Pierre Vidal-Naquet's work on the spiritual and
social context of the Athenian ephebeia reveals this institution to have originated in early initiation rites
characterized by both nudity and change of clothing.64
Women, too, participated in ritual nakedness in the
course of initiations into specific cults, for example the
Here, also, age
groups were recognized by their costumes: in the
foot race, some bared one breast, and wore short
Clothing; others ran nude.65 The ritual nakedness of
the women, however, did not begin them into the life
Plato, like other Greeks, was aware of the connection between nakedness, exercise, and war, and took
the rational but bold measure of imagining the girls
who would be guardians alongside the guys must also
exercise nude alongside them.66 It was apparently the
Spartan model that most easily came to mind. There it
was most significant in the agoge or parade of the lads
and the spectacle of the gymnopaidia.67 There, too,
the girls exercised and exhibited themselves as much
as the men. So the narrative grew up that fit nudity
had been invented by the Spartans.68
The nudity of the sportsman was linked,
but it was whole: no necklace, no boots, no belt.
There was, on the other hand, an attribute of fit
nudity that might well have been more common in life
than in artwork. Sportsmen who participated in contests
and who exercised naked were infibulated; that's,
they tied up their dick with a cord, seemingly as
doubt for aesthetic reaoften, but not always-no
in
and
sons-revealed
painting
sculpture.69
Attic vases often show athletes competing in the
Naked, in addition to bare gods, heroes, humans, revelers,
etc. Adoring My Nude Body - I recently read an article by Felicity Jones that talked about "why women should see other women's nude bodies." In the beginning, the title truly shocked me. As if something that lay dormant for years, suddenly jumped back into existence. as a costume was hip, and was
another phenomenon of Greek culture developed by
and for the aristocracy who competed at the festivals,
commissioned the artists, and served as hoplites in the
Military. Like the symposium, fit nudity was a creation of Archaic Greece brought about by the rise of the
hoplites.70 These guys attended the gymnasium, and
proudly wore the "costume" that was appropriate for
this location. The gymnasium functioned as military association, public banquet-hall, court, auditorium,
country club, and university.7" This was the circumstance in
which the other generally aristocratic attribute of Greek
Boomed. As Oswyn
society-homosexuality-also
has
"The
cult
of nakedness and
Noted,
Murray
sexual exclusiveness of the symposion, and the emphasis on male courage in a society still largely formed
for war must surely be associated with the rise of
homosexual love among an aristocracy who devised a
Awesome compound to describe themselves, 'The beautiful
and the good' (kaloikagathoi-"great" of course in the
sense of well-born)." It is no coincidence that so many
illustrations of nude youths happen on vases used for
the symposium.72 Athletic nudity had by this time evi-
dence to trace the transition from the heterosexual society
Represented in Homer and in Archilochus; ... It was a noticeable representation of a penis, big and arching upwards. It cannot have had any practical represents
The kouros can be understood in
terms of a preoccupationwith the great thing about the youthful
male naked. Another product of this concernare the many
Attic black-figureand red-figure cups, mostly from the
archaic period, inscribed 'so-and-so is lovely,' kalos.
Most of these names refer to aristocrats;the cups reflectthe
Preferences and interests of the Athenian aristocracywho used
remarkablywell with my own perspective of the developmentof
Greekmale nudity. For Body image fears and the dreaded locker room shower! , his view of the symposium
as a rite drinking session, able of many transformations: "Suchtransformationsare easy to understandin terms
1989]
NUDITY AS A COSTUME IN CLASSICAL ART
dently become distinguished from religious nudity.
Commendable women, the wives of the sportsmen and
symposiasts, didn't participate in this nudity. When
the nudity of the early initiation rituals became in
Athens the "uniform" of the ephebe, the future citizen
and soldier, and of old guys also, women were not
included: the distinction came to be between citizensexercised, and
Particularly upper class citizens-who
women, who didn't.
Recent work on Greek hoplite warfare has explored the type of military training used by the Greek
cities. The capacity to serve in the army constituted
the fully competent citizen: the polis derived from the
Folks in arms.73 But how did Greek soldiers get
and preserve the skills they desired? We understand few