Back - Mantle and Peplos: The Special Costume of Greek Maidens in 4th - Century Funerary and Votive Reliefs

Abstract

The distinctive costume of back-mantle and peplos appears most often on standing females on Late Classical funerary reliefs. These maidens are intentionally set apart from other females in group scenes on grave reliefs as well as in processional scenes on votive reliefs. A decree of 422/1 B.C. provides the earliest example of the costume, worn by Athena, whom the maidens appear to emulate. Mythological maidens approaching marriage, such as Hebe and Deianeira, also wear this costume. The monuments uggest that the maiden of marriageable status dressed in this costume occupied a special place within families and society in Classical Greece. In the ancient world, costume was an all-important indicator of status and social standing, for clothing signified unofficial as well as official membership in a group.1 Distinctive garments inform us not only about the characteristics of individual figures but also about the relationships among figures. The special costume-back-mantle and peplos-that identifies and characterizes Athenian maidens in the Late Classical period is the focus of this study. The consistency in the type of figures shown in this costume, as well as the high quality of the monuments on which they are depicted, indicates that these young women were easily identifiable and important to society. They are the parthenoi celebrated in myth and cult, girls just past their childhood and on the threshold of marriage. Maidens in back-mantle and peplos appear on sixty funerary monuments and eight votive reliefs. The monuments date from an important 1. It is with great pleasure that I thank the American Philosophical Society for research grants to work on this material and the American School of Classical Studies at Athens for assistance and cooperation. I also thank the anonymous reviewers for Hesperia for their useful observations. Appreciation is due to many museum staff members who enabled me to view the sculptures, often under difficult circumstances, at the National Museum and the Acropolis Museum, Athens; Archaeological Museum, Piraeus; British Museum, London; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and Musee du Louvre, Paris. I thank Carol Lawton and Olga Palagia for their helpful comments after reading a draft of this work, Nancy Winter for research assistance, and especially Evelyn B. Harrison, who inspired me to finish it. Although this study is based on my 1986 New York University dissertation for the Institute of Fine Arts, "The Shoulder-Pinned Back-Mantle in Greek and Roman Sculpture," there is a large shift in emphasis here and much new material is presented. American School of Classical Studies at Athens is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to Hesperia www.jstor.org ® 236 LINDA JONES ROCCOS but not well-defined period of Greek art, the middle decades of the 4th century (ca. 370 to 310 B.C.). Nearly all of the monuments come from Attica-Athens, Brauron, Eleusis, and Piraeus or from places with strong ties to Athens. Identifying examples of the costume is difficult; early photographs of sculpture often display only a full frontal view with flat lighting that obscures the back-mantle. Moreover, the garment was not considered distinctive or significant by earlier researchers. Not only Margarete Bieber's works on Greek costume2 but also more recent works, such as those by Georges Losfeld, Elsa Gullberg, and Anastasia Pekridou-Gorecki,3 only briefly mention the costume considered here. Studies show that when we isolate the distinguishing characteristics of specific garments, we can learn much about social and economic roles in ancient Greece. Elizabeth Walters has demonstrated that women who were initiates in the cult of Isis associated themselves with her by wearing a garment of Egyptian type.4 Although it is not known whether the maidens in back-mantle and peplos represented any particular cult, they appear to associate themselves with the maiden goddesses Athena and Artemis, who are also represented in this costume.5 Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood and, recently, Karen Stears suggest that the young women who wear the back-mantle and peplos are teenagers.6 Other scholars have explored the ritual and cultic significance of certain garments. Margaret Miller's study of the ependytes shows that it was worn as a status symbol at festivals.7 For example, a young maiden shown as a kanephoros in a ritual procession on a red-figure krater by the Kleophon Painter wears an ependytes.8 Nancy Serwint identifies the exomis as a dress worn by female athletes in initiation rites at the Heraia in Olympia.9 Evelyn Harrison suggests that a figure wearing a shoulder-cord over a chiton may be Themis, but Olga Palagia identifies the same figure as Demokrateia or Agathe Tyche.10 Some works focus on the identifying nature of specific garments; the dress of the Archaic korai, for example, is explored by Harrison, Brunilde Ridgway, and Judith Schaeffer.1" Karin Polaschek studies the wrapped himation worn by men, and A. Geddes investigates the clothing worn by Athenian men.12 Harrison notes that groups of horsemen on the Parthenon frieze can be distinguished by garments that identify them as members of Kleisthenic Attic tribal units.13 Studies such as these, as well as recent works on the low-belted chiton by Hannelore Winkler or the thickly rolled himation by Axel Filges,14 also illustrate how garments characterize the wearer. For example, youthful goddesses such as Flora and Nymphs wear the low-belted chiton, while more mature figures like Persephone wear the himation wrapped tightly across the breast. Young women in back-mantle and peplos appear most often among the standing females on Late Classical grave reliefs published first by Alexander Conzet5 and in the twoor three-figure groups described recently by Christoph Clairmont.16 Some of these maidens are also included in studies of funerary monuments by Hans Diepolder and Knud Friis Johansen (stelai), Bernhard Schmaltz (stelai and lekythoi), and Gerit Kokula (loutrophoroi). 17Two recent studies of 4th-century grave stelai, by Andreas Scholl on the "'Bildfeldstelen''18 and Johannes Bergemann on the naiskos 2. Bieber (1928) discusses costume garment by garment with examples of modern reconstructions (peplos, pp. 77-82; himation, pp. 82-90); Bieber and Eckstein 1967 is a briefer study by chronological period (Classical period, pp. 32-34), with examples taken mostly from ancient sculpture. For recent bibliography on Greek dress, see Losfeld 1991, pp. 370-399; PekridouGorecki 1989, pp. 138-154, for notes as there is no bibliography; and Lee 1999, pp. 558-596. I am also currently preparing an annotated bibliography. 3. Losfeld (1991) considers the textual evidence for dress; he includes a useful list of 336 terms related to Greek dress, pp. 327-339, but none seem to apply to the back-mantle. See also Gullberg and Astr6m 1970 for extremely brief descriptions; PekridouGorecki 1989 for some useful drawings; and Losfeld 1994 for examples in art, but very few drawings. 4. Walters 1988. 5. For Athena, see LIMC II, 1984, p. 977, nos. 220-230, pls. 729-730, s.v. Athena (P. Demargne). For Artemis, see LIMC II, 1984, p. 636, nos. 125133, pl. 454, s.v. Artemis (L. Kahil). 6. Sourvinou-Inwood 1988; Stears 1995. 7. Miller 1989. 8. Ferrara 44894 T57C: ARV2 1143, no. 1; Addenda2 334; LIMC II, 1984, p. 220, no. 303, pl. 208, s.v. Apollon (W. Lambrinoudakis); Miller 1997, p. 159, fig. 68. 9. Serwint 1993. 10. Harrison 1977; Palagia 1982; 1994. See Pekridou-Gorecki 1989, p. 97 for a diagram of this costume. 11. Harrison 1991; Ridgway 1997; Schaeffer 1975. See also Richter 1968, pp. 6-13, for the costume. 12. Polaschek 1969; Geddes 1987. 13. Harrison 1984, 1, pp. 230-233; 1989, p. 49. 14. Winkler 1996; Filges 1997. 15. Conze 1922, IV, nos. 803-907. 16. Clairmont 1993, Introduction, pp. 32-33. 17. Diepolder 1931; FriisJohansen 1951; Schmaltz 1970. See also Schmaltz 1983 and Kokula 1984. 18. Scholl (1996, p. 121) includes only five panel stelai (picture panels BACK-MANTLE AND PEPLOS 237 stelai,19 include several of these maidens in their catalogues but have little to say about the costume. In studies of votive reliefs, particularly by Ulrich Hausmann and Gerhard Neumann,20 the maidens rarely receive more than a note. In general studies of 4th-century monuments, very little attention is paid to funerary and votive reliefs.21 These reliefs, however, depict valuable images of the world of ordinary citizens in the Classical period. The back-mantle and peplos set the wearer apart from other females in processional scenes on votive reliefs and in group scenes on grave reliefs. The maiden wearing this costume was important enough to her family to merit her own funerary monument. Stears points out that in Conze's corpus of grave reliefs, 168 monuments depict men alone, while 176 depict women alone,22 twenty to thirty of which portray a solitary young woman wearing the back-mantle and peplos. Some fragmentary stelai may also be part of this group. Despite their frequent appearance and distinctive costume, these maidens have not previously been studied as a group.