Sexual life in ancient Greece : with thirty-two full-page plates

BEauTy CONTESTS

swords performed dangerous tricks and spat fire.” Numerous vase-paintings, on which such female artistes are represented either quite naked or only Wearing an apron, prove that such exhibitions were not rare, but, especially in the Hellenistic period, enjoyed general popularity.

That, considering the freedom from prejudice of the attitude of the Greeks towards nakedness, the naked were not excluded in acts that concerned the worship of the gods is self-intelligible and hence need only be illustrated by a single example. From artistic representations it is familiar to us that at the processions at the Dionysiac festivals naked youths and women exposed their beauty for show. It would be perverse to see in that only the whim of the freely creative artist, for of such a procession Lucian expressly says (De Baccho 1): “ For they had heard strange reports from their spies concerning his army: that his phalanx and bodies of troops consisted of mad and raging women, crowned with ivy, clad in fawn-skins, carrying short spears, not of iron, but also made of ivy; they bore small shields, which gave forth a booming noise if one so much as touched them—for their drums resembled shields. There were also, it was said, a few rustic youths among them, naked, dancing the cordax, having tails and horns.”

5. BATHING

We may briefly refer to an occasion on which it was not possible for the Greeks to see human bodies naked—at the public baths.

As early as Homeric times it was generally the custom to swim and bathe in the sea or rivers ; yet even then the luxury of warm baths—for these were regarded as a luxury by nearly the whole of Greece—was quite common. Similarly, it was a matter of course for a warm bath to be the first thing prepared for a guest after he alighted.

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