Greeks, Spartans, and Nudity at the Games

After the fall of the island of Knossos, the Greeks wore a tunic, first the Peplos and later the Chiton, made from two rectangular pieces of cloth partially sewn together on both sides. On the bare body the shirt-like Chiton was belted under the breasts, at the waist, or at the hips.

Women in ancient Greece also wore a type of bustier. It was called the apodesme. It consisted of thin cloth ribbons, which were strapped around the body under the breasts to hold the tunic in place and support the woman's breasts.

Edgar Degas, "Jeunes Filles spartiates." The painting illustrates what is believed to be a typical scene of a (coed) Spartan gym class. In gymnastic and bodily exercises, Spartan girls also put off this single piece of clothing and appeared completely naked.

Each garment is woven to size for the individual. It is cut to the height of the wearer from shoulder to ankle plus 12" to 15" for the overfold. The garment is belted at the natural waist to control the fullness and give a narrow silhouette. This belt, or girdle as it is called, could often be an elaborate woven cord or even gold embossed leather. And the girdle could be worn either under the overfold or on top of it.

In the latter part of the 5th century B.C., a form of the Peplos was revived, described by historians as the Doric Chiton. It could be worn closed on both sides or worn open on one full side. The open style is more closely associated with the women of Sparta. Spartan women appear to have favored wearing it completely open on the left side. It earned them and the style the vulgar euphemism meaning "shows her bare thigh"! But the Spartans as a people seem to have been much more accustomed to showing nudity outside the Gymnasium or military than the Athenians.

The Greeks seem to have had an aversion to clothing of any sort whenever it was unnecessary or simply annoying. The Athenian gentleman spent a good part of his life in the Gymnasia: clubhouses comprising exercise rooms, baths and lecture/discussion halls where philosophers, poets and rhetoricians might hold forth. The word Gymnasia is derived from Gynos, meaning naked. Certainly no clothing was worn during the many hours of athletic exercise regarded by the philosophers as necessary to the health of body and soul.

The dress of ancient Greece is of the utmost simplicity in basis, but of the greatest variety in method of wearing. There is no artificiality of silhouette via corseting or padding and no stiffening of fabrics. The lines are entirely natural, but sophisticated.

Eventually, nudity also became part of the tradition of the Olympic Games. Athletes from Sparta are given historical credit for being the first to discard clothing while in training for competition. It's possible this occurred as early as the seventh century B.C. Since these pioneering athletes won an abnormally high proportion of the prizes because their bodies were not restricted by clothing, other Greek athletes began to emulate the nudity of the Spartans. Thereafter, nudity was an integral part of the Olympic tradition until 393 A.D., when Roman Emperor Theodosium, Christian ruler of Greece, banned the Olympic Games because he considered them to be pagan ceremonies.

After the Greeks, the Romans adopted the Tunic.