Athens, about the early association of the ephebeia

pyrrhic, or armed dance, was performed nude at the

Panathenaia and involved choruses from the Athenian

tribes.75 The convention of the warrior athlete who participated in armed dancing and races, still being held in

of the continuingdominanceof the aristocracyin a changing

Ecosystem."Murray's views in Early Greece have been

developedfurther in an article, "The Symposium as Societal

the Eighth Century BC: Tradition and Invention (Stock-

holm 1983) 195-99.

'VecchioOligarca',"Athenaeum66 (1988) 6-10, for the situation in Athens, ca. 440 B.C.

73 "The polis derivedfrom the individuals in arms;it was essentially the state of the citizens. Both facts made the defenseof

the state the concernof its folks. There was no question of

the capability to serve constitutedthe fully competent citizen":

E.L. Wheeler,

"Hoplomachia and Greek Dances in Arms," GRBS 23

(1982) 223-33, summarizesrecent work on this area.

74 R. Ridley, "The

Hoplite as Citizen: Athenian Military

Institutions in Their Social Context," AntCl 47 (1978)

509-48. P. Ducrey, Guerre et guerriers dans la Grace an-

tique (Freiburg,Switzerland 1985) 69-72. For the ephebeia

at Athens and the crypteia at Sparta, see P. Vidal Naquet,

Le Goff and P.

Nora eds., Faire de l'histoire III (Paris 1974) 151-60; see

also supra n. 45.

7' Ridley (supra n. 74) 538-48; Wheeler (supra n. 73).

For representationsof the Pyrrhicdance,see Poursat (supra

n. 33).

du guerrier,"in La cite des images (Paris 1984) 35-47. On

the dress of the knights (not a "uniform,"and infrequently nude),

see H. Cahn, "Dokimasia,"RA 1973, 3-22.

555

originated in earlier times before being introduced

into the Olympic plan.76

The Greeks were proud of their soldiers' physique

and of the tan skin that was the consequence of their exercising in the nude.

illustrates how, to a adept military eye, nakedness

Let an exact judgment of a man's physical fitness: "He gave directions.., .that the barbarians

Caught in the raids be exposed for sale naked. So

stripped, and fat and idle through endless riding in

Buggies, they considered that the war would be exactly

like fighting with women."77 The contrast between

their own bronzed men's bodies and the white, feminine flabbiness of the Persians revived the guts

of the Greek troops.

Male figures on Attic painted vases reveal the meaning of physical attractiveness for athletes, youths, citizens,

and soldiers. Most are lithe and slim, though one

Attic red-figure vase reveals a heavy, paunchy figure,

(fig. 3): he is a specialized sportsman, a fighter.78 A uncommon

scene of naked men who are ugly turns out to signify slaves who prepare the palaestra, not citizens exercising in the gymnasium (fig. 4),79 indicating the dif-

Body 3. Red-figurecup, ca. 480 B.C.: sportsmen training. British Museum. (CourtesyTrustees of the British Museum)

ference between the free man who worked out bare,

naked in the line of work and out of poverty. (The

slaves on this vase, like the sportsmen, are infibulated.) A

law forbade slaves to work out and anoint themselves in

the gymnasia like free men (though obviously it did

not forbid them to enter in order to do the needed

the gymnasium was characteristic not only of free men

in general, but of upper-class citizens, who worked out

as members of the hoplite army. Using nudity for

Charming reasons, on the other hand, belonged to another degree of reality-and was confined, as we have

seen, to herms, satyrs, and the phase.

By the Classical period, the custom-or "habit"-of

nudity had changed, from a religious to a civic practice.

From the ritual nudity of the kouros-set up, from the

seventh century B.C. on, as picture of Apollo, votive gift,

funerary image, offering or servant of the god-and the

Rite nudity of the sportsman who competed in the

Olympic games, dedicated to the gods, there was a

change to the athletic nudity of the citizen-soldier. The

transition was, I believe, originally involved with the

Rite costume appropriate for initiation rituals.

This passage from a spiritual to a civic context was