Having now described the condition and influence of women, it will be necessary to institute some inquiry into one of the principal means by which they achieved and maintained their empire. At first sight, perhaps, the disquisition may appear scarcely to deserve all the pains I have bestowed upon it; but, as the dress of the ancients is connected on the one hand with the progress of the useful arts, as spinning, weaving, dyeing, &c., and on the other with the forms and developement of sculpture, it can scarcely, when well considered, be reckoned among matters of trifling moment. Besides, the costume and ornaments of a people often afford important aid towards comprehending the national character, constituting, in fact, a sort of practical commentary on the mental habits, and tone and principles of morals, prevailing at any given period among them.

The raiment of the Grecian women, of which the public generally obtain some idea from the remaining monuments of ancient art, may be said to have been regulated by the same laws of taste which presided over the developement of the national genius in sculpture and painting. Every article of their habiliment appeared to harmonise exactly with the rest. Nothing of that grotesque extravagance which in some of the fleeting vagaries of fashion transforms our modern ladies, with their inflated balloon sleeves and painfully deformed waists, into so many whalebone and muslin hobgoblins, was ever allowed to disfigure the rich contour of a Greek woman. As she proceeded lovely from the hands of nature, her pride was to preserve that loveliness. Her garments, accordingly, were not fashioned with a view to disguise or conceal her form, but by graceful folds, flowing curves, ornaments rich and tastefully disposed, to afford as many indications of its matchless symmetry and perfection as might be compatible with her sex’s delicacy and the severity of public morals. Consequently the art of dress, like every other conversant with taste and beauty, reached in Greece its highest perfection. A woman draped according to the prevalent fashion in the best ages of the Athenian commonwealth, was an object not to be equalled for elegance or grace. From the snow white veil which probably shaded her countenance and ringlets of auburn or hyacinth, to the sandals of white satin and gold that ornamented her small ankle, the eye could detect nothing gaudy, affected, or out of keeping. There was magnificence without ostentation, brilliance of colours, but a brilliance that harmonised with whatever was brought in contact with it; the splendour of numerous jewels and trinkets of gold, but no appearance of display, or of a wish to dazzle. Everything appeared to stand where it did, because it was its proper place.

But in Sparta where there existed little tendency towards art or refinement,^[134] a costume the antipodes of all this prevailed. That of the virgins differed in some respects from that of the matrons, and the difference arose out of a peculiar feature of manners, in which, if in nothing else, they resembled the English. In several Ionic countries, as at present on the continent, girls were previously to marriage guarded with much strictness. At Sparta, on the contrary, and among the Dorians generally,^[135] they were permitted, as in England, to walk abroad in company with young men, and, of course, to form attachments at their own discretion. In this, too, as in their dress, they only preserved the customs of antiquity; for in Homer we find the Trojan ladies making anxious inquiries of Hector respecting their relations and friends in the field, and going forth from their houses attended only by their maids. The married women led more retired lives, and when they went abroad fashion required that they should be veiled, as we learn from the following apophthegm of Charillos, who being asked why the maidens went abroad uncovered while the matrons concealed their faces, replied: “Because it is incumbent on the former to find themselves husbands, on the latter only to keep those they have.”^[136]

The principal, or, rather, the sole garment of the Dorian maidens was the chiton, or himation,^[137] made of woollen stuff, and without sleeves, but fastened on either shoulder by a large clasp, and gathered on the breast by a kind of brooch. This sleeveless robe, which seldom reached more than half way to the knee, was moreover left open up to a certain point on both sides,^[138] so that the skirts or wings, flying open as they walked, entirely exposed their limbs, closely resembling the shift of the Bedouin women,^[139] slit up to the arm-pit, but gathered tight by a girdle about the waist. When the girdle was removed it reached to the calves of the legs,^[140] and would then, but for the side-slits, have been quite as becoming as the blue chemise of the modern Egyptian women, which is open in front from the neck to the waist.^[141] When dressed in this single robe, their whole form breathing health, and modesty in their countenance, there was no doubt a simple elegance in their appearance, little less attractive, perhaps, than the exquisite and elaborate mise of an Ionian or an Attic girl. In this costume Melissa, daughter of Procles, of Epidaurus, was habited when, as she poured out wine to her father’s labourers, Periander, the Corinthian,^[142] beheld and loved her. The married women, however, did not make their appearance in public en chemise, but when going abroad donned a second garment which seems to have resembled pretty closely their husbands’ himatia.^[143]

Of the simple wardrobe of a Doric lady, which in ancient times was that of all women of Hellenic race, exceedingly little can be said. It is altogether different with respect to that of the gentlewomen of Attica, where, though inferior in personal beauty to none, the women exhibited so much fertility in the matter of dress, that they appeared to depend on that alone for the establishment of their empire. For this reason it would be vain to pretend to describe all their vestments and ornaments, or the arts of the toilette by which they were adapted to their purposes. To do so properly would, in fact, require a volume. But all that can be crowded into one short chapter shall be given, since I am not deterred by any such scruples as formerly arrested the pen of a very learned writer, who apprehended that, if he proceeded, he might be supposed to have been rummaging the boudoir notes of an Athenian lady!^[144]

The primary garment,^[145] answering to the chemise of the moderns, was a white tunic reaching to the ground,^[146] in some instances sleeveless, and fastened on the shoulders with buttons, in others furnished with loose hanging sleeves descending to the wrist, and brought together at intervals upon the arm by silver or golden agraffes.^[147] It was gathered into close folds under the bosom by a girdle,^[148] or riband, sometimes fastened in front by a knot, sometimes by a clasp.^[149] This inner robe, made in the earlier ages of fine linen,^[150] manufactured in Attica, or imported from Tyre, Egypt, or Sidon, came, in after times, to be of muslin from Tarentum, or woven at home from Egyptian cotton. The use of linen, however, for this purpose was not wholly superseded. A very beautiful kind, from the island of Amorgos,^[151] one of the Cyclades, was often substituted down to a very late period in place of the byssos, or fine muslin of Egypt; and this insular fabric,^[152] whether snow-white or purple, would have rivalled the finest cambric, being of the most delicate texture and semi-transparent,^[153] like the Tarentine and Coan vests of the Roman ladies, the sandyx-coloured Lydian robe, or the silken chemises of the Turkish sultanas, described by Lady Montague.^[154] It is in a tunic of this linen that Lysistrata, in Aristophanes, advises the Athenian ladies to appear before their husbands in order to give full effect to the splendour of their charms.^[155]

Because the Amorginean linen was often, perhaps commonly, dyed purple, it has been inferred, that none purely white was produced; but this, as Bochart^[156] observes, is, probably, a mistake. At all events, it was of extraordinary fineness, superior, in the opinion of Suidas,^[157] even to the byssos and carbasos, or lawn of Cyprus, and appears to have been of a thin, gauze-like texture, like the drapery of “woven air” which Petronius^[158] throws around his female characters.

Over the chiton was worn a shorter robe not reaching below the knee, and confined above the loins by a broad riband. This also was, in some instances, furnished with sleeves, and of a rich purple or saffron colour, generally ornamented, like the chiton, with a broad border of variegated embroidery. To these, in order to complete the walking-dress, was added a magnificent mantle, generally purple, embroidered with gold, which, being thrown negligently over the shoulders,^[159] floated airily about the person, discovering the under garments exquisitely disposed for the purpose of displaying all the contours of the form, particularly of the waist and bosom. The Athenian ladies being, like our own, peculiarly jealous of possessing the reputation of a fine figure, and nature sometimes failing them, had recourse to art, and wore what, among milliners, I believe, are called bustles.^[160] I am sorry to be obliged to add, that there were, also, mothers at Athens who anticipated us in the absurdity of tight lacing, and invented corsets for the purpose of compressing the abdomen and otherwise reducing the figures of their daughters to some artificial standard which they had already begun to set up in defiance of nature.^[161] Some women, too, when apprehensive of growing fat, would collect on fine wool a quantity of summer dew, which they afterwards squeezed out and drank, this liquid having been supposed to be possessed of deleterious qualities, more particularly the ascending dew.^[162]

Like the eastern ladies of the present day, they seldom went abroad without their veil, which was a light fabric of transparent texture, white or purple, from Cos, or Laconia. It was thrown tastefully over the head, raised in front on the point of the sphendone,^[163] as in modern Italy by the comb, and hung waving on the shoulders and down the back in glittering folds. But this was not the only covering they made use of for their head. Those modern writers who have so thought are mistaken, since it is clear, both from contemporary testimony and numerous works of art still remaining, that very frequently they wore caps or bonnets. Several examples occur in Mr. Hope’s work, on the Costumes of the Ancients;^[164] and Mnesilochos, in Aristophanes, when putting on the disguise of a woman for the purpose of being present at the Festival of Demeter, like Clodius at that of the Bona Dea, desires to borrow from Agathon a net or mitre for the head. “Will you have my night-cap?” inquires the poet. “Exactly,” replies Euripides, “that is just what we want.”^[165]

But we have hitherto scarcely entered upon the list of their wardrobe, in enumerating some of the articles of which, I must crave the reader’s permission to employ the original terms, our language, in most cases, furnishing us with no equivalent. And, first, following the order of Pollux, who observes no principle of classification, we have the Epomis, a robe with sleeves, opposed to the Exomis, which had none. The Diploïdion, an ample cloak, or mantle, capacious enough to be worn double. The Hemidiploïdion, a more scanty mantle; the Katastiktos, adorned with flowers or figures of animals, or richly marked with spots, the Katagogis, the Epiblema, or cloak, and the Peplos,^[166] a word of very equivocal character, used to signify a veil or mantle, a sofa-carpet, or a covering for a chariot. Generally, it seems to have designated a garment of double the necessary size, that, at pleasure, it might be put on, or cast, like a cloak, over the whole body, as appears from the Peplos of Athena.^[167] That the word sometimes was used to signify a tunic appears from Xenophon, who says “the peplos being rent above, the bosom appeared.”^[168] He, however, considers it to have formed part of the male costume.

Another article of female dress was the Zoma, a short vest fitting close to the shape, and adorned at the bottom with fringe, as appears from a fragment of Æschylus in the Onomasticon. A character of Menander, too, exclaims,—“Don’t you perceive the nurse habited in her Zoma?”—for, adds Pollux, it was generally worn by old women. An elegant woollen dress, called Parapechu, white, but with purple sleeves, was imported from Corinth, and would appear to have been much worn by the Hetairæ.^[169] Other garments seem to have been affected by the middle class of citizens, who, being unable to dress in purple,^[170] the distinguishing colour of the wealthy and the noble, brought into fashion the Paruphes and Paralourges, robes adorned on either side with a purple stripe. As much dignity is supposed to belong to ample drapery, our citizen ladies took care not to be sparing of stuff, their dresses trailing to the ground, and displaying numerous folds, produced purposely at the extremity by a band passing round the edge. These garments were generally of linen; but when a lady, in Homer, is said to be wrapped in her shining mantle, the poet^[171] is supposed to intend a fine, light, woollen cloak, like the white burnooses of the Tunisian and Egyptian ladies.^[172]

Several sorts of dresses obtained their appellation from their colours; as the Crocotos, a saffron robe of ceremony, the Crocotion, a diminutive of the same; the Omphakinon, of the colour of unripe grapes, which, though prescriptively appropriated to women, was much affected by Alexander the Great. Modern ladies have delighted in flea-coloured dresses, and, in like manner, the ancients had theirs of asinine hue, called Killios, from a Doric name for the ass, and afterwards Onagrinos,^[173] which, if they really resembled the wild ass in hue, must have been exceedingly beautiful. There was a scarlet robe, with the appellation of Coccobaphes, the Sisys, a thick heavy cloak, likewise called Hyphandron Himation, resembling the Amphimallos, which had a double warp, and was hairy on both sides.^[174]

Not to extend this list of dresses beyond the patience of a milliner, we will now pass on to the principal ornaments for the head,^[175] in which the Greek ladies evinced extraordinary taste and invention.^[176] Among these one of the most elegant was the Ampyx, a fillet by which they confined their hair in front. It sometimes consisted of a piece of gold embroidery, the place of which was often supplied by a thin plate of pure gold, studded with jewels. Another Homeric ornament, the Kekruphalos,^[177] can only be alluded to as a critical puzzle which has baffled all the commentators, in which predicament the Plekte anadesme^[178] also stands; all that we know being, that it found its place in the female head-dress, though whether as a mitre or a diadem Apollonios is unable to determine. It may possibly have been, under another appellation, that graceful wreath or garland, consisting of fragrant flowers interwoven or bound together by their stems, described among female ornaments by Pollux.^[179]

Another article of the same ambiguous character was the Pylæon, supposed to have derived its name from φύλον, a leaf. Athenæus,^[180] on a subject of this kind, perhaps, one of the best authorities, describes it as the crown which, during certain festivals, the Spartans placed upon the head of Hera. Doubtless, however, the most tasteful and elegant of this class of female ornaments was the Kalyx, a golden syrinx or reed, passed like a ring over each several tress to keep it separate.^[181] Eustathius describes it as a ring resembling a full-blown, but not expanded, rose; and this explanation will not be inconsistent with that of Hesychius, if we suppose the golden tubes to have terminated in the form of that flower. The Strophion was a band or fillet^[182] with which women confined their hair, as we discover from many ancient statues. Parrhasios the artist, who used to bind his luxuriant locks with a white strophion, was therefore accused of effeminacy.^[183] The name, however, appears to have been applied to any kind of band, even to the broad belt worn to support the bosom: “My strophion being untied the walnuts fell out,” says the girl in Aristophanes.^[184] There was also an ornament of the same name worn by priests.^[185]

The Opisthosphendone,^[186] one of the female ornaments enumerated in a fragment of Aristophanes, was worn only on the stage. Its proper name sphendone it derived from its resemblance to a sling, being broad and elevated in front,^[187] and terminating in narrow points at the back of the head where it was tied. On the comic stage it was sometimes worn for sport with the fore part behind.^[188] The Anadesma^[189] was a gilded fillet or diadem of gold, used like the strophion for encircling the forehead. What was the precise use or form of the Xanion, another golden ornament fashionable in remote antiquity, could not be ascertained in the age of Pollux, who says that many writers supposed it to have been a comb.comb. Of this number are Hesychius, Suidas,^[190] and Phavorinus. But a learned modern conjectures with more probability, that it was some talismanic idol worn as a spell against the evil eye.^[191] In fact it is expressly observed in the Etymologicon Magnum,^[192] that the Hellenic women reckoned it among their phylacteries.

Of the ear-rings worn by Grecian women the variety was very great. The most ancient kind were called Hermata, of which mention occurs both in the Iliad and the Odyssey.^[193] They were usually adorned with three emerald drops,^[194] for which reason they were by the Athenians denominated Triopia or Triopides,^[195] and by the other Greeks Triopthalma or “the triple eye.” By this word, as an ancient grammarian informs us, some understood an animal like the beetle, supposed to have three eyes, whence a necklace with three hyaline or crystal eyes, depending from it in front, was likewise called by the same name. Pollux^[196] supposed the earrings of Hera to have been adorned with three diminutive figures in precious stones, or gold, probably of goddesses. The Diopos seems to have been an earring with two drops. The Helix appears in Homer^[197] rather to mean an earring than an armlet, and to have received its name from its circular shape or curvature; but the spiral gold rings round the walking-stick of Parrhasios are also called Helices by Athenæus.^[198] Another name for this sort of earring was Heliktes.^[199] In the Æolic dialect earrings were called Siglai, in the Doric Artiala. A particular kind denominated Enclastridia and Strobelia, by the comic poets, had gold drops in the form of a pine cone.^[200] Two very curious kinds of earrings were the Caryatides, and the Hippocampia, the former representing in miniature the architectural figures, so called, the latter little horses with tails ending in a fish. There were earrings, likewise, with drops in the forms of centaurs and other fantastic creations.^[201]

The names and figures of necklaces were scarcely less numerous.^[202] A jewelled collar fitting tight to the throat formed, under the name of Peritrachelion, the principal of these ornaments, of which another was the Perideraion.^[203] The Hypoderaion was as its name imports a necklace that hung low on the bosom, and the same was the case with the Hormos.^[204] On the Tantheuristos Hormos little information can be obtained, for which reason the commentators would alter the text; but the most probable conjecture is, that it obtained its appellation from the flashing and glancing of the jewels depending from it upon the breast.^[205] The Triopis was a species of necklace distinguished for having three stars or eye-like gems depending from it as drops. This being the most fashionable necklace was known under a variety of names, as the Kathema, and Katheter, and Mannos or Monnos, among the Dorians.^[206]

Of armlets and bracelets there was likewise a great variety. Some worn above the elbow were denominated Brachionia, others called Pericarpia, or Echinoi encircled the wrists and were often in the form of twisted snakes of gold, which the woman-hater in Lucian would have converted into real serpents.^[207] The Psellia or chain bracelets were much worn; the Clidones adorned the rich and luxurious only. As stockings were not in common use, and shoes and sandals frequently dispensed with when within doors, fashion required that the feet and ankles should not remain unadorned. Ancient writers, accordingly, enumerate several kinds of anklets, or bangles, all of gold, and varying only in form, the distinction between which I have been unable to discover. The Ægle,Ægle, the Pede and the Periscelides were so many ornaments for the instep or ankle.^[208]

Among the ornaments for the bosom we find the Ægis, evidently like the ægis of Athena, a sort of rich covering with two hemispherical caps to receive the breasts, such as we find worn by the Bayadères of the Dekkan. Extending from this on either side, or passing over its lower edge was the Maschalister, a broad belt which covered the armpits, though in Herodotus the word merely signifies a sword-belt.^[209]

Like all other delicate and luxurious women, the Grecian ladies displayed upon their fingers a profusion of rings, of which some were set with signets, others with jewels remarkable for their colour and brilliance. To each of these their copious language supplied a distinct name.^[210] Other female ornaments are spoken of by the comic poets; but in their descriptions it is difficult to distinguish satire from information. Among these were the Leroi, golden drops attached to the tunic; the Ochthoiboi, which seem to have been a sort of rich tassels; the Helleboroi, ornaments shaped perhaps like the leaves or flowers of that plant; and the Pompholuges, which, though left unexplained by the commentators, probably signified a large clear kind of bead, as the word originally meant a “water-bubble,” which a transparent bead resembles.^[211]

The Athenian ladies, likewise, displayed their taste for luxury and splendour in their shoes and sandals.^[212] Like our own fashionable dames, they seldom contented themselves with articles of home manufacture, but imported whatever was considered most elegant or tasteful from the neighbouring countries. Sometimes, perhaps, the fashion only and the name were imported, as in the case of the Persian half-boot, fitting tight to the ankle.^[213] The same thing may probably be said of the Sicyonian slipper. But there was an elegant sandal, ornamented with gold, which, down to a very late period, continued to be imported from Patara, in Lycia.Lycia.^[214] Snow-white slippers of fine linen, flowered with needlework, were occasionally worn; and from many ancient statues it would seem, that something very like stockings had been already introduced. Short women, desirous of adding, if not a cubit, at least a few inches to their stature, adopted the use of baukides with high cork heels, and soles of great thickness.^[215]

An Athenian beauty usually spent the whole morning in the important business of the toilette.^[216] The crowd of maids who attended on these occasions appears to have exceeded in number the assistants at similar rites in a modern dressing-room, the principle of the division of labour having been pushed to its greatest extent. Like Hera, who was said by mythologists to renew her virgin charms as often as she bathed in the fountain of Canathos,^[217] the Attic lady appeared to undergo diurnal rejuvenescence under the hands of her maids.^[218] Her lovely face grew tenfold more lovely by their arts. Clustering in interesting groups around her, some held the silver basin and ewer, others the boxes of tooth-powder, or black paint for the eyebrows, the rouge pots or the blanching varnish, the essence-bottles or the powder for the head, the jewel-cases or the mirrors.^[219] But on nothing was so much care bestowed as on the hair.^[220] Auburn, the colour of Aphrodite’s tresses^[221] in Homer, being considered most beautiful,^[222] drugs were invented in which the hair being dipped, and exposed to the noon-day sun, it acquired the coveted hue, and fell in golden curls over their shoulders.^[223] Others, contented with their own black hair, exhausted their ingenuity in augmenting its rich gloss, steeping it in oils and essences, till all the fragrance of Arabia seemed to breathe around them. Those waving ringlets which we admire in their sculpture were often the creation of art, being produced by curling-irons heated in ashes;^[224] after which, by the aid of jewelled fillets and golden pins, they were brought forward over the smooth white forehead,^[225] which they sometimes shaded to the eyebrows, leaving a small ivory space in the centre, while behind they floated in shining profusion down the back. When decked in this manner, and dressed for the harem^[226] in their light flowered sandals and semi-transparent robes already described, they were scarcely farther removed from the state of nature than the Spartan maids themselves.

Contrary to the fashion prevalent in modern times the bosom, however, was always closely covered, because being extremely full shaped it began very early to lose its firmness and beauty.^[227] Earrings, set with Red-Sea pearls of great price, depended from their ears, and an orbicular crown studded with Indian jewels surmounted and contrasted strikingly with their dark locks. Add to these the jewelled throat bands, and costly and glittering necklaces. Their cheeks though sometimes pale by nature, blushed with rouge,^[228] and they even possessed the art to superinduce over this artificial complexion that peach-like purple bloom which belongs to the very earliest, dewiest dawn of beauty. To the tint of the rose they could likewise add that of the lily. White paint was in common use,^[229] not merely among unmarried women, and ladies of equivocal reputation, but with matrons the chastest and most prudent in Athens, for we find that pattern of an Attic gentlewoman, the wife of Ischomachos, practising after marriage every delusive art of the toilette.^[230]

It by no means follows that all this attention^[231] to dress had any other object than to please their husbands; for the Turkish Sultanas who pass their lives in the most rigid seclusion are no less sumptuous in their apparel; but we know that at Athens, as in London, much of this care was designed to excite admiration out of doors. For it is highly erroneous to transfer to Athens the ideas of female seclusion acquired from travellers in the East, where no such rigid seclusion was ever known. Husbands, indeed, who had cause, or supposed they had, to be jealous, might be put on the rack by beholding the crowds of admirers who flocked around their wives the moment they issued into the streets. But there was no remedy. The laws and customs of the country often forced the women abroad to assist at processions and perform their devotions at the shrines of various goddesses.^[232]

The dress of men included many of the garments worn by women; for example, the chiton of which there were several kinds, some with and some without sleeves. Among the latter was the Exomis,^[233] a short tunic worn by aged men and slaves, but the name was sometimes applied to a garment thrown loosely round the body, and to the chiton with one sleeve.^[234] Over this in Homeric times was worn as a defence against the cold, the Chlaina^[235] a cloak strongly resembling a highlander’s tartan, or the burnoose of the Bedouin Arab. It was, in fact, a square piece of cloth, occasionally with the corners rounded off, which, passing over the left shoulder, and under the right arm, was again thrown over the left shoulder, leaving the spear arm free.^[236] This is what the poet means where he terms the Chlaina double. It was wrapped twice round the breast, and fastened over the left shoulder by a brooch.^[237] Even this, however, was not deemed sufficient in very cold weather, and a cloak of skins sown together with thongs was wrapped about the body as a defence against the rain or snow. Some persons appear to have worn skin-cloaks all the year round, for we find Anaxagoras, in the midst of summer at Olympia, putting on his when he foresaw there would be rain.^[238] Rustics also appear to have considered a tunic and skin-cloak necessary to complete their costume.^[239]

The Dorian style of dress formed the point of transition from the simple elegance of the Homeric period to the elaborate splendour of the historic age at Athens. In this mode of clothing, a modern author remarks, a peculiar taste was displayed, an antique simplicity “equally removed from the splendour of Asiatics, and the uncleanliness of barbarians.”^[240] They preserved the use of the Homeric chiton, or woollen shirt, and over this wore also the Chlaina or Himation, in the manner described above. To these was added the Chlamys, which, as the Spartan laws prohibited dyeing, was universally white, and denominated Hololeukos.^[241]

It was of Thessalian or Macedonian origin, of an oblong form, the points meeting on the right shoulder, where they were fastened with a clasp. This garment was not in use in the heroic ages, and the earliest mention of it occurs in Sappho;^[242] but when once introduced, it quickly grew fashionable, at first among the young men, afterwards as a military cloak. At Athens it was regarded as a mark of effeminacy, and was fastened with a gold or jewelled brooch on the breast.^[243]

The men of Sparta, though less thinly clad than the women, still went abroad very scantily covered. Their Tribon, a variety of the himation,^[244] like the cloak of the poor Spanish gentleman, was clipped so close that it would barely enclose their persons, like a case, but was thick and heavy, and calculated to last. Accordingly, the youth were allowed only one of these per annum, so that, in warm weather, it is probable that, with an eye to saving it for winter, they exchanged it for that more lasting coat with which nature had furnished them.^[245] In the towns, however, and as often as they thought proper to put on the appearance of extreme modesty, the young Spartans drew close their cloaks around them so as to conceal their hands,^[246] the exhibiting of which has always been regarded as a mark of vulgarity. Hence the use of gloves, and the affectation of soft white hands in modern times. The same notions prevail even among the Turks, who, like Laertes in Homer, wear long sleeves to their pelisses for the purpose of defending the hand, to have which white and well-shaped is among them a mark of noble blood.

The Spartans had the good taste to suffer their beards and hair to grow long, and were at much pains to render them glossy and shining. Even in the field, contrary to the practice at Athens, they preserved this natural ornament of their heads, and we find them busy in combing and putting it in order on the very eve of battle.^[247] It was usually parted at the top, and was, in fact, the most becoming covering imaginable. But they set little value on cleanliness, and bathed and perfumed themselves seldom, being evidently of opinion,^[248] that a brave man ought not to be too spruce. However, having no object to gain by aping the exterior of mendicants, they eschewed the wearing of ragged cloaks, which, indeed, was forbidden by law.

But the Athenians ran into the opposite extreme.extreme. Wealthy, and fond of show, they delighted in a style of dress in the highest degree curious and magnificent, appearing abroad in flowing robes of the finest linen, dyed with purple and other brilliant colours.^[249] Beneath these they wore tunics of various kinds, which, though the fashion afterwards changed, were at first sleeveless, since we find the women, in Aristophanes, suffering the hair to grow under their arm-pits to avoid being discovered when, disguised as their husbands, they should hold up their hands to vote in the assembly.^[250]

Like the women, they affected much variety and splendour in their rings, which were sometimes set with a stone with the portrait engraved thereon of some friend or benefactor, as Athenion wore on one of his the portrait of Mithridates.^[251]

In his girdle and shoes,^[252] too, the Athenian betrayed his love of splendour. The hair worn long like that of the ladies,^[253] was curled or braided and built up in glossy masses on the crown of the head, or arranged artfully along the forehead by golden grasshoppers.^[254] But as all this pile of ringlets could not be thrust into the helmet, it was customary in time of war to cut the hair short, which the fashionable young men reckoned among its most serious hardships. Hats^[255] were not habitually worn, though on journeys or promenades undertaken during hot weather they formed a necessary part of the costume. Above all things the Athenian citizen affected extreme cleanliness and neatness in his person, and the same taste descended even to the slaves who in the streets could scarcely be distinguished by dress, hair, or ornaments, from their masters.^[256]

Even the philosophers, after holding out a long time, yielded to the influence of fashion, and, lest their profession should suffer, became exquisites in its defence. Your truly wise man, says an unexceptionable witness in a matter of this kind, has his hair closely shaved, (this was an eastern innovation,) but suffers his magnificent beard to fall in wavy curls over his breast. His shoes, fitting tight as wax, are supported by a net-work of thongs, disposed at equal distances up the small of the leg. A chlamys puffed out effeminately at the breast conceals his figure, and like a foreigner he leans contemplatively upon his staff.^[257]

But the art of dress appears to have received its greatest improvements in Ionia, where, according to Democritos, the Ephesian, both the garments, at one time in fashion, and the stuffs of which they consisted, were varied with a skill and fertility of invention worthy of a polished people. Some persons, he says, appeared in robes of a violet, others of a purple, others of a saffron colour, sprinkled with dusky lozenges. As at Athens, much attention was bestowed on the hair, which they adorned with small ornamental figures. Their vests were yellow, like a ripe quince, or purple, or crimson, or pure white. Even their tunics, imported from Corinth, were of the finest texture, and of the richest dyes, hyacinthine or violet, flame-coloured or deep sea-green. Others adopted the Persian calasiris,^[258] of all tunics the most superb, and there were those among the opulent who even affected the Persian actœa, a shawl-mantle of the costliest and most gorgeous appearance. It was formed of a close-woven, but light stuff, bedropped with golden beads in the form of millet-seed, which were connected with the tissue by slender eyes passing through the stuff and fastened by a purple thread.^[259]

Duris, on the authority of the poet Asios, draws a scarcely less extravagant picture of the luxury and magnificence of the Samians, who, on certain festivals, appeared in public adorned, like women, with glittering bracelets, their hair floating on their shoulders, skilfully braided into tresses. The words of Asios preserved in the Deipnosophist are as follow: “Thus proceed they to the fane of Hera, clothed in magnificent robes, with snowy pelisses, trailing behind them on the ground. Glistening ornaments of gold, like grasshoppers, surmount the crown of their heads, while their luxuriant tresses float behind in the wind, intermingled with golden chains. Bracelets of variegated workmanship adorn their arms, as the warrior is adorned by his shield thongs.”^[260] This excess of effeminate luxury, attended as everywhere else by enervating vices, terminated in the ruin of Samos. Similar manners in the Colophonians drew upon them a similar fate, and so in every other Grecian community; for men never learn wisdom by the example of others, but hurry on in the career of indulgence as if in the hope that Providence might overlook them, or set aside, in their favour, its eternal laws.