hair was considered, in Athens at least, as a mark of affectation or effeminacy. ”

“ The contrast between the forms of dress represented in Mycenæan art and in the Homeric poems can only be explained by supposing that there is a difference in race between the two peoples, and that the older civilization was almost entirely swept away by a great series of invasions carried out by men of a different race. ”

“ The point in dispute is the purpose of the twelve brooches. Studniczka maintains that two were used to fasten the dress on the shoulders, and the remaining ten to hold it together down the open side; he states in support of this theory that sewing was not commonly practised by the Homeric women, although he has previously pointed out that the men’s chiton was always sewn; this being the case, it is only natural to suppose that the women applied the art of sewing to their own garments also where necessary. There is no example in early art of a peplos fastened in this way with brooches ”

“ Possibly, also, the vertical band on the lower part of the chiton represents a separate strip of embroidery sewn on to the garment. The Greek women probably occupied a large proportion of their time in embroidery; and since a good piece of embroidery lasts for very many years, it is quite possible that when the original garment was worn out, they may have cut off the strip of still good work, and sewn it on to a new dress. The only other explanation of the numerous patterns which appear on the statues, is that the artist simply applied ornamentation wherever it pleased his fancy to do so ”

“ The healthy state of body thus preserved no doubt had its share in fostering that healthy state of mind to which are due the sanity and sobriety that characterise all Greek thought, whether expressed in literature, art, or philosophy. ”

“ The simple Doric dress mentioned by Herodotus as being universally worn by Greek women down to the sixth century, finds abundant illustration in early art, especially in the Attic black-figured vases. It consists of a large oblong piece of material, in length about 1 ft. more than the height of the wearer, in width about twice the distance from elbow to elbow when the wearer’s arms are held out horizontally at shoulder level. The additional foot in height is used up by folding the upper edge over so that the material is double from neck to waist. ”

“ The Munich copy of Cephisodotus’s Eirene holding the infant Plutus presents a very good example of the closed Doric dress as it was worn in the fourth century; it will be seen that the folds are more ample, and the overfold and pouch fall to a distance considerably below the waist, so that the garment must be larger than that originally worn, if we are to accept early monuments as faithful representations of the style of dress actually worn. ”

“ A short chiton, with or without sleeves, and made of some fine material, is to be found on the vases worn by men engaged in active pursuits. It sometimes has an overfold; although, with the long chiton, this feature is usually confined to women. A good example of the men’s short chiton with overfold is to be seen on the vase of Brygos representing the exploits of Theseus.
The cross-bands and shoulder-cords already mentioned are, strictly speaking, an element of the Ionic chiton, though they are sometimes represented in art over the Doric peplos. ”

“ Being made of a fine linen material, the Ionic chiton is naturally fuller than the coarser woollen Doric garment, and its folds are consequently more numerous and more delicate; it is the greater width of the garment which necessitates the formation of the sleeve, as a single fastening from the shoulder [p. 61] would leave too great a mass of material hanging down under the arms. The sleeve is made by joining the two top edges of the garment together and gathering them up so as to form regular folds; an opening is left in the middle for the neck and one at each end for the arms. ”

“ Few colours are mentioned in Homer in connection with dress. The epithets “white” and “shining” are frequently applied to the chiton and κρήδεμνον and to the φᾶρος. Φοινικόεις and πορφύρεος are frequently used of the χλαῖνα and the δίπλαξ, the former meaning “red,” and the latter probably “dark purple”; the word is used also of the sea and of clouds. The veil of Thetis [77] is described as κυάνεος, indigo, probably, or blue-black, since we hear immediately afterwards that “no garment ever was blacker.” The dark veil may be a sign of mourning ”

“ The ivory statuettes of athletes from Knossos have long hair, [162] so that in all probability that was the prevailing fashion among men in Crete. Among women in pre-Hellenic times, the fashion was to wear the hair long; the snake goddess and her votary have hair that reaches far past the waist, and in almost all extant art of the period the hair of the women is represented as being abundant. ”

“ The invaders, having conquered or driven out the inhabitants, finding their houses strongly built and luxuriously decorated, would refrain from destroying them and settle themselves peacefully and comfortably there, naturally retaining their own style of dress and customs of disposing of their dead. Any new houses built after their settlement would be constructed after their own plans, and so the Homeric house would gradually give place to the Hellenic. ”

“ For example, in the early pediment groups from the Acropolis, we find red used for human flesh; and the colours used in the draperies of the Acropolis female statues are limited to red and blue. Both eyes and hair are invariably red. We may infer, therefore, that colour was not added with a view to reproducing nature faithfully, but simply to decorate the statues. ”

“ Very clear examples of it are to be seen in some of the archaic female statues on the Acropolis at Athens, especially in those cases where the himation is worn like a shawl over both shoulders. [120]
That the long Ionic chiton with sleeves was worn by men as well as women, is abundantly evident from the monuments. On the vases, Zeus and Dionysus and other gods are almost invariably represented wearing it; and in sculpture also, kings, priests, and others are represented so dressed. ”

“ In very many cases we find that the Doric himation is worn, whether over both shoulders or only over one. In the Harpy monument, where we might have looked for Ionic dress in its purest form, we find the Doric himation worn over the fine linen-sleeved chiton, and on very many of the red-figured vases of the severe style this is the case. There is one set of monuments, however, which may be considered as Ionic in origin, or at least of Ionizing tendencies, where a far less simple garment takes the place of the Doric himation. ”

“ That this is not invariably the case is proved by many examples both in sculpture and vase-painting, where a chiton is represented, which, from its length and fulness and the fine texture of its material, is clearly Ionic, but which is not sewn on the shoulders, but fastened together down the upper arm by a series of small round brooches; this fastening forms a kind of loose sleeve which reaches frequently to the elbow. It is the formation of this sleeve, whether sewn or pinned, which, apart from size or material, distinguishes the Ionic from the Doric chiton, which is sleeveless. ”

“ The girdle of the goddess is composed of two snakes intertwined. The head-dress here consists of a high turban, probably made of cloth or linen wound round some kind of framework. The principle of the costume is always the same, though the fashions vary considerably in detail: for example, the skirt of [p. 12] the votary is composed of a series of seven flounces, one above the other, the lower edge in each case just covering the upper edge of the flounce below, the whole being probably sewn on to a foundation. ”

“ Another variety of over-garment worn by men is the χλάμυς, a cloak used for riding or travelling. It is considered to be of Macedonian origin, [100] another form of it being the ζειρά, a rough Thracian riding [p. 55] -cloak sometimes depicted on Greek vases. [101] It was probably brought into Greece from the north by the Dorian invaders when they came down, and in its origin may have been no different from the Homeric χλαῖνα. In classical times it was always worn over the short chiton by travellers and riders, and was the characteristic dress of Ephebi. ”

“ However, we must regard the use of twelve brooches as exceptional, and consider that the peplos was ordinarily fastened with only two, and with a girdle round the waist. That it was a fairly ample garment and trailed on the ground behind, is proved by the epithets τανυπέπλος and ἑλκεσιπέπλος, “with trailing robes,” frequently applied to women. Athena finds it certainly too cumbersome to fight in; for when she is preparing for battle, we are told that she lets her peplos slip to the ground, and puts on the chiton of her father, [58] Zeus. ”

“ Professor Ridgeway, in The Early Age of Greece, has pointed out that the civilization reflected in the Homeric poems differs in many essential points from that which is revealed by the monuments found at Mycenæan sites on the mainland of Greece and in the Ægean islands. Confirmation has since been added to his convincing arguments by the discoveries of Mr Arthur Evans in Crete, which prove that the so-called Mycenæan remains were but the last efforts of a dying civilization which stretched back at least as far as the third millennium before our era. ”

“ The Homeric heroes burn their dead, whereas the remains found in Mycenæan graves prove that in the state of society to which they belong burial was the common method of disposing of the dead. The difference in costume is equally striking; the women’s dress, illustrated by the Mycenæan gems and the wall-paintings and faïence statuettes from Knossos, consists of elaborately made garments, with tight jackets fitting closely to the figures at the waist, and full and frequently flounced skirts; there is no indication of fastening by means of brooches or fibulæ. ”

“ Animal and human forms are naturally less common than geometric and floral designs. Mention has already been made of the wonderful diplax woven by Helen, in which she represented scenes of battle between Trojans and Achæans. In art we find that goddesses are frequently depicted wearing garments covered with elaborate ornamentation of this kind. The François vase will afford several [p. 106] examples, and in later art the dress of Demeter on the Triptolemus vase by Hieron, [161] and the sculptured drapery from Damophon’s group at Lycosura, may be quoted. ”