Athenian Costume.
33. The General Nature of Greek Dress.—In every age the important
kingdom of dress has been reserved for the peculiar sovereignty of
woman. This is true in Athens, though not perhaps to the extent of
later ages. Still an Athenian lady will take an interest in “purple
and fine linen” far exceeding that of her husband, and where is there a
more fitting place than this in which to answer for an Athenian, the
ever important question “wherewithal shall I be clothed”?
Once again the Athenian climate comes in as a factor, this time in the
problem of wardrobe. Two general styles of garment have divided the
allegiance of the world,—the clothes that are _put on_ and the clothes
that are _wrapped around_. The former style, with its jackets,
trousers, and leggings, is not absolutely unknown to the
Athenians,—their old enemies, the Persians, wear these[*]; but such
clumsy, inelegant garments are despised and ridiculed as fit only for
the “Barbarians” who use them. They are not merely absurdly homely;
they cannot even be thrown off promptly in an emergency, leaving the
glorious human form free to put forth any noble effort. The Athenians
wear the wrapped style of garments, which are, in final analysis, one
or two large square pieces of cloth flung skillfully around the body
and secured by a few well-placed pins. This costume is infinitely
adjustable; it can be expanded into flowing draperies or contracted
into an easy working dress by a few artful twitches. It can be nicely
adjusted to meet the inevitable sense of “beauty” bred in the bone of
every Athenian. True, on the cold days of midwinter the wearers will go
about shivering; but cold days are the exception, warm days the rule,
in genial Attica.[+]
[*] The Persians no doubt learned to use this style of garment during
their life on the cold, windy steppes of Upper Asia, before they won
their empire in the more genial south.
[+] The whole civilization of Athens was, of course, based on a climate
in which artificial heat would be very little needed. A pot of glowing
charcoal might be used to remove the chill of a room in the very
coldest weather. Probably an Athenian would have regarded a climate in
which furnace heat was demanded nearly eight months in the year as
wholly unfit for civilized man.
This simplicity of costume has produced certain important results.
There are practically no tailors in Athens, only cloth merchants,
bleachers, and dyers. Again fashions (at least in the cut of the
garments) seldom change. A cloak that was made in the days of
Alcibiades (say 420 B.C.) can be worn with perfect propriety to-day
(360 B.C.) if merely it has escaped without severe use or moth holes.
It may be more usual this year to wear one’s garments a little higher
or a little more trailing than formerly; but _that_ is simply a matter
for a shifting of the pins or of the girdle.
As a result, the Athenian seldom troubles about his “spring” or
“winter” suit. His simple woolen garments wear a very long time; and
they have often been slowly and laboriously spun and woven by his wife
and her slave girls. Of course even a poor man will try to have a few
changes of raiment,—something solid and coarse for every day, something
of finer wool and gayer color for public and private festivals. The
rich man will have a far larger wardrobe, and will pride himself on not
being frequently seen in the same dress; yet even his outfit will seem
very meager to the dandies of a later age.
34. the Masculine Chiton, Himation, and Chlamya.—The essential
garments of an Athenian man are only two—the _chiton_ and the
_himation_. The chiton may be briefly described as an oblong of woolen
cloth large enough to wrap around the body somewhat closely, from the
neck down to just above the knees. The side left open is fastened by
fibulæ—elegantly wrought pins perhaps of silver or gold; in the closed
side there is a slit for the arm. There is a girdle, and, if one
wishes, the skirt of the chiton may be pulled up through it, and
allowed to hang down in front, giving the effect of a blouse. The man
of prompt action, the soldier, traveler, worker, is “well girded,”—his
chiton is drawn high, but the deliberate old gentleman who parades the
Agora, discussing poetry or statecraft, has his chiton falling almost
to a trailing length. Only occasionally short sleeves were added to
this very simple garment; they are considered effeminate, and are not
esteemed. If one’s arms get cold, one can protect them by pulling up
the skirt, and wrapping the arms in the blouse thus created.
An Athenian gentleman when he is in the house wears nothing but his
chiton; it is even proper for him to be seen wearing nothing else upon
the streets, but then more usually he will add an outer cloak,—his
_himation_.
The himation is even simpler than the chiton. It is merely a generous
oblong woolen shawl. There are innumerable ways of arranging it
according to the impulse of the moment; but usually it has to be worn
without pins, and that involves wrapping it rather tightly around the
body, and keeping one of the hands confined to hold the cloak in place.
That is no drawback, however, to a genteel wearer. It proclaims to the
world that _he_ does not have to work, wearing his hands for a living;
therefore he can keep them politely idle.[*] The adjustment of the
himation is a work of great art. A rich man will often have a special
slave whose business it is to arrange the hang and the folds before his
master moves forth in public; and woe to the careless fellow if the
effect fails to display due elegance and dignity!
[*] Workingmen often wore no himation, and had a kind of chiton (an
exömis) which was especially arranged to leave them with free use of
their arms.
There is a third garment sometimes worn by Athenians. Young men who
wish to appear very active, and genuine travelers, also wear a
_chlamys_, a kind of circular mantle or cape which swings jauntily over
their shoulders, and will give good protection in foul weather.
There are almost no other masculine garments. No shirts (unless the
chiton be one), no underwear. In their costume, as in so many things
else, the Athenians exemplify their oft-praised virtue of simplicity.
35. The Dress of the Women.—The dress of the women is like that of the
men, but differs, of course, in complexity. They also have a
chiton,[*] which is more elaborately made, especially in the
arrangement of the blouse; and probably there is involved a certain
amount of real _sewing;_[+] not merely of _pinning_.
[*] This robe was sometimes known by the Homeric name of _peplos_.
[+] Probably with almost all Greek garments the main use of the needle
was in the embroidery merely, or in the darning of holes and rents. It
was by no means an essential in the real manufacture.
Greater care is needed in the adjustment of the “zone” (girdle), and
half sleeves are the rule with women, while full sleeves are not
unknown. A Greek lady again cannot imitate her husband, and appear in
public in her chiton only. A himation, deftly adjusted, is absolutely
indispensable whenever she shows herself outside the house.
These feminine garments are all, as a rule, more elaborately
embroidered, more adorned with fringes and tassels, than those of the
men. In arranging her dress the Athenian lady is not bound by the
rigid precepts of fashion. Every separate toilette is an opportunity
for a thousand little niceties and coquetries which she understands
exceedingly well. If there is the least excuse for an expedition
outside the house, her ladyship’s bevy of serving maids will have a
serious time of it. While their mistress cools herself with a huge
peacock-feather fan, one maid is busy over her hair; a second holds the
round metallic mirror before her; a third stands ready to extend the
jewel box whence she can select finger rings, earrings, gold armlets,
chains for her neck and hair, as well as the indispensable brooches
whereon the stability of the whole costume depends. When she rises to
have her himation draped around her, the directions she gives reveal
her whole bent and character. A dignified and modest matron will have
it folded loosely around her entire person, covering both arms and
hands, and even drawing it over her head, leaving eyes and nose barely
visible. Younger ladies will draw it close around the body so as to
show the fine lines of their waists and shoulders. And in the summer
heat the himation (for the less prudish) will become a light shawl
floating loose and free over the shoulders, or only a kind of veil
drawn so as to now conceal, now reveal, the face.
Children wear miniature imitations of the dress of their elders. Boys
are taught to toughen their bodies by refraining from thick garments in
cold weather. In hot weather they can frequently be seen playing about
with very little clothing at all!
36. Footwear and Head Coverings.—Upon his feet the Athenian frequently
wears nothing. He goes about his home barefoot; and not seldom he
enjoys the delight of running across the open greensward with his
unsandaled feet pressing the springing ground; but normally when he
walks abroad, he will wear _sandals_, a simple solid pair of open soles
tied to his feet by leather thongs passing between the toes. For hard
country walking and for hunting there is something like a high leather
boot,[*] though doubtless these are counted uncomfortable for ordinary
wear. As for the sandals, simple as they are, the Attic touch of
elegance is often upon them. Upon the thongs of the sandals there is
usually worked a choice pattern, in some brilliant color or even gilt.
[*] Actors, too, wore a leather boot with high soles to give them extra
height—the _cothurnus_.
The Athenians need head coverings even less than footgear. Most of
them have thick hair; baldness is an uncommon affliction; everybody is
trained to walk under the full glare of Helios with little discomfort.
Of course certain trades require hats, _e.g._ sailors who can be almost
identified by their rimless felt caps. Genteel travelers will wear
wide-brimmed hats; but the ladies, as a rule, have no headgear besides
their tastefully arranged hair, although they will partly atone for the
lack, by having a maid walk just behind them with a gorgeously
variegated parasol.
37. The Beauty of the Greek Dress.—Greek Costume, then, is something
fully sharing in the national characteristics of harmony, simplicity,
individuality. It is easy to see how admirably this style of dress is
adapted to furnish over ready models and inspiration for the
sculptor.[*] Unconventional in its arrangement, it is also
unconventional in its color. A masculine crowd is not one unmitigated
swarm of black and dark grays or browns, as with the multitude of a
later age. On the contrary, white is counted as theoretically the most
becoming color on any common occasion for either sex;[+] and on
festival days even grave and elderly men will appear with chitons
worked with brilliant embroidery along the borders, and with splendid
himatia of some single clear hue—violet, red, purple, blue, or yellow.
As for the costume of the groom at a wedding, it is far indeed from the
“conventional black” of more degenerate days. He may well wear a
purple-edged white chiton of fine Milesian wool, a brilliant scarlet
himation, sandals with blue thongs and clasps of gold, and a chaplet of
myrtle and violets. His intended bride is led out to him in even more
dazzling array. Her white sandal-thongs are embroidered with emeralds,
rubies, and pearls. Around her neck is a necklace of gold richly
set,—and she has magnificent golden armlets and pearl eardrops. Her
hair is fragrant with Oriental nard, and is bound by a purple fillet
and a chaplet of roses. Her ungloved fingers shine with jewels and
rings. Her main costume is of a delicate saffron, and over it all,
like a cloud, floats the silvery tissue of the nuptial veil.
[*] “The chiton became the mirror of the body,” said the late writer
Achilles Tatius.
[+] No doubt farmers and artisans either wore garments of a
non-committal brown, or, more probably, let their originally white
costume get utterly dirty.
38. Greek Toilet Frivolities.—From the standpoint of inherent fitness
and beauty, this Athenian costume is the noblest ever seen by the
world. Naturally there are ill-advised creatures who do not share the
good taste of their fellows, or who try to deceive the world and
themselves as to the ravages of that arch-enemy of the Hellene,—Old
Age. Athenian women especially (though the men are not without their
follies) are sometimes fond of rouge, false hair, and the like. Auburn
hair is especially admired, and many fine dames bleach their tresses in
a caustic wash to obtain it. The styles of feminine hair dressing seem
to change from decade to decade much more than the arrangements of the
garments. Now it is plaited and crimped hair that is in vogue, now the
more beautiful “Psyche-knots”; yet even in their worst moods the
Athenian women exhibit a sweet reasonableness. They have not yet
fallen into the clutches of the Parisian hairdresser.
The poets, of course, ridicule the foibles of the fair sex.[*]
Says one:—
The golden hair Nikylla wears
Is hers, who would have thought it?
She swears ’tis hers, and true she swears
For I know where she bought it!
And again:—
You give your cheeks a rosy stain,
With washes dye your hair;
But paint and washes both are vain
To give a youthful air.
An art so fruitless then forsake,
Which, though you much excel in,
You never can contrive to make
Old Hecuba young Helen.
[*] Translated in Falke’s _Greece and Rome_ (English translation, p.
69). These quotations probably date from a time considerably later
than the hypothetical period of this sketch; but they are perfectly
proper to apply to conditions in 360 B.C.
But enough of such scandals! All the best opinion—masculine and
feminine—frowns on these follies. Let us think of the simple,
dignified, and æsthetically noble costume of the Athenians as not the
least of their examples to another age.