The head-dress of women also underwent many changes. We do not know how their hair was bound up and arranged in the Homeric period, when it was treated with sweet-scented oils and pomades, which were, in fact, very common during the heroic period. Mention is especially made of a cap-like arrangement of the hair, and a plaited braid connected with it. Helbig believes he has recognised the same fashion in the women’s head-dress on old Etruscan pictures, on which it is possible to distinguish a high-pointed cap and a band laid over it. However this may be, Andromache’s head-dress, as described by Homer, has a distinctly Oriental character. In the next period the works of art are again our best guide. They show us that, apart from external ornament, the head-dress of men and women in ancient times was essentially similar. We find the long hair either falling freely or in single plaits down the back (compare Figs. [11] and following); curls falling on the shoulders; and little ringlets surrounding the forehead; we find the hair tied up at the back of the neck, or the mode described above of tying it up in band-like fashion in several places. (Compare also the peculiar hair-knot in Fig. [11].) We also find that arrangement of double plaits laid several times round the back of the head, which has been claimed as the crobylus, although this is only mentioned as a male head-dress. This last fashion is even found in the graceful Caryatides of the Erechtheum, but here it is probably a reminiscence of the old custom, natural in these female figures, which are, as it were, in the service of the goddess. Otherwise none of these fashions continue beyond the last quarter of the fifth century, either for women or men.
| Fig. 53. | Fig. 54. |
About the middle of the fifth century the fashion
| Fig. 55. | Fig. 56. |
of wearing many-coloured kerchiefs, covering the greater part of the hair, must have been very prevalent. Polygnotus paints his women thus, and we find the same fashion in the pediments of Olympia, and on some of the female figures on the Eastern Parthenon frieze, and on numerous vase paintings of that period. (Compare Fig. [17], where the kerchief even seems to develop into a cap, with a bow at the apex.) But at the same period, when the men began to emancipate themselves from the stiff head-dresses, and to wear their hair in a natural manner, a simple and beautiful fashion also became commoner among the women. The hair was usually parted in the middle and either fell in slight ripples loosely down the back or else was drawn up into a knot at the back of the head. (Compare Figs. [20] and [20].) The latter fashion, which we still call the “Greek knot,” is the commonest and most beautiful in the next period too. Sometimes the knot fell far down the neck (compare Figs. [51] and [52]), which was certainly the most graceful, or else it was higher up the head (compare Fig. [53]), where the hair is combed upwards from the face, or else (compare Fig. [54]) the knot developed into a flattened nest or wreath. A simple ornament frequently found is a narrow band or fillet entwined with the hair or laid around the hair and forehead. (Compare Figs. [16], [20], [24], and [52].) Kerchiefs were also much worn afterwards, sometimes put on in such a way as to cover almost the whole hair (compare Figs. [55] and [55]), sometimes only a part, so that the hair at the back of the head is visible beneath it. (Compare Fig. [25].) There were also a variety of metal ornaments, which were fastened into the hair either to keep it firm or else for decorative purposes—golden circlets or diadems (compare Fig. [57]), pins, etc. Detailed consideration of these ornaments show us that the age of Pericles and that immediately following it, were the periods when the style and technique attained their highest development and artistic beauty. Thus dress, hair, and ornament all combined harmoniously to represent the people of that age in surroundings corresponding in the fullest degree to the poetic and artistic attainments of the epoch.