Homer the first ethnic writer who speaks of an article of dress
allied to the Corset--The cestus or girdle of Venus--Terentius,
the Roman dramatist, and his remarks on the practice of
tight-lacing--The use of the strophium by the ladies of Rome,
and the mitra of the Grecian belles--The peplus as worn
by the ancients--Toilet of a Roman lady of fashion--Roman
baths--Fashionable promenades of Ancient Rome--Boundless luxury
and extravagance--Cleopatra and her jewels--The taper waists and
tight-lacing of the ancient Roman ladies--Conquest of the Roman
Empire.
Amongst the ethnic writers, Homer appears to be the first who
describes an article of female dress closely allied to the corset.
He tells us of the cestus or girdle of Venus, mother of the Loves
and Graces, and of the haughty Juno, who was fabled to have borrowed
it with a view to the heightening and increasing her personal
attractions, in order that Jupiter might become a more tractable and
orderly husband. The poet attributes most potent magical virtues to
the cestus, but these are doubtlessly used in a figurative sense,
and Juno, in borrowing the cestus, merely obtained from a lady of
acknowledged elegance of figure a corset with which to set her own
attractions off to the best possible advantage, so that her husband
might be charmed with her improved appearance; and Juno appears to
have been a very far-seeing and sensible woman. From periods of very
remote antiquity, and with the gradual increase of civilisation, much
attention appears to have been paid to the formation and cultivation
of the female figure, and much the same means were had recourse to for
the achievement of the same end prior to 560 B.C. as in the
year 1868. Terentius, the Roman dramatist, who was born in the year
560, causes one of his characters, in speaking of the object of his
affections, to exclaim--
"This pretty creature isn't at all like our town ladies, whose
mothers saddle their backs and straitlace their waists to make them
well-shaped. If any chance to grow a little plumper than the rest,
they presently cry, 'She's an hostess,' and then her allowance must
be shortened, and though she be naturally fat and lusty, yet by her
dieting she is made as slender as a broomstick. By this means one
woodcock or another is caught in their springe."
[Illustration: LADY OF ANCIENT GREECE.]
Strutt informs us that the Roman women, married as well as unmarried,
used girdles, and besides them they sometimes wore a broad swath or
bandage round their breasts, called strophium, which seems to have
answered the purpose of the bodice or stays, and had a buckle or
bandage on the left shoulder, and that the mitra or girdle of the
Greeks probably resembled the strophium of the Romans. The annexed
illustration represents a lady of Ancient Greece. He also speaks of
the Muses as being described by Hesiod as being girt with golden
"_mitres_," and goes on to inform us that Theocritus in one of his
pastorals introduces a damsel complaining to a shepherd of his
rudeness, saying he had loosened her mitra or girdle, and tells her
he means to dedicate the same to Venus. So it will be seen that the
waist and its adornment were considered at that early period of the
world's history matters of no ordinary importance, and whether the
term strophium, zone, mitra, custula, stays, bodice, or corset is made
use of, the end sought to be obtained by their aid was the same.
Constant mention is made by early writers of the _peplus_ as being
a very elegant garment, and there are notices of it as back as the
Trojan war, and the ladies of Troy appear to have generally worn it.
On the authority of Strutt, it may be stated to have been "a thin
light mantle worn by Grecian ladies above the tunic;" and we read
that Antinous presented to Penelope a beautiful large and variegated
peplus, having twelve buckles of gold, with tongues neatly curved. The
peplus, however, was a very splendid part of the lady's dress, and it
is rarely mentioned by Homer without some epithet to distinguish it
as such. He calls it the _variegated_ peplus and the painted peplus,
alluding to ornamental decorations either interwoven or worked with
the needle upon it, which consisted not only in diversity of colours,
but of flowers, foliage, and other kinds of imagery, and sometimes
he styles it the _soft purple peplus_, which was then valuable on
account of the excellence of the colour. We learn from a variety
of sources that the early Roman and Grecian ladies indulged in
almost unprecedented luxury in matters of personal adornment, as the
following extract from Fullam will show:--
"The toilet of a Roman lady involved an elaborate and very costly
process. It commenced at night, when the face, supposed to have been
tarnished by exposure, was overlaid with a poultice, composed of
boiled or moistened flour spread on with the fingers. Poppæan unguents
sealed the lips, and the body was profusely rubbed with Cerona
ointment. In the morning the poultice and unguents were washed off;
a bath of asses' milk imparted a delicate whiteness to the skin, and
the pale face was freshened and revived with enamel. The full eyelids,
which the Roman lady still knows so well how to use--now suddenly
raising them, to reveal a glance of surprise or of melting tenderness,
now letting them drop like a veil over the lustrous eyes--the full,
rounded eyelids were coloured within, and a needle dipped in jetty dye
gave length and sphericity to the eyebrows. The forehead was encircled
by a wreath or fillet fastened in the luxuriant hair which rose in
front in a pyramidal pile formed of successive ranges of curls, and
giving the appearance of more than ordinary height.
"'So high she builds her head, she seems to be,
View her in front, a tall Andromache;
But walk all round her, and you'll quickly find
She's not so great a personage behind.'
"Roman ladies frequented the public baths, and it was not unusual
for dames of the highest rank to resort to these lavatories in the
dead hour of the night. Seated in a palanquin or sedan borne by
sturdy chairmen, and preceded by slaves bearing flambeaux, they made
their way through the deserted streets, delighted to arouse and alarm
their neighbours. A close chair conveyed the patrician matron to the
spectacles and shows, to which she always repaired in great state,
surrounded by her servants and slaves, the dependants of her husband,
and the clients of her house, all wearing the badge of the particular
faction she espoused. The factions of the circus were four in number,
and were distinguished by their respective colours of blue, green,
white, and red, to which Domitian, who was a zealous patron of the
Circensian games, added the less popular hues of gold and purple. But
the spectators generally attached themselves either to the blue or the
green, and the latter was the chief favourite, numbering among its
adherents emperors and empresses, senators, knights, and noble dames,
as well as the great mass of the people, who, when their champions
were defeated, carried their partisanship to such an extreme that the
streets were repeatedly deluged with the blood of the blues, and more
than once the safety of the state was imperilled by these disgraceful
commotions.
"The public walks and gardens were a fashionable resort of the Roman
ladies. There they presented themselves in rich costume, which bore
testimony alike to the wealth of their husbands and their own taste.
A yellow tire or hood partly covered, but did not conceal, their
piled hair; their vest of muslin or sarcenet, clasped with gems, was
draped with a murry-coloured robe descending to their high-heeled
Greek boots; necklaces of emerald hung from their swan-like necks,
and jewelled earrings from their ears; diamonds glittered on their
fingers, and their dazzling complexions were shielded from the sun by
a parasol."
The researches of Strutt show us that the shoes of the ladies, and
especially among the Romans, proved a very expensive part of the
dress. In general they were white, but persons of opulence did not
confine themselves to any colour. We find them black, scarlet, purple,
yellow, and green. They were often not only richly adorned with
fringes and embroideries of gold, but set with pearls and precious
stones of the most costly kind, and these extravagances were not
confined to persons of rank. They were imitated by those of lower
station, and became so prevalent at the commencement of the third
century, that even the luxurious Emperor Heliogabalus thought it
necessary to publish an edict prohibiting the use of such expensive
shoes excepting to women of quality. The women wore the close shoe or
_calceus_. Gloves, too, as we have seen before, were known and used in
very early ages, and it appears probable that they were first devised
by those whose labours called them to the thick-tangled thorn coverts,
but that they were worn by those who did not labour is clearly proved
by Homer, who describes the father of Ulysses when living in a state
of rest as wearing gloves; but he gives us no information as to the
material from which they were manufactured. The Romans appear to have
been much more addicted to the practice of wearing gloves than the
Greeks, and we are informed that "under the emperors they were made
with fringes," though others were without them, and were fashioned
much after the manner of the mittens of the present day. Further on
we learn that "as riches and luxury increased, the lady's toilet was
proportionately filled with ornaments for the person, so that it was
called '_the woman's world_.'" They not only anointed the hair and
used rich perfumes, but sometimes they _painted it_. They also made
it appear of a bright yellow colour by the assistance of washes and
compositions made for that purpose; but they never used powder, which
is a much later invention. They frizzled and curled the hair with
hot irons, and sometimes they raised it to a great height by rows of
curls one above another in the form of a helmet, and such as had not
sufficient hair of their own used false hair to complete the lofty
pile, and these curls appear to have been fashioned with hairpins. The
Grecian virgins used to braid their hair in a multiplicity of knots,
but that custom, as well as painting the under part of the eyelids
with black paint, was discommended by an ancient poet. Persons of
rank had slaves to perform for them the offices of the toilet. They
held the mirror in their hand themselves and gave directions, and
Martial tells us that, if the slaves unfortunately placed a hairpin
wrong, or omitted to twist the curls exactly as they were ordered, the
mirror was thrown at the offender's head, or, according to Juvenal,
the whip was applied with much severity. The hair was adorned with
ornaments of gold, with pearls and precious stones, and sometimes with
garlands or chaplets of flowers. It was also bound with fillets and
ribbons of various colours and kinds. The net or hair-caul for the
purpose of inclosing the hinder part of the hair was in general use
with the Grecian and Roman ladies. These ornaments were frequently
enriched with embroidery, and sometimes made so thin that Martial
sarcastically called them "_bladders_."
Again, in the matter of _earrings_, we quote from the same valuable
and trustworthy authority. No adornment of the head claims priority to
earrings. They have been fashionable, as Montfaucon justly observes,
in all ages and almost all nations. It is evident from Homer that the
Grecian women bored their ears for the admission of these ornaments.
The poet gives earrings to the goddess Juno, and the words he uses
on the occasion are literally these:--"In her well-perforated ears
she put the earrings of elaborate workmanship, having three eyes in
each"--that is, three pendants or jewels, either made in the form
of eyes, or so called from their brightness. The extravagance of
the Grecian and Roman ladies in the purchase of these articles of
adornment almost exceeds belief. Pliny says, "They seek for pearls
at the bottom of the Red Sea, and search the bowels of the earth
for emeralds to ornament their ears;" and Seneca tells us that "a
single pair of earrings was worth the revenue of a large estate, and
that some women would wear at their ears the price of two or three
patrimonies." We read that the earrings worn by Cleopatra were valued
at £161,458, and that Servilia, the mother of Brutus, was presented
with a pair by Julius Cæsar, the value of which was £48,457.
Bracelets are also ornaments of high antiquity, as are rings and
brooches of various forms for fastening the dress.
Rich gold chains and jewelled fastenings were in common use during
this period. The annexed illustration represents a Roman lady of rank
about the reign of Heliogabalus. Little alteration appears to have
taken place in the general style of costume for some very considerable
period of time, and the patrician ladies concealed beneath their
flowing draperies a kind of corset, which they tightened very
considerably, for a slight and tapering waist was looked upon as a
great beauty in women, and great attention was paid to the formation
of the figure, in spite of all that has been written about the purely
natural and statuesque forms of the Roman matrons. On the conquest
of the Roman Empire by the wild and savage Hunnish tribes, fashion,
art, taste, literature, and civilisation were swept ruthlessly away,
and a long, weird night of mental darkness may be said to have
reigned throughout the land from the tenth to the middle of the
fifteenth century, and we see little or nothing of Roman elegance or
magnificence of dress to distinguish it above other nations from that
period.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: ROMAN LADY OF RANK (REIGN OF HELIOGABALUS).]