Ancient Greek female costume: : with explanatory letterpress, and descriptive passages from the works of Homer, Hesiod, Herodotus, Æschylus, Euripides, ... Xenophon, Lucian, and other Greek authors

Many people of fair culture, if asked their opinion of Greek costume, would say tliat correct Greek costume seemed to consist chiefly of a pair of sandals for tlie feet,and a ribbon for the hair. In some of the most popular and best known works of Greek art there is even less dress than this. The Venus de Medici has not even a pair ofsandals. The statues called the Theseus, the Discobulus, the Laocoon are as bare of clothing, and though the Apollo Belvidere is furnished with a cloak, he does not use it to enshroud his limbs. The popular belief that ancient Greek costume was scarcely appreciable in quantity has thus some apparent foundation in fact. When the question is pressed still further, however, we begin to remember that the Caryatides of the Erechtheion, and the goddess Athene, have each a distinctive dress covering the whole body, and that several of the female deities, such as Here, Cybele, and Artemis, are scarcely, if ever, represented unclothed. This limited wardrobe is, however, nearly all that was credited to the Greeks by many people who were far from being ignorant of Greek art and Greek literature.

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Table of Contents:

Copyright

Preface

ANCIENT GREEK FEMALE COSTUME.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.