Of armlets and bracelets there was likewise a great variety. Some worn above the elbow were denominated Brachionia, others called Pericarpia, or Echinoi encircled the wrists and were often in the form of twisted snakes of gold, which the woman-hater in Lucian would have converted into real serpents.[[207]] The Psellia or chain bracelets were much worn; the Clidones adorned the rich and luxurious only. As stockings were not in common use, and shoes and sandals frequently dispensed with when within doors, fashion required that the feet and ankles should not remain unadorned. Ancient writers, accordingly, enumerate several kinds of anklets, or bangles, all of gold, and varying only in form, the distinction between which I have been unable to discover. The Ægle,[Ægle,] the Pede and the Periscelides were so many ornaments for the instep or ankle.[[208]]
Among the ornaments for the bosom we find the Ægis, evidently like the ægis of Athena, a sort of rich covering with two hemispherical caps to receive the breasts, such as we find worn by the Bayadères of the Dekkan. Extending from this on either side, or passing over its lower edge was the Maschalister, a broad belt which covered the armpits, though in Herodotus the word merely signifies a sword-belt.[[209]]
Like all other delicate and luxurious women, the Grecian ladies displayed upon their fingers a profusion of rings, of which some were set with signets, others with jewels remarkable for their colour and brilliance. To each of these their copious language supplied a distinct name.[[210]] Other female ornaments are spoken of by the comic poets; but in their descriptions it is difficult to distinguish satire from information. Among these were the Leroi, golden drops attached to the tunic; the Ochthoiboi, which seem to have been a sort of rich tassels; the Helleboroi, ornaments shaped perhaps like the leaves or flowers of that plant; and the Pompholuges, which, though left unexplained by the commentators, probably signified a large clear kind of bead, as the word originally meant a “water-bubble,” which a transparent bead resembles.[[211]]
The Athenian ladies, likewise, displayed their taste for luxury and splendour in their shoes and sandals.[[212]] Like our own fashionable dames, they seldom contented themselves with articles of home manufacture, but imported whatever was considered most elegant or tasteful from the neighbouring countries. Sometimes, perhaps, the fashion only and the name were imported, as in the case of the Persian half-boot, fitting tight to the ankle.[[213]] The same thing may probably be said of the Sicyonian slipper. But there was an elegant sandal, ornamented with gold, which, down to a very late period, continued to be imported from Patara, in Lycia.[Lycia.][[214]] Snow-white slippers of fine linen, flowered with needlework, were occasionally worn; and from many ancient statues it would seem, that something very like stockings had been already introduced. Short women, desirous of adding, if not a cubit, at least a few inches to their stature, adopted the use of baukides with high cork heels, and soles of great thickness.[[215]]
An Athenian beauty usually spent the whole morning in the important business of the toilette.[[216]] The crowd of maids who attended on these occasions appears to have exceeded in number the assistants at similar rites in a modern dressing-room, the principle of the division of labour having been pushed to its greatest extent. Like Hera, who was said by mythologists to renew her virgin charms as often as she bathed in the fountain of Canathos,[[217]] the Attic lady appeared to undergo diurnal rejuvenescence under the hands of her maids.[[218]] Her lovely face grew tenfold more lovely by their arts. Clustering in interesting groups around her, some held the silver basin and ewer, others the boxes of tooth-powder, or black paint for the eyebrows, the rouge pots or the blanching varnish, the essence-bottles or the powder for the head, the jewel-cases or the mirrors.[[219]] But on nothing was so much care bestowed as on the hair.[[220]] Auburn, the colour of Aphrodite’s tresses[[221]] in Homer, being considered most beautiful,[[222]] drugs were invented in which the hair being dipped, and exposed to the noon-day sun, it acquired the coveted hue, and fell in golden curls over their shoulders.[[223]] Others, contented with their own black hair, exhausted their ingenuity in augmenting its rich gloss, steeping it in oils and essences, till all the fragrance of Arabia seemed to breathe around them. Those waving ringlets which we admire in their sculpture were often the creation of art, being produced by curling-irons heated in ashes;[[224]] after which, by the aid of jewelled fillets and golden pins, they were brought forward over the smooth white forehead,[[225]] which they sometimes shaded to the eyebrows, leaving a small ivory space in the centre, while behind they floated in shining profusion down the back. When decked in this manner, and dressed for the harem[[226]] in their light flowered sandals and semi-transparent robes already described, they were scarcely farther removed from the state of nature than the Spartan maids themselves.
Contrary to the fashion prevalent in modern times the bosom, however, was always closely covered, because being extremely full shaped it began very early to lose its firmness and beauty.[[227]] Earrings, set with Red-Sea pearls of great price, depended from their ears, and an orbicular crown studded with Indian jewels surmounted and contrasted strikingly with their dark locks. Add to these the jewelled throat bands, and costly and glittering necklaces. Their cheeks though sometimes pale by nature, blushed with rouge,[[228]] and they even possessed the art to superinduce over this artificial complexion that peach-like purple bloom which belongs to the very earliest, dewiest dawn of beauty. To the tint of the rose they could likewise add that of the lily. White paint was in common use,[[229]] not merely among unmarried women, and ladies of equivocal reputation, but with matrons the chastest and most prudent in Athens, for we find that pattern of an Attic gentlewoman, the wife of Ischomachos, practising after marriage every delusive art of the toilette.[[230]]
It by no means follows that all this attention[[231]] to dress had any other object than to please their husbands; for the Turkish Sultanas who pass their lives in the most rigid seclusion are no less sumptuous in their apparel; but we know that at Athens, as in London, much of this care was designed to excite admiration out of doors. For it is highly erroneous to transfer to Athens the ideas of female seclusion acquired from travellers in the East, where no such rigid seclusion was ever known. Husbands, indeed, who had cause, or supposed they had, to be jealous, might be put on the rack by beholding the crowds of admirers who flocked around their wives the moment they issued into the streets. But there was no remedy. The laws and customs of the country often forced the women abroad to assist at processions and perform their devotions at the shrines of various goddesses.[[232]]
The dress of men included many of the garments worn by women; for example, the chiton of which there were several kinds, some with and some without sleeves. Among the latter was the Exomis,[[233]] a short tunic worn by aged men and slaves, but the name was sometimes applied to a garment thrown loosely round the body, and to the chiton with one sleeve.[[234]] Over this in Homeric times was worn as a defence against the cold, the Chlaina[[235]] a cloak strongly resembling a highlander’s tartan, or the burnoose of the Bedouin Arab. It was, in fact, a square piece of cloth, occasionally with the corners rounded off, which, passing over the left shoulder, and under the right arm, was again thrown over the left shoulder, leaving the spear arm free.[[236]] This is what the poet means where he terms the Chlaina double. It was wrapped twice round the breast, and fastened over the left shoulder by a brooch.[[237]] Even this, however, was not deemed sufficient in very cold weather, and a cloak of skins sown together with thongs was wrapped about the body as a defence against the rain or snow. Some persons appear to have worn skin-cloaks all the year round, for we find Anaxagoras, in the midst of summer at Olympia, putting on his when he foresaw there would be rain.[[238]] Rustics also appear to have considered a tunic and skin-cloak necessary to complete their costume.[[239]]
The Dorian style of dress formed the point of transition from the simple elegance of the Homeric period to the elaborate splendour of the historic age at Athens. In this mode of clothing, a modern author remarks, a peculiar taste was displayed, an antique simplicity “equally removed from the splendour of Asiatics, and the uncleanliness of barbarians.”[[240]] They preserved the use of the Homeric chiton, or woollen shirt, and over this wore also the Chlaina or Himation, in the manner described above. To these was added the Chlamys, which, as the Spartan laws prohibited dyeing, was universally white, and denominated Hololeukos.[[241]]
It was of Thessalian or Macedonian origin, of an oblong form, the points meeting on the right shoulder, where they were fastened with a clasp. This garment was not in use in the heroic ages, and the earliest mention of it occurs in Sappho;[[242]] but when once introduced, it quickly grew fashionable, at first among the young men, afterwards as a military cloak. At Athens it was regarded as a mark of effeminacy, and was fastened with a gold or jewelled brooch on the breast.[[243]]