The τρίβων worn by Spartans and people of austere or Laconizing tendencies, like Socrates and the Cynic philosophers, was probably a scanty Doric chiton made in some coarse homespun material; men of leisure and elderly men preferred to wear a longer chiton with sleeves either sewn or fastened with brooches; this was the case even after the reaction against anything savouring of Orientalism which followed the Persian wars. If we are to consider the monuments, both sculpture and vases, as giving a realistic picture of Greek life, we shall see that men frequently wore only the himation; but it is difficult to believe that this was so, except, perhaps, in the height of summer.
The methods of draping the himation were the same for men as for women, except that after the period of the early black-figured vases we do not find men represented wearing it laid on both shoulders like a shawl; nor do they ever wear it drawn up over the head, although in the sunshine of a southern summer some such protection against the heat might be considered indispensable. The favourite style for men was that of laying the one end on the left shoulder and drawing the rest round the body from the back and throwing the other end either across the left forearm or over the shoulder.[97] This was called wearing the himation ἐπὶ δεξιὰ, presumably because it was drawn closely round the right side of the body. It was considered a mark of good breeding to throw it over the shoulder and let it hang down in such a way as to cover the left arm completely.[98] To wear it ἐπ᾽ ἀριστέρα, “over the left side,” was a mark of boorishness, as we gather from Aristophanes Birds,[99] where Poseidon taunts the barbarian Triballus for wearing it so.
Fig. 20.—Vase-painting—British Museum.
[Face page 54.
Fig. 21.—The Doric Himation.
[Face page 54.
Fig. 22.—Vase-painting by Euphronios—Munich.
[Furtwängler and Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei, 22.]