The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks - A Comprehensive Social Study

CHAPTER I.
COSTUME

To obtain a complete insight into the life of former ages we require primarily a knowledge of the historical and geographical, political, and religious conditions of the people in question, as well as of its intellectual development in art and science. These, however, it is not our purpose to consider here. The second requisite for a vivid picture is a clear notion of the surroundings in which the people of that time lived: their dwellings, furniture, utensils, etc. And lastly, there is another point, the knowledge of which is no less indispensable in order to obtain a clear image of the past, and that is the costume. Our knowledge of the customs and habits of daily life appears far more real, and stands out more vividly, if we can also form in our minds a picture of the people of that time. Thus no one can expect to form a clear picture of mediaeval life without at least a general notion of the costume of that period. This is equally true of every epoch of civilisation, even of a period so little distant from us in time as the eighteenth century.

We therefore preface our description of Greek life with an account of the details of Greek costume, and of its historical development; and our reasons for going into greater detail here than in other domains is that there are so many wrong, or at any rate incomplete, notions extant concerning it. For when we speak to-day of Greek costume we may generally assume that the majority of people, if female dress is in question, think of the drapery of the magnificent female figures in the Parthenon marbles; while, as regards male costume, their minds will at once recur to the classic figure of Sophocles in the Lateran or of the Aeschines of Naples, and form their notion of Greek male costume accordingly. It is, however, absolutely wrong to regard these as typical of Greek dress. They represent neither the costume of all Hellas nor that of the whole Greek age. That “noble simplicity and quiet greatness,” which is as conspicuous in the dress of the age of Pericles as in its art, is, like the latter, the product of slow development through various phases, concerning which, with the exception of a few literary allusions, the monuments give us all the information we possess.

Generally speaking, we may distinguish, both in male and female Greek costume, two kinds of garments—those which are cut in a certain shape and partly stitched, and mantles of various shapes which are draped on the figure and only acquire their form by means of this draping. This distinction holds good with few exceptions throughout the whole history of Greek costume; and, generally speaking, it is the under garments which are stitched, while the upper garments are draped. Yet we must observe that, while male clothing is, as a rule, confined to two garments, we very often find in female costume a third, or even a fourth, belonging sometimes to the first and sometimes to the second of the above-mentioned classes.

The names which were used throughout almost the whole of Greek antiquity for the two chief articles of dress are, for the under garment, chiton; for the upper garment, himation. These terms are used for both male and female garments, but several other designations are used, and the word himation is not found in the Homeric period, but the cloak which is worn over the chiton is called chlaina.

We may treat first of male costume. As regards the chiton of the oldest period, we infer, from allusions in epic poetry, with which the oldest monuments agree (for the discoveries at Mycenae give us no distinct notion of pre-Homeric costume), that both the short and the long kinds were in use. The short chiton seems to be the usual dress of daily life; it was especially worn when free movement was required, and was therefore the suitable garment for war or hunting, for gymnastic exercises or manual labour. The long chiton, which was afterwards regarded as especially Ionic, and certainly maintained itself longer in Ionia and in Attica than in the rest of Greece, was not, however, unknown to the Doric races. It was the usual dress for men of advanced age and good position; it was also worn by young people on festive occasions. We therefore find on the monuments of the oldest style that not only the older gods wear a long chiton, but also that young men are clothed in it on festive occasions, or if they are in any way connected with religious functions, as, for instance, priests, harp-players, flute-players, charioteers, etc. This use of the long chiton remains up to the classic period. Thus, for instance, we see the figure known as the Archon Basileus in the central group of the Eastern Parthenon frieze in this dress; and tragic actors, if they represented men of good position and in peaceful circumstances, also continued to wear the long chiton.

Epic poetry itself gives us no direct information about the shape of the chiton in the Homeric period. Helbig maintains, basing his assertions on some casual indications, and chiefly on the oldest monuments, that it differed from the dress of the classic period in being close-fitting and free from folds. It is true that the old vase paintings show us the short chiton fitting closely round the body and drawn quite firmly round the legs. It is girt fast round the hips, and as a rule does not go below the knee. However, it is not safe to draw conclusions of this kind from ancient pictures, for much which might be regarded as characteristic of ancient costume may be due only to the incompleteness of art, which was not yet capable of representing full garments with folds. Thus, in ancient works of art, the long chiton also appears quite narrow in the upper part, but then falls perpendicularly from the waist, sometimes gradually, but more often straight without any folds to the feet. (Compare the figure of Apollo in Fig. 1 and of Priam in Fig. 2.) Both the long and short chitons as a rule have no sleeves, but only an armhole; we sometimes find short sleeves not quite covering the upper arm. Unfortunately, we cannot form a clear notion from the pictures of the mode in which it was put on. It is, however, probable that the

short chiton was sewn together all round and thrown over the head, where there may have been an additional slit connected with this opening, and fastened with a pin. There are, however, no traces of this on the monuments, nor are fibulae or brooches mentioned in the Homeric descriptions in connection with the male chiton. Probably the long chiton was cut in the manner of a chemise. Helbig’s hypothesis that there was a slit down the middle of the front is just as uncertain as his similar assumption with regard to Homeric female dress.

Besides the chiton, the older male costume also had a sort of loincloth or apron. It is not at all improbable that at one period the Greeks wore merely the apron and cloak, and no chiton. When the latter became universally fashionable (which, according to recent surmises, was due to Semitic influence) the cloth disappeared, or continued only as part of military dress.

The himation, or chlaina, appears on ancient monuments stiff and free from folds, like the chiton. This is a garment resembling a mantle, which appears in many archaic vase pictures in two distinct forms: either as a wide cloak covering the greater part of the body, or as a narrow covering lightly draped. The first form, corresponding to the later male himation, is most commonly combined with the long chiton. The cut of this cloak is four-cornered, probably oblong, and it is worn in such a way that the greater part of it falls behind and covers the back and part of the legs, while in front it is thrown over the shoulders and arms, and falls down over the body, two of its points falling within the arms and the other two without. The other form, which may be in general compared with the later chlamys, is found with both the long and the short chiton, and is also sometimes worn as the only covering, without any under garment. This may, however, be regarded as the ideal clothing, which does not correspond to real life, just as in later monuments we find the chlamys alone without the chiton. It is put on in such a way that the lower arm is left uncovered, and the two points fall down in front over the shoulder and upper arm, while behind it either covers only the upper part of the back, or else the cloak falls down so far that its edge is almost as low as the points in front. (Compare Fig. 3, representing a dance from the François vase.) We cannot pronounce with certainty on the shape of this cloak. It appears, however, to have been oval or elliptical, and to have ended in two points; it was folded in such a way that the folded part was worn inside, while the edges, which were ornamented with wide borders, fell outside. In Fig. 2, where the shape of the cloak is that of an ellipse cut through the long axis, the folding is also evident. I should therefore differ from Helbig in regarding this narrower chlaina as the garment called in epic poetry diplax. Neither kind of cloak is fastened, and they both differ from that of later periods in being worn open in front. In...