Clothing in ancient Greece: chiton, himation, peplos

Ancient Greek clothes were very simple. Each garment was one large rectangle of cloth. Nobody cut it into shapes like a modern shirt, and there were no fixed sizes. The women of the house spun the thread and wove the cloth on a loom. The most common materials were wool, from sheep, and linen, made from the flax plant.

The way you folded and fastened the cloth gave the garment its name. Long dress pins, the περόναι, and brooches held it on the shoulders. A belt, the ζώνη, held it at the waist. If a dress was too long for walking, people pulled some of the cloth up over the belt. So the same kind of rectangle could become a dress, a tunic or a cloak.

Many statues look white today, and on vases clothes often seem to be one colour. In real life, Greek cloth was often dyed bright red, yellow, green or violet. It could also have patterns of lines or leaves along the edges.

The chiton, χιτών, was a tunic, usually made of light linen. It was sewn at the sides and pinned at each shoulder. A row of small pins along the arms could make a kind of sleeve. Women wore the chiton down to their feet. Men who worked or rode horses wore a short chiton that stopped at the knee, so they could move easily.

The peplos, πέπλος, was a women’s dress of heavier wool. Before pinning it, the woman folded the top of the cloth down, so that a second layer hung over her chest. This fold is the sign of a peplos. The dress was pinned on both shoulders and tied with a belt.

The peplos is the oldest of these clothes. In the 6th century BC, many women started to wear the lighter linen chiton instead. In the 5th century BC, the peplos became popular again. Statues of the goddess Athena usually wear a peplos, and at the Panathenaia festival of Athens a new peplos for Athena was carried in the procession.

Over the chiton or the peplos, men and women wore the himation, ἱμάτιον. It was a very large rectangle of cloth, usually wool. People wrapped it around the body and over the left shoulder. Older men often wore it around the lower body like a long skirt, with the end thrown over the left shoulder and no pin at all. On the Parthenon frieze you can see men in long himatia walking in the great procession.

Young men often wore the chlamys, χλαμύς, a smaller woollen cloak. It was pinned on the right shoulder, and it was good for riding and travelling. Travellers also wore a hat with a wide brim against the hot sun and the rain.

At home, Greeks often walked barefoot. Outside, they wore sandals, σανδάλια, with thin straps, or soft shoes and boots. Women often tied up their long hair with scarves or ribbons, and men wore cloth headbands.

The historian Herodotus, who lived in the 5th century BC, tells a strange story about dress pins (Histories 5.87). Athens sent soldiers to fight on the island of Aegina, and only one man came home. The wives of the dead soldiers were so angry that they surrounded him. Each one asked him where her husband was, and they stabbed him with the pins of their clothes. He died.

According to Herodotus, the Athenians then punished the women by changing their clothes. The women had to stop wearing the Dorian dress with its long pins. Instead they wore the Ionian linen chiton, which did not need such pins. Herodotus adds that this dress did not really come from Ionia but from Caria, in Asia Minor.

We cannot check if the story really happened. It may be a tale that Greeks told to explain a change in fashion. But it shows that the old dress pins were long and sharp. Herodotus even says that two other cities then made their pins one and a half times as long as before.