There appears little doubt that the ancient Israelitish ladies, amongst their almost endless and most complex articles of adornment, numbered the corset in a tolerably efficient form, and of attractive and rich material, for we read in the twenty-fourth verse of the third chapter of Isaiah, referring to Divine displeasure manifested against the people of Jerusalem and Judah, and the taking away of matters of personal adornment from the women, that "instead of a girdle there should be a rent, and instead of well-set hair baldness, and instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth, and burning instead of beauty." Here we have the coarse, repulsive, unattractive sackcloth held up in marked contrast to the stomacher, which was without question a garment on which much attention was bestowed; and the following extract from Fullam's History of Woman shows how costly and magnificent was the costume of the period:—
"The bridal dress of a princess or Jewish lady of rank, whose parents possessed sufficient means, was of the most sumptuous description, as may be seen from the account given of that worn by the bride of Solomon in the Canticles, and the various articles enumerated show the additions which feminine taste had already made to the toilet. The body was now clothed in a bodice ascending to the network which inclosed, rather than concealed, the swelling bust; and jewelled clasps and earrings, with strings of pearls and chains of gold, gave a dazzling effect to Oriental beauty. In Solomon's reign silk is said to have been added to the resources of the toilet, and the sex owe to a sister, Pamphyla, the daughter of Patous, the discovery of this exquisite material, in which woman wrested from Nature a dress worthy of her charms.
"The ordinary attire of Jewish women was made of linen, usually white, without any intermixture of colours, though, in accordance with the injunction in Numbers xv. 38, they made 'fringes in the borders of their garments,' and 'put upon the fringe of the borders a riband of blue.' Judith, when she sought to captivate Holofernes, 'put on her garments of gladness, wherewith she was clad during the life of Manasses her husband; and she took sandals upon her feet, and put about her bracelets, and her chains, and her rings, and her earrings, and all her ornaments, and decked herself bravely to allure the eyes of all men that should see her.' Gemmed bangles encircled her ankles, attracting the glance to her delicate white feet; and Holofernes, by an Oriental figure of speech, is said to have been 'ravished by the beauty of her sandals.' Like the belles of Egypt she did not disdain, in setting off her charms, to have recourse to perfumes and cosmetics, and previously to setting out she 'anointed herself with precious ointment.' In another place Jezebel is said to 'paint her eyelids;' and Solomon, in the Proverbs, in describing the deceitful woman, adjures his son not to be 'taken with her eyelids,' evidently alluding to the use of collyrium. The Jewish beauty owed no slight obligation to her luxuriant tresses, which were decorated with waving plumes and strings of pearls; and in allusion to this custom, followed among the tribes from time immemorial, St. Paul affirms that 'a woman's ornament is her hair.' Judith 'braided the hair of her head and put a tire upon it;' and the headdress of Pharaoh's daughter, in the Canticles, is compared by Solomon to Carmel. No mention is made of Judith's mirror, but it was undoubtedly made of brass, like those described in Exodus xxxviii. 8 as 'the looking-glasses of the women which assembled at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.'"
CHAPTER II.
Homer the first ethnic writer who speaks of an article of dress allied to the Corset—The cestus or girdle of Venus—Terentius, the Roman dramatist, and his remarks on the practice of tight-lacing—The use of the strophium by the ladies of Rome, and the mitra of the Grecian belles—The peplus as worn by the ancients—Toilet of a Roman lady of fashion—Roman baths—Fashionable promenades of Ancient Rome—Boundless luxury and extravagance—Cleopatra and her jewels—The taper waists and tight-lacing of the ancient Roman ladies—Conquest of the Roman Empire.
Amongst the ethnic writers, Homer appears to be the first who describes an article of female dress closely allied to the corset. He tells us of the cestus or girdle of Venus, mother of the Loves and Graces, and of the haughty Juno, who was fabled to have borrowed it with a view to the heightening and increasing her personal attractions, in order that Jupiter might become a more tractable and orderly husband. The poet attributes most potent magical virtues to the cestus, but these are doubtlessly used in a figurative sense, and Juno, in borrowing the cestus, merely obtained from a lady of acknowledged elegance of figure a corset with which to set her own attractions off to the best possible advantage, so that her husband might be charmed with her improved appearance; and Juno appears to have been a very far-seeing and sensible woman. From periods of very remote antiquity, and with the gradual increase of civilisation, much attention appears to have been paid to the formation and cultivation of the female figure, and much the same means were had recourse to for the achievement of the same end prior to 560 B.C. as in the year 1868. Terentius, the Roman dramatist, who was born in the year 560, causes one of his characters, in speaking of the object of his affections, to exclaim—
"This pretty creature isn't at all like our town ladies, whose mothers saddle their backs and straitlace their waists to make them well-shaped. If any chance to grow a little plumper than the rest, they presently cry, 'She's an hostess,' and then her allowance must be shortened, and though she be naturally fat and lusty, yet by her dieting she is made as slender as a broomstick. By this means one woodcock or another is caught in their springe."