clothing and footwear: Rome that was folded again, placed around the body, pinned at the shoulders, and often worn with a girdle The himation, made of a single six-by-nine-foot piece of cloth, swathed the body without fi xed fastenings and was often worn under a tunic The poor sometimes wore only a himation The tribon was similar to the ordinary himation except that it was typically brown or black and tattered It was worn to demonstrate poverty and contempt for earthly vanities In Athens the tribon also was worn by advocates at the bar Women wore a long tunic known as a peplos The peplos was basically a shawl completely open down one side, usually the left The open peplos was not normally belted at the waist, but Greek women made a closed peplos by seaming together the two free edges of the garment instead of leaving them open to the thigh They folded up the edge of the garment, shortening it to waist length, and used the flap to cover the head or veil the face Spartan girls wore short tunics, slit at the sides, to make it easier to compete in athletic events The use of wool kept most garments in a tonal range of off-whites, but ordinary people seem to have worn lightercolored tunics and cloaks in dark colors, such as rust reds and reddish brown Color distinguished the costume of warriors, and the chlamys was generally decorated with bands of color, either along the upper edges on the neck and shoulders or down the side seams The borders had patterns of flowers or geometric designs Youths in earlier times wore black tunics, and those in later centuries wore white Linen was introduced to Greece by the Ionians The Ionic linen tunic had more elegant drapes than a woolen tunic Often pleated, the Ionic tunic was so long that the extra material was pulled through the waistband to give a bloused effect Unlike the Doric tunic, the Ionic one did not require fastening pins Women dressed in Ionic style wore brilliant colors, known as flowered colors, including greens It became fashionable for women to wear a ground-length tunic with a peplos on top The peplos either loose to just below the waist or was worn longer and fastened with a girdle An alternative, known as a diploidion, was a piece of material left very long in front and folded at the shoulders so that an extra flap of material fell to waist level Women from all parts of Greece and a few men wore a tarentine, a white gown so thin that the body was visible through it The Greeks usually went barefoot, wearing shoes only as protection or for special occasions Sandals worn by both sexes were fastened with light leather throngs that left the foot almost bare Soles were made of cork or leather and occasionally studded with nails Closed shoes fit either foot and had elevated soles that added height to the wearer A binding was fastened to the sole and passed between the big toe and the second toe, divided into two and passed through a latchet, or a narrow leather strap, to secure the sole of the shoe to the foot The two bands were criss-crossed high on the legs and then fastened Greek women, who rarely left the house, wore only sandals in public By the fourth century b.c.e shoes had become more elegant, often red with yellow-edged soles 281 A variety of hats were worn by Greek men and women to protect them from the blazing sun of the region Hunters and travelers wore wide-brimmed hats The petasos was a flat, cylindrical head covering worn by young men Women wore a similar round, semiconical head covering called a tholia The simplicity of Greek dress influenced the people who came into contact with the Greeks, especially the Romans Greek dress reflected the ancient habit of wearing tunics, and the styles and patterns preferred by the Greeks spread throughout the ancient world ROME BY LARISSA BONFANTE Garments in ancient Rome were made of wool or linen In the time of Alexander the Great, in the 300s b.c.e., cotton was introduced, as was silk, which was always an extravagant luxury Wool was woven in a great variety of textures, weights, and colors, from the sturdy dark cloth of slaves’ tunics to the fine purple wool of imperial togas Linen, much of which was imported from Egypt, was usually left in its natural color and could be extremely fine-woven The basic dress of Roman male citizens, which visually distinguished them from Greeks wearing rectangular mantles, was the woolen toga, a mantle with rounded borders like the earlier Etruscan tebenna, a shorter semicircular woolen mantle With the toga were worn boots or calcei, formal laced shoes worn with the toga outside the house Working men wore their tunics belted Unlike the Greeks, who normally wore sandals everywhere, the Romans wore them only indoors Again unlike the Greeks, Roman men did not exercise in the nude They shared the universal taboo against appearing naked in public, though in their art they represented youthful male figures in an idealized “nudity as costume,” adopting the Greek artistic convention They did strip in the public baths, but when they exercised or had to be free of clothing to work, they wore a type of loincloth, called a subligaculum or a campestre because it was worn for military exercises in the Campus Martius Citizens and slaves, male and female, old and young wore shirts or tunics of various lengths, materials, and colors Greeks and lower-class Romans also wore a plain rectangular woolen mantle called a pallium, which could double as a blanket in cold weather Roman women wore linen tunics that were longer and wider than those of men, but this garment was basically unchanging in shape, being made up of one or more rectangular pieces of cloth, which were sewn, buttoned, or pinned at the shoulders; belted at the waist; and draped on the body, creating pleasing folds The stola, which looked much like a slip with thin straps, was worn over the tunic from at least the time of Augustus (63 b.c.e.–14 c.e.) by the Roman matrona, or married woman The outer garment of women was a rectangular mantle (palla) Only young girls and disreputable women wore the toga