Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks

140 Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks
Older man wearing a himation over a
chitôn, with walking boots and a felt hat
(petasos), and a younger man wearing a
chitôn. Courtesy akg-images, London:
Peter Connolly.
This gave them license to indulge in much freer behavior than was
permitted them at other times. Some women either bleached their
hair or dyed it. Female slaves wore their hair short and covered it
in a hair net called a kekryphalos.
Freeborn men favored beards and moustaches, whereas slaves
were often completely shaven. The Homeric heroes braided their
hair and wore it long. This, too, is how men’s hair is depicted in
Archaic sculpture. In the Classical Period, the Athenians cut their
hair much shorter.
The Spartans remained conservative in their preference for long hair. Plutarch
writes,
In wartime the Spartans relaxed the harshest aspects of their training and did not
prevent young men from beautifying their hair and their armor and their cloth-