Miss Abrahams remarks that it is a mistake to suppose the Doric chiton to have been always fastened by pins or brooches, the Ionic always sewn on the shoulders (like those quoted from Assyrian monuments). In many Greek works of art, a chiton, clearly Ionic, is not sewn on the shoulders, but fastened down the upper arm by a series of small brooches.[24] The Assyrian dresses often answer to the Ionic chiton as thus described, but are without any brooches; and they are much shorter than the Ionic chiton, which, as thus described, is always longer than the height of the wearer; "the superfluous length is drawn up through the girdle to form a kolpos, which varies in depth according to the length of the chiton."[25] Not so in archaic Greek art! In any case, the Ionic dress as described is much longer than that of the Assyrian designs, has a kolpos, where they have none, and may either be sewn, like them, over the shoulder, or, unlike them, may be fastened over the upper arm with small brooches. Thus the Ionic, as described, is not the same as the Syrian, when the Ionic has brooches; nor is it, in my opinion the female costume of the Greek vases of the seventh and early sixth centuries.
In Layard's plate 67 A, from the Assyrian monuments, we see two of the captive women from Lachish kneeling and giving suck to their children. Their smocks are tight, girdled, and reach the heels. The dress of the upper woman has short sleeves on both arms, and the line where it crosses below the neck is perfectly well marked. How the infant, in these circumstances, reaches the natural source of nourishment is a deep mystery. In the figure of the lower woman certain faint lines appear to indicate that the dress has been opened at the centre of the neck and drawn aside over one breast. In neither case is there any trace of fibula, pin, button, or hook and eye, or loose hanging flap.
Pinza, however,[26] finds here an exact parallel to Hera's peplos in Iliad, xiv. 175, "fastened over her breast with clasps of gold," that is, "fastened on the shoulders by brooches or pins inserted down towards the breast"; and this, again, is said to be illustrated (as above) by the François vase. In answer, it may suffice to look at the two pictures, Layard 67 A and the Fates on the François vase. A simple button and button-hole, as Pinza remarks, in the dress below the centre of the neck, would, if withdrawn, do all that these Hebrew babies need. A man may illustrate this for himself by opening his shirt at the collar stud. The lower Hebrew woman might even be naked above the belt, like the kneeling woman just beneath her, were it not for the line of her dress across her neck. She has no sleeves. There is no sign of any openings at the shoulders or precisaménte come l' ἑανός della Epopea.
These Assyrian designs do not, it seems to me, encourage the opinion that Hebrew female costume of the date of Hezekiah, say, 690 B.C., was thrust into Homer about that period, at an Ionian "recension," and remained there unaltered by later "recensions."[27] The brooched costume of Homeric women is not the sewn costume of the Assyrian art. Other Hebrew ladies from Lachish wear the long piece of cloth over their heads, falling to the top of the ankle, and under that a tight smock of the same length. There is no girdle, the arms are bare, no fibulae are shown.[28] As the Syrian female costume never shows brooch, pin, or fibula, it certainly cannot be the origin of the Homeric or the Doric peplos, or of the brooched historical costume of Hellas.
Meanwhile a mere untutored man who looks at the Fates on the François vase thinks, I find, that the embroidered overlap is simply a short jacket worn over the peplos, This appears to be an error. But I had, as an amateur, come to the conclusion that the dress of the women in archaic Greek art often consists of sewn bodice and skirt, or of a tight jacket with a separate skirt, not of the peplos. Mr. Myres had already expressed similar opinions as to the late survival (or revival?) of that Aegean costume.[29]
Moreover, Mr. Walters, judging from vase-paintings, says, "The Ionic costume is introduced about 500 B.C., but its vogue does not seem to have lasted long at Athens."[30]
Perdrizet thought that the archaic costume more resembled the Mycenaean (or Aegean) than the Doric style; while Mr. Wace (in the catalogue of the museum at Sparta), Mr. Leaf, Mr. Dawkins, and others hold that the archaic dress is merely a long chiton tied at the waist. This question of the late survival, or revival, of non-Homeric Aegean female costume is thus delicate and obscure, though I have little or no doubt that it did in many cases survive or was revived.
The woman in the archaic sepulchral monument from Etruria (British Museum) wears a short jacket, and a very brief skirt; and a woman in a leaden figurine of Sparta wears only a girdle and a kirtle. She is running, and has thrown off her jacket or bodice. An archaic Victory, a terra cotta in the British Museum, wears only a very short skirt.[31] The Ariadne of an archaic Corinthian jewel, in a belted skirt, with no bodice, has already been cited.