page_title: History of nudity
section_title: Greece
hierarchical_section_title: History of nudity / Ancient history / Greece
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: So genannte&#160;»Aphrodite Braschi«, freie Kopie (1. Jhdt. v. Chr.) nach der Kultstatue des Praxiteles in Knidos (»Aphrodite von Knidos«&#160;Typus, um 350-340 v. Chr.). English: So-called “Aphrodite Braschi”, free copy (1st century BC) after a votive statue of Praxitele in Cnidus (“Aphrodite of Cnidus” type, ca. 350–340 BC). Français&#160;: «&#160;Aphrodite Braschi&#160;», copie libre (Ier siècle av. J.-C.) d'une statue votive de Praxitèle à Cnide (type de l'«&#160;Aphrodite de Cnide&#160;», v. 350-340 av. J.-C.).
context_page_description: The history of nudity involves social attitudes to nakedness of the human body in different cultures in history. The use of clothing to cover the body is one of the changes that mark the end of the Neolithic, and the beginning of civilizations. Nudity has traditionally been the social norm for both men and women in some hunter-gatherer cultures in warm climates and it is still common among many indigenous peoples. The need to cover the body is associated with human migration out of the tropics into climates where clothes were needed as protection from sun, heat, and dust in the Middle East; or from cold and rain in Europe and Asia. The first use of animal skins and cloth may have been as adornment, along with body modification, body painting, and jewelry, invented first for other purposes, such as magic, decoration, cult, or prestige, and later found to be practical as well.
  In modern societies, complete nudity in public became increasingly rare as nakedness became associated with lower status, but the mild Mediterranean climate allowed for a minimum of clothing, and in a number of ancient cultures, the athletic and/or cultist nudity of men and boys was a natural concept.
context_section_description: In some ancient Mediterranean cultures, even well past the hunter-gatherer stage, athletic and/or cultist nudity of men and boys – and rarely, of women and girls – was a natural concept. The Minoan civilization prized athleticism, with bull-leaping being a favourite event. Both men and women participated wearing only a loincloth, as toplessness for both sexes was the cultural norm; men wore loincloths, whilst women wore an open-fronted dress.
  Ancient Greece had a particular fascination for aesthetics, which was also reflected in clothing or its absence. Sparta had rigorous codes of training (agoge) and physical exercise was conducted in the nude. Athletes competed naked in public sporting events. Spartan women, as well as men, would sometimes be naked in public processions and festivals. This practice was designed to encourage virtue in men while they were away at war and an appreciation of health in the women. Women and goddesses were normally portrayed clothed in sculpture of the Classical period, with the exception of the nude Aphrodite.
  In general, however, concepts of either shame or offense, or the social comfort of the individual, seem to have been deterrents of public nudity in the rest of Greece and the ancient world in the east and west, with exceptions in what is now South America, and in Africa and Australia. Polybius asserts that Celts typically fought naked, "The appearance of these naked warriors was a terrifying spectacle, for they were all men of splendid physique and in the prime of life."
  In antiquity even before the Classical era, e.g., on Minoan Crete, athletic exercise was an important part of daily life. The Greeks credited several mythological figures with athletic accomplishments, and the male Greek gods (especially Apollo and Heracles, patrons of sport) were commonly depicted as athletes. While Greek sculpture often showed males completely nude, a new concept for females, Venus Pudica (or partially nude) appeared, for example, the Greek "Nike of Samothrace".
  Nudity in sport was very common, with almost all sports performed naked. As a tradition it was probably first introduced in the city-state of Sparta, during the late archaic period.
  The civilization of ancient Greece (Hellas), during the Archaic period, had an athletic and cultic aesthetic of nudity which typically included adult and teenage males, but at times also boys, women and girls. The love for beauty had also included the human body, beyond the love for nature, philosophy, and the arts. The Greek word gymnasium means "a place to train naked". Male athletes competed naked, but most city-states of the time allowed no female participants or even spectators at those events, Sparta being a notable exception.
  Nudity in religious ceremonies was also practiced in Greece. The statue of the Moscophoros (the 'calf-bearer'), a remnant of the archaic Acropolis of Athens, depicts a young man carrying a calf on his shoulders, presumably taking the animal to the altar for sacrifice. The Moschophoros is not completely nude: a piece of very fine, almost transparent cloth is carefully draped over his shoulders, upper arms and front thighs, which nevertheless left his genitals purposely exposed. In this case the garment apparently fulfilled a purely ceremonial, priestly function in which modesty was not an issue.
  In Greek culture, depictions of erotic nudity were considered normal. The Greeks were conscious of the exceptional nature of their nudity, noting that "generally in countries which are subject to the barbarians, the custom is held to be dishonourable; lovers of youths share the evil repute in which philosophy and naked sports are held, because they are inimical to tyranny;" In both ancient Greece and ancient Rome, public nakedness was also accepted in the context of public bathing. It was also common for a person to be punished by being partially or completely stripped and lashed in public; in some legal systems judicial corporal punishments on the bare buttocks persisted up to or even beyond the feudal age, either only for minors or also for a
caption: Example of the Cnidian Aphrodite type
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