The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1909-09-01

B. G.. tvery roughly SpeaklnSJ tue
representations Of men and Wom-
en- on vases are mere skeleton
| figures like those designed by Tom
| my Traddles in David Copperfeld.'
The body is an equilateral triangle
| reversed. The drawing is detestable;
no costume, as a rule, can be made
| out, by me at least. The figures
are bipeds and erect; what they wear
| one does not usually know. I do OBJ
! serve, on a case from Tiryns, women
| with hoods which cover the head and
| fall to the middle of the waist, then
a waist like a moderately thick walk
ing stick, then a separate skirt fall
ing to the feet. I also perceive a
| mar in what seems to be a rather
| loose corselet or rings or scales fall
ing so low as to cover the hip joints.
| Another woman, decidedly, has a
| body and separate skirt. These abor-
tive designs may we'll be as old as
| 1000 B. c. The men are more like
| birds than human beings, and one
mans legs are shaped like the hind
legs of a horse.
But what has become of Homer's
belted chiffon, and why have the wo-
men no peplos, with it's folds. but
| separate skirts and bodices?
The trouble does not end here.
| These hideous attempts at art seem
to be of Homer's own time, or rath-
er later, if we date him Tor the older
members of the syndicate that was
Homer at 100000 B. c. Yet the
| human figures in the art of that age
do not dress in accordance with
Homer's descriptions. There is a
woman giving a "send-of" to a
marching regiment on 1.-The warrior
vase" which seems to be as old as
1000 B. C. But she has no peplos,
but a body, and a skirt with a cres-
cent shaped cutoff at the foot, a
common Cretan and palaeolithic
| kind of skirt. The chiffon and pep
los of Homer are not represented
when they should be represented,
and, what is worse, they do not come
in much till about three or four CEN
| turtles later. Here, at least, is q
strange difference of opinion. Mr..
| Walter Leaf, who has deeply studied
the subject, says that the dress in
Homer was in all essentials identical
with that of the Archaic age OF
| Greece. Now, the Archaic age" is,
roughly speaking, of 800-550 B. c.
| When I looked at engravings OF
works Of art Of that age, and found
that the men do not wear belted
| chitons but combination" fieshings,
as tight as possible, from the Shout
ders to four or five inches below the
hip joints, while the women seem Of
| ten to wear bodies and separate
skirts, rather than the peplos,
thought I must be wrong and MI.
Leaf right. But the ancient sanctu-
airy of Artemis at Sparta has recently
| been dug out to the lowest stratum,
and in lead figurines there offered to
| the goddess we find Pallas Athene in
a corselet and separate skirt, scooped
| out in the Cretan fashion; and an
| other lady in the same scooped
| out Cretan skirt. There is no pep
los, and yet the work is of the
Archaic age" I would not venture
this on my own evidence, but Mr..
R. NJ. Dawkins, one Of the learned
| ex~cavators, writes 'the female dress,
| consisting always of bodice and sep
arate skirt, suits the Archaic dat
ing"
1t thus appears that neither in the
crude art nearest to Homer's own
time, nor in the Archaic art Of the
next age (say 800-550 B. CO. do we
find the dress that Homer knew, or,
at least, to be safe, we find men in
feshings and many women in a CO.'S
tune far more Cretan than Greek,
Not till we come to the vases with
red figures, say about $50 B. c., do
we find that the graceful peplos and
long belted shirt or chiffon is the reg
ular wear for men and women. Not
till then, I think, does the shirt OF
| the. armed warrior fall low beneath
his corslet.
Thus the costume familiar to HON.
er is not represented in art Cat
least I have nowhere found it rep
resented for the mem till 480-440
B. c. Now that is long after the age
Of the Athenian tyrant, Pisistratus,
and his sons, who, according to many
critics, practically made our Homeric
poems, edited and generally be-
witched them. Does it follow that