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THE CLOTHED BODY IN THE ANCIENT WORLD
17-19 January 2002Hans Van Wees,
University College, LondonTrailing Tunics and Sheepskin Coats
Dress and status in early Greece Insofar as dress as a means of status-display in early Greece has been discussed at all, the evidence cited usually consists of little more than a few sumptuary laws which impose restrictions on female dress and on the use of clothes as grave goods. Important as these scraps of information are, there is much more to be learned about the use and meaning of dress from Homer, fragments of archaic poetry, iconography, and even some archaeological evidence and later literary traditions. This paper investigates the displays of quantity and quality in dress which were among the most important markers of elite status from the late 8th to the early 5th century BC, as well as the markers of lower-class status which in at least some cases were formally imposed on slaves and other unfree labourers. Apart from seeking to explain the workings of dress symbolism, the aim of the investigation is to find out why dress codes became a matter of controversy in the 6th century, and why they underwent radical change at the beginning of the classical period.