Fig. 87.
about a foot with water, which is always flowing fresh from the heads of animals below the capitals of the pillars; probably the water was led through the pipes passing from column to column, on which the women have hung their clothes. The women, with their hair plaited in single braids to prevent it getting wet, are standing under the douches and letting the water pour over their head, back, arms, and legs, while they rub themselves with their hands. We cannot tell whether women of the better classes also went to these public baths; in any case, the middle classes, who probably had no bathrooms of their own, formed the greater part of the attendance.
Bathing was accompanied by anointing and rubbing with oils or other fragrant essences; this, too, we often find represented on monuments, where a lady herself makes use of a little oil-flask (λήκυθος), or an attendant rubs her body with it. In fact, rich women always had a slave who acted as lady’s-maid to help them at their toilet, and on the many toilet scenes depicted on the Greek vases we seldom see women dressing without assistance. Thus, in Fig. [88] (Frontis.), two women are helping a third to dress; the mistress stands in the middle, and is about to fasten her girdle, and, in order not to be hindered by the falling folds of her chiton, she is holding the tip in her mouth; in front of her stands an attendant holding a mirror; another woman standing behind her, apparently rather a friend than a slave, holds a jewel casket in the left hand, and with the right hands a pearl necklace taken from it to the lady. On Attic Stelai we very commonly find a lady represented with her lady’s-maid and jewel casket. The use of the mirror is also a favourite subject in works of art, especially connected with the arrangement of the hair and veil Thus, in
Fig. 89.
Fig. 86, we find that even Hera, before showing herself to Paris, finds it necessary, with the help of her hand-mirror, to make some slight alteration in her veil. A similar scene is depicted by the pretty terra-cotta from Tanagra (Fig. [89]). Fig. [90] represents
