As argued in Chapter i, the body is essential to dress. Ancient Greek dress practices were contingent on Greek conceptions of the body, which were quite different from our own.1 While mythology provided various narratives for the origins of human bodies, male and female, Greek philosophers and physicians put forth their own explanations. It is unclear to what degree ancient writings on the body reflect the understanding of average men and women, given that the majority by far was illiterate. But the information gleaned from the texts can be compared with both visual imagery and archaeological evidence to give a rich picture of various bodies in ancient Greece.
While binary dualism is inherent in Greek thought, I have attempted to show the slipperiness of the categories of male and female, ideal and non-ideal. The elite adult male was certainly the ideal; elderly men fell into the opposite category along with servants, slaves, barbarians, and the disabled of both sexes, as well as female sex workers. Proper women were “indeterminate”: although necessary for patrilineal descent, they were nevertheless understood as antithetical to the ideal elite male. As will be seen throughout this book, dress was an essential means of constructing, maintaining, and negotiating these categories. Since dress practices are learned by means of socialization, I have emphasized the distinct social categories experienced by both boys and girls as they matured into adults. Finally, I consider how modern theoretical perspectives on the body can help us to understand bodies in antiquity. Throughout this chapter, I have focused on the dynamic relationship between the body and dress as a foundation for the remainder of this study.
CONCEIVING THE BODY
The Body in Greek Mythology
According to Hesiod, the “race of men” was the last oF Five Ages of Man, fashioned by Zeus.2 Hesiod does not explain the act of creation itseLf but identifies the current generation as a race of iron, compared with the earlier golden, silver, bronze, anD “god-like” men (heroes). Apollodorus claims that the Titan Prometheus fashioned humans from water and earth, but it is unclear whether this view was held in earlier periods.3 Other sources are surprisingly silent on the matter of the generation of men. Unlike the biblical Genesis, the Greeks seem to be unconcerned with the origins of men; they simply exist.4
In contrast, the creation of the first woman is described by Hesiod as a discrete event independent of the creation of man.5 Pandora (“All-gifts”) was given to man by Zeus as a punishment for the theft of fire by Prometheus. This “beautiful evil” was fashioned out of earth and water by the divine craftsman Hephaistos, and bestowed with gifts by the various gods:
And the goddess bright-eyed Athena girded and clothed her with silvery raiment, and down from her head she spread with her hands a broi-dered veil, a wonder to see; and she, Pallas Athena, put about her head lovely garlands, flowers of new-grown herbs. Also she put upon her head a crown of gold which the very famous Limping God [Hephaistos] made himself and worked with his own hands as a favor to Zeus his father. . . .
But when he had made the beautiful evil to be the price for the blessing, he brought her out, delighting in the finery which the bright-eyed daughter of a mighty father had given her, to the place where the other gods and men were. And wonder took hold of the deathless gods and mortal men when they saw that which was sheer guile, not to be withstood by men. For from her is the race of women and female kind: of her is the deadly race and tribe of women who live amongst mortal men. (Theogony, 573—592)6
Hesiod’s description of the birth of Pandora matches the painted decoration of the tondo of an early Classical white-ground kylix by the Tarquinia Painter in the British Museum (Figure 2.1). Pandora, labeled “Anesidora,” her alias, stands frontally like a statue, wearing a reddish-purple draped garment of the type usually identified as peplos. She turns toward Athena, who holds the zone with which she will gird the maiden. Hephaistos, standing behind her, adjusts the golden crown that was also his creation. The image gives no indication of her contradictory nature; the staid composition and elegant garment and accessories emphasize only her beauty and grace.7
Of course, Pandora is most famous for having loosed the evils of the world upon men, who previously knew no sorrow or pain.8 In the present context,
2.1. White-ground kylix, Tarquinia Painter, ca. 480 BCE, British Museum D4, London. ©Trustees of the British Museum.
It is important to note that Pandora represents the progenitor of a “race of women” that is separate from that of men. Most significantly, her body is complete only when adorned witH finery.9
The Body in Greek Philosophy and Medicine
Greek pHilosophers speculated as to the mechanics of human reproduction as early as the sixth century bce.10 A primary concern was the sex of the unborn cHild. Parmenides of elea believed that the sex of the fetus was determined by its position in the womb: boys on the right, girls on the left.11 Anaxagoras likewise thought that boys resulted from male seed secreted from the right testicle, while girls were the result of seed from the left.12 Others held that sex was determineD by the temperature of the womb. According to empedocles, a male child gestated in a hot womb, while a girl child was the product of a cold womb.13 The binaries of right and left, hot and cold, male and female, good and bad reflect broad ideological structures in Greek society that are pervasive in philosophical and medical writings.14
Such ideas continue in the corpus of medical treatises attributed to the physician Hippocrates, which were compiled from multiple sources in the fifth
And fourth centuries bce.15 Issues of embryology are discussed in the treatise On Regimen, and more specifically in Diseases of Women IV, On Generation, and On the Nature of the Child. In general, the sex of a child was thought to have been determined either by the quality of the seed itself or by the environment in which the embryo grew.17 For example, the author of On Generation claims that both the mother and the father produce either male or female seed.18 The seed can be either “strong” or “weak”: if both parents contribute “strong” seed, they will have a boy; if “weak,” a girl. If there is a combination of strong and weak seed, the sex is determined by whichever type wins out (presumably by the quantity of the seed).19 Other Hippocratic writers contend that the seed itself is sex neutral, and that sex was determined by the temperature of the womb at conception: if warm, it would be a boy; if cool, a girl.20
Aristotle rejected the Hippocratic notion of female seed, arguing that the female simply provided nourishment for the male seed in the form of menstrual blood.21 That men produced seed and women produced menstrual blood was determined by the relative heat of their bodies: women’s bodies were cooler, and therefore incapable of transforming blood to semen.22 In reproduction, a boy baby resulted from an embryo that contained sufficient heat, while a girl baby was the result of a lack of heat; hence, Aristotle’s (in)famous formulation oF the female sex as a deformed man.23
What each of these theories holds in common is the notion that each sex displays certain innate characteristics that are determined in the womb. But the sex of an individual is not absolute. Rather, sex manifests itself on a “sliding scale” and is achieved by means of personal behaviors.24 For example, the author of the Hippocratic treatise On Regimen claims:
A child is blended of moist, warm elements, because of them he is composed and in them he grew. . . . A young man is composed of warm and dry elements. . . . Old men are cold and moist. . . . The males of all species are warmer and drier, and the females moister and colder, for the following reasons: originally each sex was born in such things and grows thereby, while after birth males use a more rigorous regimen so that they are well warmed and dried, but females use a regimen that is moister and less strenuous, besides purging the heat out of their bodies every month.
(1.33-34)
Women’s bodies were also thought to be more porous and softer than men’s bodies.25 The moist and porous nature of women’s bodies was observable in the leaking of fluids, specifically menstrual blood and breast milk.26 Such fluids were thought to be a source of pollution, as were women’s bodies generally.27 clearly, males and females are distinguished from one another biologically, in the sense that men are warm and dry, while women are cool and moist. But these qualities are not a given. They are the result of appropriate care of the body by means of personal regimen.28
As has been widely discussed, the Greeks employed various metaphors for the female body to distinguish it from the male.29 Many of these images are derived from agricultural practices, as a parallel to women’s reproduction.30 For example, women’s bodies were thought of as earth, which required regular plowing by means of sexual intercourse with her husband. The female body was thereby made soft and ready to accept a man’s seed for gestation in her womb.31 Another common metaphor was that of a jar: a woman’s womb, and therefore the woman herself, was thought of as a container for the man’s seed. Her nature is interior, unseen, and therefore potentially threatening.32
Physiological differences between women and men were the basis for further distinctions regarding character and intelligence, and therefore their place in society. For example, the loose, unformed nature of women’s bodies was thought to reflect women’s incapacity for self-mastery, thereby legitimizing their subservience to men within the polis.33 In general, men were considered more rational, whereas women were thought to be prone to hysteria due to the fluctuations of their bodies.34 Aristotle notoriously characterized the differences between men and women in his History of Animals:
In all cases, excepting those of the bear and leopard, the female is less spirited than the male. . . . With all other animals the female is softer in disposition, is more mischievous, less simple, more impulsive, and more attentive to the nurture of the young; the male, on the other hand, is more spirited, more savage, more simple and less cunning. The traces of these characters are more or less visible everywhere, but they are especially visible where character is more developed, and most of all in man.
The fact is, the nature of man is the most rounded off and complete, and consequently in man the qualities above referred to are found most clearly. Hence woman is more compassionate than man, more easily moved to tears, at the same time is more jealous, more querulous, more apt to scold and to strike. She is, furthermore, more prone to despondency and less hopeful than the man, more void of shame, more false of speech, more deceptive, and of more retentive memory. She is also more wakeful, more shrinking, more difficult to rouse to action and requires a smaller quantity of nutriment. (6o8a32-bi4)35
Although the writings of Aristotle are commonly cited as examples of extreme misogyny, they reflect a pervasive ideology of gender in early Greek society. Men were the norm; women were the Other.36 The ideal was masculine: hence, the male body was the ideal body.
IDEAL BODIES
The free, adult male was the ideal against which all others were measured in Greek society.37 They were the kaloi kagathoi, the beautiful and the good.38 Although status was in part ascribed by birth, it was also achieved by means Of performance.39 As in every culture, the behaviors of gender and status were learned by means of socialization.40 In order to uncover the means by which the masculine ideal was constructed, it is necessary to trace the development oF the Greek male from infancy to adulthood.
Boys
Although male cHildren are not themselves the ideal in Greek culture, they occupy a unique position in that they will potentially become the ideal. Hence, they were thought to display some characteristics of adult men, while maintaining certain distinctions of youth.41 That boys were particularly valued in Greek culture is underscoreD by the fact that they were less frequently exposed as infants, enjoyed a better diet than girls, and received a formal education.42
BotH Plato and Aristotle distinguish five age-grades: babies, including infants and toddlers; young preschoolers, up to age fve; older preschoolers, as old as seven; schoolchildren, until puberty at around age fourteen, and adolescents, who became ephebes at age eighteen.43 Transitions between the more signif-cant life stages was marked by ritual.44 At Athens, children were accepted into the househoLd by the father during a celebration known as the Amphidromia (“running around”) on their ffth day of life, and were named on the tenth.45 Boys would have been introduced to their father’s genos (extended family) as babies, and to the phratry (a hereditary social group) as a young child during the Apatouria, and again at age fourteen at the Koureion, at which a lock of hair was dedicated.46 The Anthesteria (“flower festival”), an Athenian festival to Dionysos at which boys of age three took their frst sip of wine, would mark their transition to the world of men and hence their introduction to the civic community.47
Children are clearly distinguished by age-grades in Greek art, especially on Greek vases and in votive and funerary reliefs of the Classical period.48 An exceptional grave stele from Ikaria depicts a seated woman (presumably the deceased) with four boys and an infant girl ranging in age from one to sixteen (Figure 2.2). The crawling infant is easily distinguished as a boy: he is nude with the genitals clearly displayed (see also Figures 2.3, 4.23).49 Of the Attic choes, ritual vessels useD during the Anthesteria, the vast majority depicts male infants and young boys.50 Boy babies are invariably chubby, reflecting the actual physiognomy of healthy infants, but also the fact that they are well fed. They are also generally active, crawling or playing with pet animals, toys, and carts.
Slightly older boys, perhaps toddlers of ages two or three, are indicated by their short stature, upright posture, and protruding abdomen, following the natural physiognomy of young children.51 These boys are frequently nude, exHibiting the genitals like infants. On the Ikaria relief, the nude small boy
2.2. Marble grave stele depicting mother with children and brothers, signed by the Parian sculptor Parion, ca. 460 BCE, Archaeological Museum of Agios Kirikos 134, Ikaria.
2.3. Red-hgure chous, ca. 420 bce, Agora excavations P21227, Athens. ©The American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
Standing with his hands on his mother’s knees is somewhat older, perhaps nine or ten.52 Older boys are generally clothed, their bodies often completely envelopeD in cloth, though sometimes the himation is draped over the left shoulder like an adult man (e. g., Figures 3.11a, 6.9).53 On the other hand, boy attendants in the gymnasion (e. g., Figure 3.1) and at the symposion are usually nude, perhaps as a reflection of their servile status, or to indicate their sexual availability. Older boys are distinguished by their greater height and taut physique, as well as their reserved demeanor compared to the playful younger boys. Adolescents on the verge of adulthood display adult physiognomy, but are beardless or showing a faint growth oF “peach-fuzz” (e. g., Figure 3.11a).54
Ephebes
The category of ephebes changed over time and according to place.55 At Athens, the term referred generally to boys who had reached puberty. But starting in
2.4. “AristoDikos” kouros, from Mesogeia, Attica, ca. 510-500 BCE, National Archaeological Museum 3938, Athens. ©Gianni Dagli Orti/The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY.
The fourth century, ephebes were specifically young men who entered the military for two years of compulsory service: one year of “basic training,” and one year of patrolling the borders of Attica.56 As young adults, ephebes are indistinguishable from older men in Greek art in terms of their physiognomy, though they are beardless.57 In Attic vase painting, ephebes are identified specifically by their dress (chlamys, petasos or pilos, and spears), which invariably displays the body.58 The ideal youthful body is best exempLified by the Archaic kouroi, which embody the ideals of the kaloi kagathoi.59 The kouros called Aristodikos (Figure 2.4), dating to the end of the series, displays the proper proportions of an adult male and well-defined musculature, reflecting physical fitness and vitality.60 The pose and gesture likewise suggest vigor: standing upright, one foot advanced, both arms engaged.61 The calm facial expression reflects the masculine Ideal of sophrosyne (self-control).62
The adult citizen body was the ideal in ancient Greece.63 This body was not a biological given but was achieved by means of careful regimen of diet and exercise (see Chapter 3, Diaita). The perfect body was not only the concern of the individual; it was within the purview of the entire community. Multiple ancient authors describe the ideal body, which is likewise pervasive in Greek art.
In Aristophanes’ Clouds, the personification of Better Argument tries to win over the young Pheidippides to the traditional mode of physical education:
If you follow my recommendations, and keep them ever in mind, you will always have a rippling chest, radiant skin, broad shoulders, a wee tongue, a grand rump and a petite dick. But if you adopt current practices, you’ll start by having a puny chest, pasty skin, narrow shoulders, a grand tongue, a wee rump and a lengthy edict. (1009—1019)
This passage concisely outlines the physical characteristics of the ideal citizen, but it also underscores the necessity of proper care of the body in order to achieve the ideal.64
The ideal male body is represented in every medium from the earliest periods of GreeK figurative art. The artistic convention of masculine nudity places special emphasis on the male physique and may have been a source of anxiety for some men.65 Kenneth Dover identified the following characteristics of the ideal male body in vase painting through the middle of the fifth century: broad shoulders, a deep chest, large pectoral muscles, protruding muscles above the hips (iliac crest), a slim waist, jutting buttocks, stout thighs and calves, and a small penis.66 The same conventions are discernible in sculpture, with the famed Doryphoros (Spear-bearer) of Polykleitos serving as the prime exemplum in the Classical period (Figure 2.5).67 As the physical embodiment of a theoretical canon of proportions, this statue represents an impossible ideal. On the other hand, it is clear that the Doryphoros reflects reality in the sense that such a physique would have been possible only theoretically by means of proper diet and exercise.
The masculine ideal portrayed in sculpture and painting changed somewhat over time but always remained the norm.68 The normative masculine body is vivIdly portrayed in the pseudo-Aristotelian Physiognomies, dating to the third century bce, a kind of handbook for judging the character of an individual by means of bodily signs.69 In this anonymous text, the ideal physique is defined by “an upright carriage of the body; size and strength of bones, sides and extremities; the belly broad and flat; shoulder-blades broad and set well apart, neither too closely nor too loosely knit; a sturdy neck, not very fleshy; a chest well covered with flesh and broad; flat hips; the thickness of the calf low down the leg” (8oyai). The ideal male body is understood in opposition to the bodies of animals, women, and barbarians.70 For example, the ideal Greek male is brave like a lion (but not other animals, 8o9bi), with a well-proportioned body (unlike that of a female, 8i4ai), and good coloring (not too dark like Egyptians and Ethiopians; not too white like women: 8i2ai). As Maria Sassi has noted,
2.5. Doryphoros (Spear-bearer), Polykleitos, Roman copy of Greek original of ca. 450 BCE, Minneapolis Institute of Art 86.6, Minneapolis. ©Bridgeman Art Library International.
“the ideal of the mean, of which animals, women, and barbarians fall so far short, finds positive embodiment in the image of the free Greek male, which occupies the center of the system of self-perception.”71
INDETERMINATE BoDIEs
Given the primacy of the male body in GreeK ideology, others’ bodies might seem relatively inaccessible to us. In fact, the opposite is true: because the male body was defined in opposition to the bodies of others, especially women and barbarians, the evidence for non-ideal bodies is extensive. Among the various non-ideal types, women’s bodies are somewhat indeterminate: women’s bodies were necessary for reproduction and for domestic labor; hence they were a “necessary evil” in Greek society.72 In order to make women’s bodies useful to men, women and girls needed to be brought under social control by means of prescribed behaviors, especially dress practices.
Girls
Girls did not enjoy the same privileges as boys in early Greece.73 As discussed, girls were more frequently exposed as infants, did not receive the same quality diet, and were not educated outside the home.74 Unlike boys, who were essential to the maintenance of family lineage, girls would leave the natal family at marriage. Hence, fewer resources were generally expended on them, and fewer records survive for girls than for boys.75 We learn about the lives of girls only incidentally in the literary sources.
If a family chose to rear a baby girl, she likely spent most of her childhood learning domestic tasks from her mother.76 Xenophon tells us in the Oeconomicus that girls learn weaving and self-control from their mothers; upon marriage, the young aristocratic wife knows nothing but how to weave and direct servants to spin thread:
What could she have known when I took her as my wife, Socrates? She was not yet fifteen when she came to me, and had spent her previous years under careful supervision so that she might see and hear and speak as little as possible. Don’t you think it was adequate if she came to me knowing only how to take wool and produce a cloak, and had seen how spinning tasks are allocated to the slaves? And besides, she had been very well trained to control her appetites, Socrates. . . and I think that sort of training is most important for man and woman alike. (7.5—6)77
Lysias also praises a new wife for her sKills in household management (Defense of Eratosthanes, 1.7). Such a sheltered upbringing would have afforded few opportunities for girls outside the household, save religious events.78
It is possible that girls as well as boys were introduced to their fathers’ phra-tries as babies.79 Whether girls might have participated in the Anthesteria is not clear. Girls are not specifically mentioned in the literary sources, and an argument has been made that the females on the choes are in fact adults.80 A ritual known as Aiora (“swinging”), in which girls would swing on suspended seats, may have taken place on the third day of the Anthesteria.81 Better attested are a series of rituals describeD by Aristophanes in the Lysistrata:
As soon as I turned seven I was an Arrephoros Then when I was ten I was a Grinder for the Foundress;82 And shedding my saffron robe I was a Bear at the Brauronia And once, when I was a fair girl, I carried the Basket Wearing a necklace of dried figs. (641—647)
This passage is likely a comic exaggeration of the religious roles undertaken by girls in Classical Athens. The arrephoroi were chosen from among the elite families. Four (or two) girls between the ages of seven and eleven lived on the Acropolis for a year, where they played ball games and participate In a kind of fertility ritual called the Arrephoria.83 Two girls, perhaps also arrephoroI (or ergastinai), helped weave the sacred peplos dedicated to Athena at the Panathenaia.84 Girls ages seven to eleven “acted the she-bear” at the Arkteia, a festival to Artemis celebrated at the rural sanctuary oF Brauron.85 Although the literary testimonia are few, save the foundation myth for the cult, the site of Brauron has yielded extensive visual evidence for the rites (discussed below), in which girls ran naked or wearing special yellow dresses.86
Whereas baby boys are frequently represented in Greek art, baby girls are more difficult to identify.87 No images of nude babies display female genitalia.88 Images of swaddled infants could theoretically be male or female. On the other hand, given the pattern of masculine nudity and feminine clothedness for older individuals, it seems likely that the swaddled infants should be understood as girls. The infant on the funerary relief from Ikaria (Figure 2.2) wears a kind of dress. Likewise, the infant on a fourth-century marble votive relief to Artemis from Echinos (Figure 7.10) has been interpreted as a girl on the basis of her garment.89
Girls ages five to ten are depicted on a series oF Classical krateriskoi recovered from the sanctuary of Artemis at Brauron. The girls, interpreted as participants in the Arkteia, are carefully distinguished by age by means of physiognomy, dress, and activity (Figure 2.6).90 Younger girls are shorter, with a larger head in proportion to their bodies, and display a convex torso and flat breasts; older girls are taller, with a slightly smaller head relative to their height, and “budding breasts.”91 Such conventions are biologically based, corresponding to the perioD before menarche at approximately age fourteen.92
2.6. Red-figure krateriskos, ca. 430—420 BCE, L. Kahil, “L’Artemis de Brauron: Rites et mystere,” AntK 20 (1977), pl. 19.
Parthenoi
With the onset of menstruation, a girL became a parthenos (virgin).93 The virginal status of the parthenos was not specifically tied to her sexuality, but to her social role.94 The parthenos was by definition a liminal creature: she was capable of childbearing but was yet unmarried. This life stage was fraught with anxieties surrounding the proper transition from kore to gyne: sexual intercourse must not take place before marriage; following marriage, the birth of a child was required to achieve true adult status. Given the particular concerns surrounding patrilineage, the virginal female body was arguably the most socially regulated in ancient Greece.
The special significance of the parthenos is evident in the literary and historical sources. As discussed earlier, the “beautiful evIl” Pandora is presented to man in the form of a beautiful virgin. Parthenoi are central to a number of Greek myths in which a young heroine (often literally) sacrifices herself for the benefit of the larger community.95 The medical writers were especially concerned with the bodies of parthenoi, as evidenced in the number of treatises dedicated to gynecological problems specific to unmarried women (see earlier, The Body in Greek Philosophy and Medicine).
Parthenoi played important roles in religion and ritual, which wouLd have served as closely regulated opportunities for social display. The most important of these were the kanephoroI (“basket bearers”), who carried baskets containing ritual objects in processions, most notably the Panathenaia at Athens.96 Images of kanephoroi occupy prominent spaces in the Parthenon frieze and on the Erechtheion, attesting to their central role.97 Elsewhere in Greece, and especially at Sparta, parthenoi danced and sang in choruses for various divinities.98 In preparation for marriage, parthenoi made offerings of childhood clothing and toys and locks of hair to Artemis and other goddesses.99
Representations of parthenoi in sculpture and vase painting display the desireD characteristics of a marriageable young woman. The Archaic korai may be understood as a feminine corollary to the masculine kouroi.101 The kore Phrasikleia (Figure 5.8) depicts a beautiful young maiden who, according to the accompanying inscription, died before marriage. Unlike the nude kouroi, korai are invariably clothed; but the fine cloth delineates rather than obscures the shape of the female body underneath.102 The small breasts and gently swelling hips suggest a youthful, fertile, body. Similar conventions are discernible in Classical sculpture - for example, on the so-calleD Giustiniani stele (Figure 4.9). The maiden’s downward gaze and restrained facial expression suggest that she has achieveD both sophrosyne and aidos (shame), required qualities for proper women.103 Likewise, her attention to the pyxis, from which she removes a piece of jewelry, is an appropriate feminine activity. Her specific identity as a parthenos may be bound up, so to speak, in her hairstyle and unbelted peplos.104
Gynai
The ultimate goal of the parthenos was to marry and produce cHildren, preferably boys, at which point she would become an adult gyne.105 Women’s bodies were valued primarily for their reproductive capacities, as reflected in the extensive gynecological literature. As discussed earlier, women’s bodies were viewed with ambivalence: they were understood as antithetical to men’s bodies, yet they were necessary for reproduction. The social roles of adult women were highly circumscribed: they were expected to bear children and maintain the household; their only public roles were ritual, for the maintenance of the larger community.
Artistic representations of women’s bodies reflect this concern with social control. As with the korai, the bodies of gynai are consistently clothed, often in multiple layers of cloth.106 In many cases, especially in the Classical period, the drapery serves to emphasize the reproductive capacities of the female body.107 For example, in the famed Hegeso stele (Figure 4.22) the sitter wears multiple garments and head coverings, suggesting a high degree of social control over the adult female body.108 Yet the v-shaped folds of the chiton partly articulate the full breasts, and the bunched cloth in her lap suggests the notion of fertility, even if she is not depicted as pregnant.109 Her seated pose likewise reflects her ideal role as mistress of the household, overseeing the labor of her servants and slaves.110 Compared with the upright stance of the male figures, the pose and gesture of the proper woman are self-contained, reflecting the ideal of feminIne sophrosyne.
The female body was problematic for the Greeks. It was not the ideal, which was exclusively male; on the other hand, it was necessary for biological and social reproduction. Hence, it occupied an indeterminate space in the Greek ideological sphere. As such, it was both strictly regulated and prone to slippage into the non-Ideal.
NON-IDEAL BODIES
The GreeK ideal was maintained largely by antithesis to the non-ideal.111 Certainly, women were the primary Other within the Greek mindset. But given their essential roles in the functioning of Greek society, they were not complete outsiders. Likewise, older men and women past the prime of their youth form a somewhat ambiguous group, since they are not ideal but may have been at one time in their lives. Other social groups never achieved ideal status within Greek culture, especially hetairai (courtesans), household servants and slaves, barbarians, and the disabled. Non-ideal bodies are represented less frequently than ideal bodies in Greek art, but they convey important information about Greek ideologies of gender, age, class, ethnicity, and difference.112
Older Adults
It is clear from both the literary and the visual evidence that youth was the ideal in Greek culture.113 The value placed on youth is understandable given the emphasis on physical fitness for men and childbearing for women. In addition, life expectancy for most Greeks was quite low: forty-five for men and thirty-six for women.114 Given the high mortality rate for women during childbearing, and for men during wartime, relatively few individuals reached a status equivalent to senior citizen. The threshold between youth and old age was probably somewhat fluid, since no ritual seems to have marked the transition. Women may have experienced a more profound change with the onset of menopause at around age forty, after which time they were subject to fewer sexual and social restrictions.115
Men of advanced age are generally represented in a respectful manner in Greek sculpture and vase painting, particularly in family scenes.116 For example, the Classical grave stele of Xanthippos anD his daughters (Figure 3.15) depicts the deceased seated on a chair, his advanced age indicated by the softness of his anatomy, thinning hair, and unkempt beard.117 Likewise, the old man in the departure scene on a red-figure stamnos by the Kleophon painter (Figure 4.10) is identifiable by his lack of defined musculature and straggly hair and beard in added white. He leans on a walking stick, reflecting a loss of vitality, especially compared to the vigorous young warrior departing for the battlefield.118 Both scenes suggest that older men retained some status as the head of the extended family.
The negative connotations of oLd age are clear in the red-figure pelike by the Geras painter depicting Herakles striking the personification of old age (Figure 3.12).119 Geras (Old Age) is represented as an ugly, shrunken, emaciated man, bent over and supporting himself with his walking stick in one hand while supplicating Herakles with the other. His low status is emphasized by his oversized genitals, which were considered ugly anD laughable.120 Interestingly, this image seems to refer not to a “real” old man, but to the idea of old age in general. Fear of the indignities of old age was not necessarily matched by a true loss of status for Greek men.121
The experience of old women was different from that of old men.122 As described, women past the age of menopause likely enjoyed greater freedom than during their childbearing years. At the same time, their usefulness to society was lessened, save their roles as nurses and hired mourners. Older women are rarely represented as such in Greek sculpture and vase painting, perhaps reflecting the fluidity between younger and older gynai.123 For example, the Classical grave stele of Ampharete from the Kerameikos depicts the deceased as a young woman, though she is identified in the inscription as the grandmother of the infant she embraces on her lap.124 Old women of Lower status are represented in a less flattering manner.125 For example, the old nurse on the red-figure skyphos by the Pistoxenos Painter (Figure 3.17) is stooped and wrinkled, with ugly features and unkempt white hair. The tattoos on her neck and arms identify her as Thracian, which compounds her negative depiction.126
Hetairai, Pallakai, Pornai
The ambivalence surrounding women in ancient Greek culture is especially pronounced for female sex workers.127 In the famous passage of Demosthenes’ Against Neaira, the speaker Apollodorus identifies three types of women in Athens: “For we have courtesans (hetairai) for pleasure, and concubines (pallakai) for the daily service of our bodies, but wives (gynaikes) for the production of legitimate offspring and to have a reliable guardian of our household property” (122).128 Courtesans and concubines are distinguished from common prostitutes (pornai), who sold their services on an individual basis.129 Given their relatively high status, we know more about hetairai than other types of sex workers. Like traditional Japanese geishas (but unlike most other Athenian women), hetairai could be highly educated, especially in poetry and music. Many hetairai were foreign-born and therefore not potential marriage partners (at least after the Periclean citizenship law of 450/1 bce). With the financial support of their patrons, such women achieved a degree of independence unknown to other Greek women.
These women are notoriously difficult to identify in the visual record. Not surprisingly, hetairai and other sex workers are generally not commemorated in monumental sculpture or grave stelai. Most images identified as sex workers are found on vases, especially those used in the context of the symposion, an aristocratic drinking party for which hetairai and other sex workers would have provided entertainment (and at which proper women would not have been present).130 The most easily recognizable are those who are represented actually engageD in sexual intercourse with male patrons. Naked and partially clad women reclining with men on couches are probably also to be understood as sex workers. Presumably flute players and dancers, whether or not they are clothed, would also have provided sexual entertainments. But how can we identify in the visual record the varieties of sex worker named in the textual sources? Some have associated non-ideal body types with low-status prostitutes. For example, a small corpus of vases depicting apparently overweight and older women performing demeaning sexual acts have been considered representations of pornai as opposed to high-class hetairai.131 Perhaps such distinctions are less important than the opposition between sex worker and proper woman.
But the dichotomy between these two categories of women is perhaps less strict than is often assumed.132 Some have considered nudity an indicator for Working women in Attic vase painting. But proper women are sometimes represented nude in nuptial bathing scenes, and other scenes of female bathers do not display any overtly sexual content (though the images themselves may have been viewed as erotica).133 Other dress practices, including the depilation of body - and pubic hair and the use of cosmetics, may have been shared by proper women and sex workers alike, compounding the problems oF identification in the visual record.134 Likewise, although sex workers are sometimes represented in the vases wearing amulets on their arms and thighs, it is quite likely that proper women also employed amulets, but these are not visible in the pictorial record.135 One possible marker for low-status sex workers is croppeD hair, though this is a feature of women of servile status generally.136
Servants and Slaves
Individuals of servile status did not generally commission or create works of art or literature for their own purposes. In general, servants and slaves are represented in the context of elite commissions; hence, they are depicted from an elite perspective.137 Literary descriptions of slaves are invariably negative, especially in comedy: they are scheming, gluttonous, not to be trusted.138 Visual representations are more complex.139 Conventions change over time, but servants and slaves are generally represented in opposition to the elite ideal. The most easily identifiable servants or slaves are engaged in some kind of labor, whereas the elite rarely work.140 They are usually shorter than their masters and often display some other identifying physical characteristic: cropped hair, tattoos, or non-Greek physiognomy or dress.141 On the other hand, some images of servants or slaves are apparently indistinguishable from elites, as on the series of white-ground lekythoi representing “mistresses and maids.”142 Such images may suggest the possibility of manumission for some indentured workers.143
It is likewise difficult to differentiate between servants or slaves and free workers and craftsmen.144 The latter are sometimes distinguishable by their rustic garments and headgear.145 In addition, their poses and gestures, often determined by their work, are not those of ideal citizens. For example, on the kylix attributed to the Foundry Painter in Berlin (Figure 2.7), the metalworkers stoop or sit low to the ground, one reveals his genitals in an ignoble
Manner.
Barbarians
Most slaves were in fact foreigners. Barbarians were, by definition, those who did not speak Greek.147 The Greek view of the foreign Other changed dramaticaLly following the Persian Wars; much of the iconographic evidence dates to the fifth century Most representations of barbarians are found on
2.7. Red-figure kylix, Foundry Painter, ca. 480 BCE, Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen F 2294, Berlin. ©bpk, Berlin/Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen, Berlin, Germany/Ingrid Geske/Art Resource, NY.
Vases as opposed to more monumental media.148 In general, foreigners are distinguished by their dress, especially hairstyles and other (often permanent) modifications to the body.149 But ethnicity was sometimes indicated by means of physiognomy as well. For example, Africans are generally depicted with darker skin and fleshier facial features than Greeks.150 Conversely, Thracians and Scythians are pale with light-colored or reddish hair. A common feature of representations of foreigners is that they lack the GreeK ideal of soph-rosyne. For example, the Egyptians in the red-figure pelike by the Pan Painter (Figure 3.18) cower in response to Herakles’ attack. Their limbs are akimbo, Displaying large, uncircumciseD (and hence barbaric) genitals beneath their short tunics.151 The tattooed Thracian woman in a red-figure column krater also by the Pan Painter (Figure 3.16) runs with her hair flying wildly, revealing her breasts and legs through her open garment. Barbarian bodies are displayed in a way that would not have been appropriate for proper Greek women anD men.
Disabled
Considering the Greek obsession witH bodily perfection, it should not surprise us that the Greeks rarely depict human deformity. The historical sources are likewise generally silent on attitudes toward the disabled, or even what exactly constituted a disability. Yet certainly the Greeks constructed disability differently than we do.152 Disabilities may be congenital or the result of an illness or injury. Although it is often assumed that children born with visible abnormalities would not have been reared, the evidence is thin.153 Indeed, some congenital defects such as Siamese twins, Cyclopianism, and clubfeet are represented in mythological scenes from the earliest periods oF Greek art; intersexuality is likewise a common mythological motif.154 Dwarfism is represented in both vase painting and sculpture, and it became especially popular in the Hellenistic period.155 Some disabilities, like blindness or deafness, are difficult to depict visually, but would have had a profound effect on the perception of the individual, especially their perception oF dress.
MODERN PERSPECTIVES ON THE BODY
It shouLd be clear that ancient Greek perceptions of human bodies diverge significantly from our own. Yet modern approaches to the body may be applied to the ancient evidence to help us further understand the body in Greek society, and especially the relationship between the body and dress. This section briefly outlines some of the primary theoretical concepts that have informed this study.156
A basic premise of this book is that the dressed body is the medium by wHich the individual engages with society, and vice versa. According to Mary Douglas, the body represents social order.157 Its boundaries reflect social boundaries, which are strictly policed. The idea of transgression of bodily boundaries is of particular importance for the current study. For example, some practices of body modification, such as depilation, hair cutting, and nail paring, remove matter from the body, thereby transgressing the boundaries of the body. Since bodily boundaries reflect social boundaries, such practices often carry profound social implications.158
The notion of the body as a reflection of social structures is pervasive in the work oF Michel Foucault. Although many classicists (and others) have criticized Foucault for his lack of attention to certain Classical texts, and for ignoring women, the idea of power relations being inscribed on the body is a useful one.159 For example, we may think of the military training of ephebes as a process of bodily inscription.160 Likewise, the central importance of the diaita, a daily regimen oF diet, exercise, and hygiene, reflects the notion of care of the self.161
Whereas Foucault is primarily concerned with the effects of power on the passive subject, Maurice Merleau-Ponty emphasizes active embodiment.162 Merleau-Ponty argues that the body is essential to our perception of the world. Because bodies are located in time and space, they reflect particular social contexts. A phenomenological approach to the dressed body is especially useful given the multiple sensory aspects of dress. Phenomenology requires that we reconstruct to the best of our abilities the bodily experience of the dressed individual.
The mechanism by which the individual engages with his or her social context is explaineD by Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus. Bourdieu defines habitus as “a system of lasting, transposable dispositions which, integrating past experiences, functions at every moment as a matrix of perceptions, appreciations and actions and makes possible the achievement of infinitely diversified tasks” (original emphasis).163 This formulation is especially useful because it recognizes the agency of the individual within the strictures of society. At the same time, it explains the means by which ideological constructs such as gender and class are often unconsciously reproduced by the individual.
MarceL Mauss earlier employed the term habitus in his explanation of techniques of the body.164 Mauss notes that individuals perform mundane activities, such as walking or eating, differently depending on sex and age. These are not natural adaptations to differences in physiognomy but cultural behaviors learned by means of socialization.165 Given the emphasis on distinctions of age and gender in Greek culture, this concept is especially useful for the present study.
Erving Goffman, like Bourdieu, emphasizes social context in the presentation of the self.166 According to Goffman, individuals are social actors who learn how to perform their identities by means of social interaction. In any given situation, people may conform to or confound social rules and expectations. The body is the mechanism by which social communication takes place. (Goffman’s body idiom corresponds to Mauss’s techniques of the body.) Goffman’s concept of bodily display underscores the polysemic capacities of the dressed body, and the potential for two-way communication.
The notion of identity as performance is essential to the work of Judith Butler.167 Although Butler denies the essential nature of the body in the construction of identities, specifically gendered identities, she is nevertheless concerned with the presentation of the self. According to Butler, “the body becomes its gender through a series of acts which are renewed, revised, and consolidated through time.”168 Butler also reminds us that gender cannot be separateD from race and class.169
Although modern theorists rarely consider the body in historical perspective (save Foucault), concepts borrowed from current scholarship can illuminate the bodily experiences of the Greeks. It is only through our understanding of the body in ancient Greece that we can decipher the meanings of dress, starting with body moDifications.
World History
