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Rh with white paint) regularly worn by the male sex, though we sometimes find a hood or wrapper, as on a lead statuette found in Laconia (fig. 16), but the Aegean women developed it into a bodice-and-skirt costume, well represented by the frescoes of Cnossus and the statuettes of the snake-goddess and her votaries there discovered. This transformation of the loin-cloth has been illustrated by Mr D. Mackenzie (see below) from Cretan seal-impressions. In place of the belted kilt of the men we find a belted panier or polonaise, considerably elongated in front, worn by Aegean women; and Mackenzie shows that this was repeated several times until it formed the compound skirt with a number of flounces which is represented on many Mycenaean gems. On a fresco discovered at Phaestus (Hagia Triada) (fig. 17) and a sealing from the same place this multiple skirt is clearly shown as divided; but this does not seem to have been the general rule. On other sealings we find a single overskirt with a pleated underskirt. The skirts were held in place by a thick rolled belt, and the upper part of the body remained quite nude in the earliest times; but from the middle Minoan period onward we often find an important addition in the shape of a low-cut bodice, which sometimes has sleeves, either tight-fitting or puffed, and ultimately develops into a laced corsage. A figurine from Petsofá (fig. 18) shows the bodice-and-skirt costume, together with a high pointed head-dress, in one of its most elaborate forms. The bodice has a high peaked collar at the back. Other forms of head-dress are seen on the great signet from Mycenae. The fact that both male and female costume amongst the primitive Aegean peoples is derivable from the simple loin-cloth with additions is rightly used by Mackenzie as a proof that their original home is not to be sought in the colder regions of central Europe, but in a warm climate such as that of North Africa. It is not until the latest Mycenaean period that we find brooches, such as were used in historical Greece, to fasten woollen garments, and their presence in the tombs of the lower city of Mycenae indicates the coming of a northern race.

See Annual of the British School at Athens, ix. 356 sqq. (Myres); xii. 233 sqq. (Mackenzie); Tsountas and Manatt, The Mycenaean Age, ch. vii.

iii. Greek Costume.—All articles of Greek costume belong either to the class of , more or less close-fitting, sewn garments, or of , loose pieces of stuff draped round the body in various ways and fastened with pins or brooches. For the former class the generic name is , a word of Semitic origin, which denotes the Eastern origin of the garment; for the latter we find in Homer and early poetry , in later times . The  (also called  and in Homer) was the sole indispensable article of dress in early Greece, and, as it was always retained as such by the women in Dorian states, is often called the “Doric dress” ( ). It was a square piece of woollen stuff about a foot longer than the height of the wearer, and equal in breadth to twice the span of the arms measured from wrist to wrist. The upper edge was folded over for a distance equal to the space from neck to waist—this folded portion was called  or  ,—and the whole garment was then doubled and wrapped round the body below the armpits, the left side being closed and the right open. The back and front were then pulled up over the shoulders and fastened together with brooches like safety-pins. This was the Doric costume, which left the right side of the body exposed and provoked the censure of Euripides (Andr. 598). It was usual, however, to hold the front and back of the  together by a girdle ( ), passed round the waist below the  ; the superfluous length of the garment was pulled up through the girdle and allowed to fall over in a baggy fold ( ) (see, fig. 75). Sometimes the  was made long enough to fall below the waist, and the girdle passed outside it (cf. the figure of Artemis on the vase shown in, fig. 29); this was the fashion in which the Athena Parthenos of Pheidias was draped. The “Attic” or “Corinthian” <span title="péplos"> was sewn together on the right side from below the arm, and thus became an <span title="éndyma">. The <span title="péplos"> was worn in a variety of colours and often decorated with bands of ornament, both horizontal and vertical; Homer uses the epithets <span title="krokópeplos"> and <span title="kyanópeplos">, which show that yellow and dark blue <span title="péploi"> were worn, and speaks of embroidered <span title="péploi"> (<span title="poikíloi"> ). Such embroideries are indicated by painting on the statues from the Acropolis and are often shown on vase paintings.

The chiton, <span title="chitṓn">, was formed by sewing together at the sides two pieces of linen, or a double piece folded together, leaving spaces at the top for the arms and neck, and fastening the top edges together over the shoulders and upper arm with buttons or brooches; more rarely we find a plain sleeveless chiton. The length of the garment varied considerably. The <span title="chitōnískos"> , worn in active exercise, as by the so-called “Atalanta” of the Vatican, or the well-known Amazon statues (, fig. 40), reached only to the knee; the <span title="chitṑn podḗrēs"> covered the feet. This long, trailing garment was especially characteristic of Ionia; in the Homeric poems (Il. xiii. 685) we read of the <span title="Íaónes helkechítōnes">. If worn without a girdle it went by the name of <span title="chitṑn orthostádios">. The long chiton was regularly used by musicians (e.g. Apollo the lyre-player) and charioteers. In ordinary life it was generally pulled up through the girdle and formed a <span title="kólpos"> (, fig. 2).

Herodotus (v. 82-88) tells a story (cf. ), the details of which are to all appearance legendary, in order to account for a change in the fashion of female dress which took place at Athens in the course of the 6th century Up to that time the “Dorian dress” had been universal, but the Athenians now gave up the use of garments fastened with pins or brooches, and adopted the linen chiton of the Ionians. The statement of Herodotus is illustrated both by Attic vase-paintings and also by the series of archaic female statues from the Acropolis of Athens, which (with the exception of one clothed in the Doric <span title="péplos"> ) wear the Ionic chiton, together with an outer garment, sometimes laid over both shoulders like a cloak (, fig. 3), but more usually fastened on the right shoulder only, and passed diagonally across the body so as to leave the left arm