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THE CLOTHED BODY IN THE ANCIENT WORLD
17-19 January 2002

Mercedes Aguirre
Universidad Complutense Madrid

Dress And Female Seduction In Ancient Greece: Literature And Art

Several passages in ancient Greek epic poetry present us with a woman who dresses up to look beautiful and to appear before a male audience. Some characters whose love stories are particularly famous in Greek mythology, goddesses such as Aphrodite in the Homeric Hymn or Hera in the Iliad and heroines such as Helen in the Iliad try to seduce a man or a god with their beautiful appearance. The woman's costume, including her dress, veil, necklaces, armrings, belt and all the female "weapons" are intended to attract admiration from a man or a god who immediately falls in love with her, or even becomes smitten with desire. Sometimes, but not always, the scene is followed by sexual intercourse between the couple.

The aim of my paper is to study the importance of dress and all the other elements related to female coquetry in these scenes of ancient Greek epic that, in some way, remind us of the typical scenes, for instance in the Iliad, in which a hero is preparing his weapons for a battle. I want to draw attention to the fact that dress is one of the most important elements here. The dress that is sometimes described as white, gleaming, graceful, delicate, and other expressions or words which emphasize the idea of beauty.

It is also my aim to see if Greek artists of the archaic and classical periods have depicted scenes in which dress, jewellery and the other objects are clearly presented as expressing female seduction, love and maybe erotic intention. Apart from some representations of Aphrodite or Helen dressed with tunic and veil, attended by their servants, we find other interesting representations in wedding iconography, several bridal scenes in Greek pottery that show the woman dressing and preparing for the nuptial ceremony. The image of Eros in these scenes would suggest the same intention which is described in the literature about this subject.