Fig. 5.—Statuette from Petsofa.
[Face page 12.
On none of the examples of costume quoted above is there any indication of fastening; the garments are obviously constructed by an elaborate system of sewing, but the means by which they were held in place on the figure is not represented, except in the case of the bodices of the goddess and her votary, which are laced across by cords. The use of fibulæ is nowhere indicated in art; and no fibulæ have been found, except in the later Mycenæan graves, which in all probability belong to the Achæan civilization introduced into Greece by the invasions from Central Europe.[19] A fragmentary hand from Petsofa has a bracelet represented in white paint, which is clearly fastened by means of a button and loop; since this method of fastening was known to the Cretans, it is probable that the ladies’ skirts were fastened at the waist by buttons and loops, the fastening being concealed by the belt, as is the case with the modern blouse and skirt costume.
It has been pointed out by Mr J. L. Myres[20] that this jacket and apron type of dress is commonly worn at the present day by the peasants of the mountainous districts of Europe, chiefly in Italy, Switzerland, the Tyrol, Norway, and the Pyrenees. In Norway and Switzerland, moreover, we find the addition of a fan-like head-dress analogous to that represented in Minoan art. The appearance of the same kind of costume in Crete in the third millennium before our era merely serves to show that the type of dress need not necessarily be a modern development, but may possibly claim greater antiquity than has hitherto been supposed. The question of survival in the Ægean is interesting; as late as Tournefort’s[21] time, the inhabitants of some of the islands—for example, Mycone—appear to have worn a dress composed of a tight jacket and flounced skirt, with the addition of some Turkish elements; in the remoter islands there is a possibility—but it is little more than a possibility—that this may be a case of survival; in any case, the type seems to have disappeared in the eighteenth or early nineteenth century.[22]
II
HOMERIC
Turning to the various passages in the Homeric poems which refer to dress, we find that there is very little likelihood that they can be intended to describe the kind of costume dealt with above under the name of “Pre-Hellenic Dress.” The words used, and the accounts of the process of dressing, have no meaning, unless we suppose them to refer to the draped type of costume as opposed both to the close-fitting jacket type and to the dressing-gown type, consisting of a loose-sleeved garment opening down the front. The question of the kind of dress actually worn by the Trojan and Achæan heroes is not one to be entered into here; possibly it may have been the same as that reflected in the art of the Minoan and Mycenæan peoples; indeed, if the Trojans represent the older race which inhabited the shores of the Ægean, and the Achæans the invaders who came down upon them from the north, there is every probability that the former wore the pre-Hellenic dress, and the latter introduced the new Hellenic draped type. The use of the epithets βαθύκολπος and βαθύζωνος, “deep-bosomed” and “deep-girdled,” in the Homeric poems perhaps has some bearing on this point. Referring respectively to the deep hollow between the breasts and to the girdle cutting deep into the figure, they might well be applied to the wasp-waisted ladies of Knossos. It is significant to notice that βαθύκολπος is used only of Trojan women,[23] βαθύζωνος only of barbarian captives;[24] possibly the poet may be unconsciously referring to the difference between the dress of the older race and that of their Achæan conquerors.
However that may be, in most cases Homer ascribes the same kind of costume to Achæans and Trojans alike; he is singing of deeds that happened many years, perhaps even two or three centuries, before his day, and being no archæologist, he imagines his heroes to have dressed as his own contemporaries did; he is acting no differently from the Italian masters, who painted their Madonnas in mediæval costume.
We find in Homer many differences in the nomenclature used when speaking of men’s and women’s dresses respectively. The words χιτών and χλαῖνα are applied exclusively to men’s costume, πέπλος and κρήδεμνον exclusively to women’s, whereas the word φᾶρος is the only one used indifferently for either; both men and women alike fasten their garments with brooches or pins of some kind (περόνη, ἐνετή) and with girdles (ζώνη, ζωστήρ). Many of the words applied to articles of wearing-apparel are also used to signify coverings for beds, seats, etc.: such are χλαῖνα, ῥήγεα, πέπλος, φᾶρος; the last is used also of sails and of the shroud of Laertes.[25] This being the case, we must infer that they were not made-up garments, but large square or oblong pieces of material which could be used for other purposes besides clothing; the Homeric dress, therefore, must belong to the draped type rather than to any other.
The men’s dress in Homer regularly consists of two pieces—the χιτών, or under-garment, and a cloak called variously χλαῖνα, φᾶρος, or, in one case, λώπη.[26] Warriors sometimes wore a skin instead of the mantle. For example, in Iliad, x., 22, Agamemnon is described as putting on a lion’s skin, and a few lines further on Menelaus appears wearing a dappled leopard’s skin.