d fringes and sumptuous embroideries of palmetto and
"meandering" patterns, such as were worn by the luxurious
South-Italian Greeks. Such a sumptuous dress is worn by Medea in a
picture of the death of Talos on an Apulian amphora in the Jatta
collection at Ruvo. In the same picture the chitones of Kastor and
Polydeukes, and those of the Argonautai, are covered with palmetto
embroideries, the edges at the bottom showing mythological scenes on
the dark ground.

[Illustration: STONE SET BROOCHES.]

In the cities Greeks walked mostly bareheaded, owing most likely to
the more plentiful hair of southern nations, which, moreover, was
cultivated by the Greeks with particular care. Travelers, hunters, and
such artificers as were particularly exposed to the sun, used light
coverings for their heads. The different forms of these may be
classified. They were made of the skins of dogs, weasels, or cows.

The hair is considered in Homer as one of the greatest signs of male
beauty among the long-haired Achaioi; no less were the well-arranged
locks of maidens and women praised by the tragic poets. Among the
Spartans it became a sacred custom, derived from the laws of Lykurgos,
to let the hair of the boy grow as soon as he reached the age of the
ephebos, while up to that time it was cut short. This custom prevailed
among the Spartans up to their being overpowered by the Achaic
federation. Altogether the Dorian character did not admit of much
attention being paid to the arrangement of the hair. Only on solemn
occasions, for instance on the eve of the battle of Thermopylae, the
Spartans arranged their hair with particular care.

At Athens, about the time of the Persian wars, men used to wear their
hair long, tied on to the top of the head in a knot, which was
fastened by a hair-pin in the form of a cicada. Of this custom,
however, the monuments offer no example. Only in the pictures of two
Pankratiastai, on a monument dating most likely from Roman times, we
discover an analogy to this old Attic custom. After the Persian war,
when the dress and manners of the Ionians had undergone a change, it
became the custom to cut off the long hair of the boys on their
attaining the age of epheboi, and devote it as an offering to a god,
for instance, to the Delphic Apollo or some local river-god. Attic
citizens, however, by no means wore their hair cropped short, like
their slaves, but used to let it grow according to their own taste or
the co