The World of Homer
In short, Homeric female dress was not introduced into the Epics by any
"recension," by any interpolators of any post-Achaean date, as Pinza
argues that it was.[22] He supposes the Ionian female costume to be a
long linen smock with short sleeves.
Pinza argues that the costume of women in Homer "is wholly different
from that of Spartan ladies of archaic and classical times; and, on the
other hand, exhibits many analogies with the more antique linen chiton
with short sleeves, certainly of Asiatico-Semitic origin, as is proved
by the etymology of the name" (chiton).[23] He supposes the Ionian
costume of women, described as a long linen smock with short sleeves,
to be derived, through Phoenicia, from the Syria of, say, 690 B.C.,
citing Hebrew female captives in Layard's _Monuments of Nineveh_ (i.
plates 61, 83, and others). In plate 61 we see a tall female captive,
wearing a long garment, with a broad fringe over her head, and below it
another long garment with short tight sewn sleeves, and a broad border
which falls over the legs, leaving them bare from the calf. There are
no pins or fibulae visible; the upper garment hides the girdle, if
girdle there be. In plate 65 two figures of goddesses are carried, on
chairs, in a procession. They wear long sewn smocks, with sewn sleeves
ending above the elbows, and with very broad belts. The dresses end
above the ankle bones. They are far from being loose or trailing; no
pins or fibulae appear. The same costume, without any girdle, is worn
by two women in a kitchen: they seem to have bodices and skirts (plate
30). The sleeves have no small round brooches like the Ionian chiton,
which, like the Assyrian dresses, reached the feet (ποδήρης).
Miss Abrahams remarks that it is a mistake to suppose the Doric chiton
to have been always fastened by pins or brooches, the Ionic always
sewn on the shoulders (like those quoted from Assyrian monuments).
In many Greek works of art, a chiton, clearly Ionic, is not sewn on
the shoulders, but fastened down the upper arm by a series of small
brooches.[24] The Assyrian dresses often answer to the Ionic chiton
as thus described, but are _without any brooches_; and they are much
shorter than the Ionic chiton, which, as thus described, is always
longer than the height of the wearer; "the superfluous length is
drawn up through the girdle to form a _kolpos_, which varies in depth
according to the length of the chiton."[25] Not so in archaic Greek
art! In any case, the Ionic dress as described is much longer than that
of the Assyrian designs, has a kolpos, where they have none, and may
either be sewn, like them, over the shoulder, or, unlike them, may be
fastened over the upper arm with small brooches. Thus the Ionic, _as
described_, is not the same as the Syrian, when the Ionic has brooches;
nor is it, in my opinion the female costume of the Greek vases of the
seventh and early sixth centuries.
In Layard's plate 67 A, from the Assyrian monuments, we see two of the
captive women from Lachish kneeling and giving suck to their children.
Their smocks are tight, girdled, and reach the heels. The dress of
the upper woman has short sleeves on both arms, and the line where
it crosses below the neck is perfectly well marked. How the infant,
in these circumstances, reaches the natural source of nourishment is
a deep mystery. In the figure of the lower woman certain faint lines
appear to indicate that the dress has been opened at the centre of the
neck and drawn aside over one breast. In neither case is there any
trace of fibula, pin, button, or hook and eye, or loose hanging flap.
Pinza, however,[26] finds here an exact parallel to Hera's peplos in
_Iliad_, xiv. 175, "fastened over her breast with clasps of gold,"
that is, "fastened on the shoulders by brooches or pins inserted down
towards the breast"; and this, again, is said to be illustrated (as
above) by the François vase. In answer, it may suffice to look at the
two pictures, Layard 67 A and the Fates on the François vase. A simple
button and button-hole, as Pinza remarks, in the dress below the centre
of the neck, would, if withdrawn, do all that these Hebrew babies need.
A man may illustrate this for himself by opening his shirt at the
collar stud. The lower Hebrew woman might even be naked above the belt,
like the kneeling woman just beneath her, were it not for the line of
her dress across her neck. She has no sleeves. There is no sign of any
openings at the shoulders or _precisaménte come l' ἑανός della Epopea_.
These Assyrian designs do not, it seems to me, encourage the opinion
that Hebrew female costume of the date of Hezekiah, say, 690 B.C.,
was thrust into Homer about that period, at an Ionian "recension,"
and remained there unaltered by later "recensions."[27] The brooched
costume of Homeric women is not the sewn costume of the Assyrian art.
Other Hebrew ladies from Lachish wear the long piece of cloth over
their heads, falling to the top of the ankle, and under that a tight
smock of the same length. There is no girdle, the arms are bare, no
fibulae are shown.[28] As the Syrian female costume never shows brooch,
pin, or fibula, it certainly cannot be the origin of the Homeric or the
Doric peplos, or of the brooched historical costume of Hellas.
Meanwhile a mere untutored man who looks at the Fates on the François
vase thinks, I find, that the embroidered overlap is simply a short
jacket worn over the peplos, This appears to be an error. But I had,
as an amateur, come to the conclusion that the dress of the women
in archaic Greek art often consists of sewn bodice and skirt, or of
a tight jacket with a separate skirt, not of the peplos. Mr. Myres
had already expressed similar opinions as to the late survival (or
revival?) of that Aegean costume.[29]
Moreover, Mr. Walters, judging from vase-paintings, says, "The Ionic
costume is introduced about 500 B.C., but its vogue does not seem to
have lasted long at Athens."[30]
Perdrizet thought that the archaic costume more resembled the Mycenaean
(or Aegean) than the Doric style; while Mr. Wace (in the catalogue of
the museum at Sparta), Mr. Leaf, Mr. Dawkins, and others hold that the
archaic dress is merely a long chiton tied at the waist. This question
of the late survival, or revival, of non-Homeric Aegean female costume
is thus delicate and obscure, though I have little or no doubt that it
did in many cases survive or was revived.
The woman in the archaic sepulchral monument from Etruria (British
Museum) wears a short jacket, and a very brief skirt; and a woman in
a leaden figurine of Sparta wears only a girdle and a kirtle. She is
running, and has thrown off her jacket or bodice. An archaic Victory, a
terra cotta in the British Museum, wears only a very short skirt.[31]
The Ariadne of an archaic Corinthian jewel, in a belted skirt, with no
bodice, has already been cited.
Thus the evidence of art, in the dark period of, say, 900-700 B.C.,
inclines me to believe that women sometimes wore shaped and sewn
bodices and skirts, or jackets and skirts; sometimes a strait brooched
and girdled peplos, not flowing, not trailing, not Homeric; that there
was none of the Homeric uniformity of attire. Varieties of fashion are
not discordant with feminine nature.
[1] _Studien zur Ilias_, von Carl Robert, Berlin, 1901.
[2] The Menzies tartan is of white and pink checks, which the artist
renders lovingly.
[3] Schliemann, _Tiryns_, plate xvii. Studniczka, _Altgr. Tracht_.
[4] Leaf, _Iliad_, vol. ii. p. 596.
[5] _Iliad_, v. 425, xiv. 180, xviii. 401.
[6] Leaf, _Iliad_, vol. ii. pp. 595-598.
[7] Ridgeway, _Early Age of Greece_, vol. i. pp. 553-577.
[8] _Tiryns_, plate xvii.
[9] In northern Aragon.
[10] _Scripta Minoa_, vol. i. p. 282.
[11] _B. S. A_., vol. xiii. pp. no, 113.
[12] _Journal of the Anthrop. Institute_, vol. xxx., 1900, p. 203, fig.
2. Evans on "Mycenaean Cyprus."
[13] Walters, _History of Ancient Pottery_, vol. ii. p. 270.
[14] _Iliad_, xiv. 175 _et seqq_.
[15] _Greek Dress_, p. 30.
[16] Mrs. Langloh Parker, _Australian Legendary Tales_.
[17] See fig. 2 in Roscher's _Lexikon_, ii. 2. 3007.
[18] _Greek Dress_, p. 44.
[19] _Ibid_., fig. 10.
[20] Here, it must be said, Mr. Dawkins dissents, not seeing any
difference in the two costumes. I think that is because he supposes the
François artist not to be able to draw what he sees; for the dresses
seem, in fact, to me different.
[21] Herodotus, v. 87.
[22] Pinza, _Hermes_, 1909, p. 526.
[23] _Ibid._ pp. 527, 528.
[24] _Greek Dress_, p. 60.
[25] _Greek Costume_, p. 60.
[26] Pinza, _Hermes_, p. 538.
[27] _Ibid_. p. 526.
[28] Layard, _Nineveh and Babylon_, p. 152.
[29] _Proceedings British School of Athens_, vol. ix. p. 386, citing
the difference of colour, and we may add of decorative design, on
the part of the costume above, and the part below the girdle. This
difference could not always occur in a dress all of one piece. For
example, see the female figures incised on the fragments of a corslet
of bronze plates at Olympia (_Bronzen_, plate lix.). But this question
is _sub judice_; it is argued that the difference of pattern and colour
in upper and lower parts of the dress is a decorative caprice of the
artist, and corresponds to nothing that he saw in women's costume. It
is impossible to deny that Ariadne in the archaic Corinthian piece of
gold-work has come to see the Minotaur killed, wearing her skirt, and
leaving her bodice in her bedroom (Roscher's _Lexikon_, ii. 2. 3007,
fig. 2).
[30] _History of Ancient Pottery_, vol. ii. p. 200.
[31] Cf. _B.S.A._, vol. xii. p. 323, fig. K.
CHAPTER X
BRONZE AND IRON. WEAPONS AND TOOLS
The Aegean civilisation, till its last age of decadence in art, knew
nothing about the use of iron for weapons or tools: at least no such
relics have been discovered. Homer, on the other hand, is thoroughly
familiar with iron as a commodity. A recurrent formula describes
wealthy men as rich in gold, bronze, women, and iron.[1]
Iron, bronze, slaves, and hides were bartered for wine, at the siege of
Troy, when a large trading fleet came in from Lemnos, sent by Euneos,
son of Jason and Hypsipyle, a princess of that island.[2] Lemnos seems
to have been rich in wine, which provoked the heroes to utter _gabes_
(as in the _Chansons de Geste_) about their future triumphs in the
war.[3]
Thus iron is abundant, but its uses are strangely restricted. All
careful readers must perceive that Homer lives in an age of "overlap."
Remains of such ages are common on European sites almost everywhere;
the explorer finds in the overlap iron and bronze things together, iron
comes gradually in: bronze, for weapons and tools, gradually disappears.
Thus at the great prehistoric cemetery of Hallstatt in the Austrian
Alps, we find weapons of bronze fitted with iron edges, then swords
with iron blades and hilts of bronze, then swords of iron, hilt and
blade.[4]
In Crete was found a _tholos_ tomb (a domed stone edifice) with a
bronze spear-head, a set of iron tools including a double pick and an
axe, and a sword of iron. This tomb was of the period when "geometric"
ornament on vases had nearly supplanted the Aegean forms of decoration:
in fact it was in the period to which we may assign Homer.[5] Other
tholos tombs near the same site contained vessels Aegean in _shape_,
with geometric _ornament_, and an iron dagger, and bronze fibulae and
bracelets, objects for which iron was not used. In a tomb at Muliana
in Crete,[6] were found bronze weapons with human remains that had
been buried beside iron weapons with cremated bones.[7] The vases were
partly of Aegean, partly of Dipylon geometric style.
Now Homer describes this period of gradual overlap of iron and bronze.