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HOW DID CLEON DRESS FOR THE ASSEMBLY? ARISTOPHANES, PEACE 685–7 AND ATHÊNAIÔN POLITEIA 28.3

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2025

Robert Tordoff
Robert Tordoff*
Affiliation:
York University
*
rtordoff@yorku.ca
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Abstract

This article argues that a joke about the demagogue Hyperbolus in Aristophanes’ Peace (685–7) can be illuminated by a reconsideration of the meaning of the little-attested word περιζωσάμενος in the Aristotelian Constitution of the Athenians (Athênaiôn Politeia 28.3), where it describes how Cleon dressed in an unconventional manner when appearing before the assembly. In recent translation of and commentary on the Aristotelian text there appears to have been no investigation of the meaning of περιζωσάμενος in Greek comedy: readers are informed that Cleon either hitched up his (unspecified) clothing or somehow fastened his cloak to allow him to make gestures with both hands. However, the philological and material-cultural evidence presented here points to something more specific and more dramatic. Elsewhere in classical and later Greek the word περιζώννυσθαι means belting or knotting something around the waist and is most frequently found in contexts of manual labour. Here, it is argued that the import of Athênaiôn Politeia 28.3 is that Cleon spoke to the assembly dressed for work in his family’s tannery—a powerful symbol of his allegiance to the manual-labouring demos and his antagonism towards the aristocratic elite. It is to his unconventional self-fashioning that Aristophanes alludes in Peace when he jokes that after Cleon’s death the naked demos has wrapped itself (περιεζώσατο) in Hyperbolus, the new leader of the people.

Keywords

CleonHyperbolusAristophanesPeaceComedyAristotleAthênaiôn Politeiaancient Greek dress

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Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 74 , Issue 2 , December 2024 , pp. 461 - 468
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association

In Peace (685–7), Aristophanes’ comic hero Trygaeus says of the demagogue Hyperbolus:

ἀλλ’ οὐκέτ’ αὐτῷ χρησόμεθ’ οὐδέν, ἀλλὰ νῦν
ἀπορῶν ὁ δῆμος ἐπιτρόπου καὶ γυμνὸς ὤν
τοῦτον τέως τὸν ἄνδρα περιεζώσατο.
Well, we’re not going to have anything to do with him at all.
It’s just that at the moment, the people, lacking a supervisor and being naked,
have wrapped that man around them for the meantime.Footnote 1

The context of this short quotation is the scene in which Trygaeus and the Chorus rescue the goddess Peace, hauling her statue on to the stage (Peace 520). In the ensuing dialogue (601–56), Hermes explains to Trygaeus and the Chorus the origins of the Peloponnesian War and the reasons why the conflict has lasted so many years, the latter being blamed on Cleon, who repeatedly rebuffed offers of peace after his victory at Pylos in 425 (Peace 647–8, 665–9; cf. Thuc. 4.41.3–4). Then, with Hermes as interpreter, the goddess begins to ask Trygaeus what has been happening in Athens in her absence. Trygaeus responds with news about Cleonymus, Hyperbolus, Sophocles and Cratinus (Peace 670–705). Hyperbolus, son of Antiphanes of Perithoidai (PA 13910; PAA 902050), a demagogue disparaged by Aristophanes and others as a lamp-maker, had become leader of the demos (cf. Peace 680–1) after Cleon’s death, less than a year before the performance of Peace at the City Dionysia of 421. He was ostracized at some point in the period 418–415 and subsequently assassinated on Samos in 411.Footnote 2

The significance of the striking metaphor of the demos wearing its leader (τοῦτον … τὸν ἄνδρα περιεζώσατο) has not, to my knowledge, received much attention, and certainly none that connects it to the use of περιζώννυσθαι in the Aristotelian Athênaiôn Politeia (23.8), where it is one of the features of Cleon’s eccentric political behaviour.Footnote 3 The relevant passage reads as follows:

ἕως μὲν οὖν Περικλῆς προειστήκει τοῦ δήμου βελτίω τὰ κατὰ τὴν πολιτείαν ἦν, τελευτήσαντος δὲ Περικλέους πολὺ χείρω. πρῶτον γὰρ τότε προστάτην ἔλαβεν ὁ δῆμος οὐκ εὐδοκιμοῦντα παρὰ τοῖς ἐπιεικέσιν […]. Περικλέους δὲ τελευτήσαντος τῶν μὲν ἐπιφανῶν προειστήκει Νικίας […], τοῦ δὲ δήμου Κλέων ὁ Κλεαινέτου, ὃς δοκεῖ μάλιστα διαφθεῖραι τὸν δῆμον ταῖς ὁρμαῖς, καὶ πρῶτος ἐπὶ τοῦ βήματος ἀνέκραγε καὶ ἐλοιδορήσατο καὶ περιζωσάμενος ἐδημηγόρησε, τῶν ἄλλων ἐν κόσμῳ λεγόντων.

As long as Pericles was head of the demos Athenian governance was relatively good, but when he died it became much worse. For that was the first time that the demos chose a leader who was not well thought of by reasonable men … When Pericles died, Nicias became leader of the men of distinction … and Cleon son of Cleaenetus leader of the demos; the latter seems, more than anyone, to have corrupted the demos with his impulsiveness,Footnote 4 and he was the first to shout on the speaker’s platform, to hurl abuse and to address the demos perizôsamenos, while everyone else spoke with decorum. ([Arist.] Ath. Pol. 28.1, 3)

It is apparent that Cleon was a new phenomenon in Athenian politics: the first leader to be considered unworthy of leadership by the elite, and the first to shock the assembly with shouting, abuse, and by the way he dressed. As in the case of the verses from Aristophanes’ Peace quoted above, the meaning and importance of this description of how Cleon clothed himself (περιζωσάμενος) when he spoke to the assembly seems not to have received much investigation.Footnote 5

The phrase περιζωσάμενος ἐδημηγόρησε (Ath. Pol. 28.3) has been translated by Rackham in the Loeb Classical Library as ‘gird up his cloak before making a public speech’ (note, however, that there is no word for cloak in the passage he translates, nor indeed for any garment, except by implication); by Rhodes in his commentary on the Athênaiôn Politeia as ‘speak “girt about”’; by Rhodes, again, as ‘made speeches with his clothes hitched up’;Footnote 6 by Everson as ‘addressed the Ekklesia with his garments tucked up’; and, once more, by Rhodes as ‘speak with his clothes hitched up’.Footnote 7

Rhodes’s commentary on the Athênaiôn Politeia draws on a number of texts to show that the meaning of περιζωσάμενος in 28.3 is that Cleon addressed the assembly with one or both arms outside his ἱμάτιον (that is, himation, pl. himatia, generally translated as ‘cloak’).Footnote 8 Aeschines’ claim (1.25–6) that, in the old days, Athenian speakers would not even show one arm outside their cloak (questioned by Demosthenes 19.251, who points out that the statue of Solon adduced in evidence by Aeschines was less than fifty years old) is cited, as is the scholiast on Aeschines (Σ 1.25), who relates that ‘it is said that the demagogue Cleon would come forward to address the people περιζωσάμενος in his usual manner’.Footnote 9 Ultimately, Rhodes relies on the late first- or early second-century evidence of Plutarch (Nic. 8.3) to claim that Cleon ‘pulled aside his cloak’ (περισπάσας τὸ ἱμάτιον) or his ‘outer clothing’ (περισπάσαι … τὴν περιβολήν), no doubt also meaning his cloak (Ti. Gracch. 2.2).Footnote 10 Rhodes concludes that the meaning of περιζώννυσθαι ‘is presumably to be connected with Aeschines’ “having the hand outside”Footnote 11 and Plutarch’s “pulling away his ἱμάτιον,” and must mean that [Cleon] fastened his clothes so as to be free to gesticulate with one or both hands.’Footnote 12

However, the evidence of comedy points to a more specific and rather more dramatic interpretation of Cleon’s attire. Instances of περιζώννυσθαι in Old, Middle and New Comedy, from the fifth to perhaps as late as the third century, show that the essential meaning of the word, as we would expect etymologically,Footnote 13 is to knot or wrap something around the waist, whether a belt or some other article of clothing. The earliest known uses of the word are found in Aristophanes (Peace 687, Birds 1148). In Birds, the perfect participle περιεζωμέναιFootnote 14 describes the appearance of ducks working with bricks on the avian city in the clouds: καὶ νὴ Δί’ αἱ νῆτταί γε περιεζωμέναι | ἐπλινθοβόλουν (‘And, by Zeus, the ducks were periezômenai and laying bricks’).Footnote 15 There is disagreement among commentators over whether περιεζωμέναι can be interpreted to mean ‘wearing aprons’ (equivalent to περιζώματα ἔχουσαι) or should mean ‘wearing a belt’, an uncertainty that attaches to almost every comic fragment in which forms of the word are found.Footnote 16 Since there seems to be no certain example of an apron anywhere in ancient Greek art, it is possible to doubt that such things existed in classical Athens.Footnote 17 It is not clear that the word περιζώστρα (found only in Anaxandrides fr. 70 K.–A.), which LSJ unambiguously translates as ‘apron’, actually means that.Footnote 18 Similarly, in the only place in New Comedy where the widely attested word περίζωμα is found (Hegesippus fr. 1.6–8 K.–A.),Footnote 19 it is by no means clear that it does not simply mean a loincloth, as it clearly must in the fields of athletics (cf. Paus. 1.44.1)Footnote 20 and probably also military service (for instance, Polyb. 6.25.3). Accordingly, the translation ‘wearing an apron’ cannot be pressed, especially when περιζώννυσθαι is used absolutely, as it is in Birds 1148.Footnote 21

The essential meaning of περιζώννυσθαι is well illustrated by the comic poet Theopompus (active c. 410–380) in the undated play Paides (fr. 38 K.–A. apud Poll. 7.66). Here, someone is told to wrap (περιζωσάμενος) a bath-towel (made of sheepskin) around himself to cover his manhood (τηνδὶ περιζωσάμενος ᾤαν λουτρίδα | κατάδεσμον ἥβης περιπέτασον…).Footnote 22 Evidently, he wraps the sheepskin around his waist. It is impossible to be certain whether the Thracian king Cotys I (reigned 384–360) in the mid-fourth-century comic poet Anaxandrides (fr. 42.12–13 K.–A.) is imagined to be wearing an apron, a belted garment of some kind, or a loincloth, when he is said to serve broth from a golden jug and to περιεζῶσθαι.Footnote 23 Similarly, in the comic dramatist Alexis (c. 375–c. 275), the word περιεζωσμένος (fr. 179.11 K.–A.) describes a chef dressed and ready to begin cooking.Footnote 24 But what the actor performing this scene wore must remain uncertain.Footnote 25

The most likely answer, given its prominence in Greek art, is a χιτών (that is, chitôn, pl. chitônes, meaning a ‘tunic’) of one kind or another, worn with a belt. The belt could serve one or both of two functions: either drawing the lower part of the tunic up to or above the knee to allow ease of movement, or securing it at the waist while letting the upper part fall off the shoulders, leaving the torso bare for warm or dirty work. The first style is shown in the tondo of the Foundry Painter’s early fifth-century name vase (ARV 2 400.1; Boardman, fig. 262.1). It depicts Hephaestus wearing a short, sleeveless tunic (probably an ἐξωμίς),Footnote 26 belted at the waist, with the hemline of the garment drawn well above the knee and the tasseled ends of the belt dangling over his right thigh.

The exterior of the same vessel depicts the second style. Two bronze sculptors wear belted tunics unfastened at the shoulders, allowing the upper part of the garment to fall to the waist in several loose, concertinaed folds (Boardman, figs. 262.2, 3). Discussing Alexis fr. 179 K.–A., Arnott cites several more examples of this manner of dress. The clearest is a youth fetching a sheep for sacrifice on a late fifth-century Attic krater (ARV 2 1149.9).Footnote 27 He wears a long chitôn reaching to below the knee, belted at the waist with the upper part of the garment falling over the belt, leaving his torso bare.Footnote 28 Lee, however, identifies the garments depicted on the outside of the Foundry Painter’s name vase as himatia not chitônes, demonstrating the uncertainty, even for the trained eye, of distinguishing, on figured pottery, a belted tunic worn off the shoulders from a belted cloak worn around the waist.Footnote 29

The himation could also be tied around the waist without the need for a belt. The tondo of the Carpenter Painter’s name vase, a late archaic red-figure cup (ARV 2 179.1; Boardman, fig. 124), shows a young man, naked but for a long piece of cloth with a decorated border, presumably a cloak of some sort, knotted around his body just above the hips.

Despite the uncertainties of identifying different kinds of garments worn with a belt or knotted about the waist, one thing is clear: περιζώννυσθαι describes a mode of dress suitable for manual labour, whether cooking, serving food or laying bricks. As Arnott remarks on Alexis (fr. 179.11 K.–A.), ‘To be περιεζω(σ)μένος in classical Athens implied the status of an artisan […] and so brought disrepute to Cleon […], yet for a μάγειρος [i.e. chef] the dress symbolised his craft’.Footnote 30

Here Arnott seems to imply that Cleon’s attire was merely an inadvertent social faux pas. There is an alternative: namely, that it was a deliberate strategy of political self-fashioning. Cleon, though in fact from a wealthy background, presented himself to the assembly, by the way he dressed, as a hard-working, manual labourer.Footnote 31 The rhetoric of his clothing was a powerful statement of affiliation to the mass of ordinary, poor, Athenian citizens.Footnote 32

One function of the himation, the fundamental article of clothing for Athenian men, was to advertize conspicuous leisure, for which purpose the garment was well suited. It was a long rectangle of cloth, typically draped about the body over the left shoulder (cf. Ar. Av. 1567–8; Pl. Tht. 175e), under the right arm, and held in place by the concealed left hand, leaving only the right arm free.Footnote 33 It was conveniently uncomplicated to take off and put on again for an activity such as athletic practice, but wholly impractical for manual labour, unless it was worn with a belt (or simply knotted) about the waist, in effect as a long loincloth.Footnote 34

It remains uncertain exactly what Cleon wore, except that it must have been fastened around the waist and, whatever it was, represented a breach with accepted norms of dress for a leading speaker in the assembly. There are various possibilities. He might have worn a chitôn or exômis with a belt (which would therefore meet the definition of περιζωσάμενος);Footnote 35 the latter was typical attire for manual labourers, the poor and slaves.Footnote 36 Either could have been worn off the shoulders, secured simply by the waistbelt. Another possibility is a himation, fastened with a belt or simply tied around the waist like a voluminous loincloth. The last seems the most likely, for rearranging the himation from its usual style to appear περιζωσάμενος, with the length of cloth wrapped around the waist, would be the work of a moment but would entirely transform the symbolic meaning of the garment.Footnote 37

Whatever the case, dressed περιζωσάμενος, Cleon probably appeared to the assembly to be clad in his workwear from his tannery, a choice of style that might help to explain Aristophanes’ very numerous jibes about his family occupation as a tanner.Footnote 38 No doubt he presented himself as one of the many Athenians of whom Pseudo-Xenophon, probably writing in the 420s, archly remarked that their clothes made it difficult to distinguish them from slaves or metics.Footnote 39 The unprecedented (πρῶτος … περιζωσάμενος ἐδημηγόρησε, Ath. Pol. 28.3) manner in which Cleon, as a leading assembly speaker, clothed himself demonstrates just how radical his political style was and helps us to understand the sharply negative views of him formed by Aristophanes, Thucydides, the writer of the Aristotelian Athênaiôn Politieia and others.

If the image of Cleon addressing the assembly (probably) stripped to the waist shocks readers accustomed to thinking of the leading citizens of classical Athens attired in chitôn and himation, then we have recovered some of the emotional affect historically experienced by Athenians of the 420s when confronted, amid the horrors of the Peloponnesian War, with a new kind of politician.Footnote 40 And we have before us a more accurate and vivid picture of the tumultuous nature of Athenian democracy in the period, which is a gain for the history of classical Athens.

Aristophanes’ joke in Peace 685–7 is not limited to the undoubtedly humorous image of the naked demos desperately using Hyperbolus like a loincloth. The full force of the humour is only apparent when the audience recalls that περιεζώσατο alludes to the eccentric way in which Cleon, perhaps as recently as less than a year before, had spoken to the assembly: wearing his tunic or cloak as a labourer or tradesman would, belted or knotted at the waist, in sharp contrast to the decorous and traditional manner of wearing the himation in a formal, political context.

Footnotes

*

I thank CQ’s reader for numerous helpful suggestions, as well as attendees of the conference organized by Professor Bernd Steinbock at Western University, Ontario, 16th–17th September 2023, where I presented an earlier version of this article. The following abbreviations are used: ABV = J.D. Beazley, Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters (Oxford, 1956); ARV2 = J.D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters (New York, 19842); Boardman = J. Boardman, Athenian Red-Figure Vases: The Archaic Period (London, 1975); FGrHist = F. Jacoby (ed.), Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (Leiden / Boston / Cologne 1923–); PA = J. Kirchner (ed.), Prosopographia Attica, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1901, 1903; repr. Chicago, 1981); PAA = J. Traill (ed.), Persons of Ancient Athens, 23 vols. (Toronto, 1994–2021).

References

1 Unless otherwise noted, translations of ancient Greek are mine.

2 For Hyperbolus’ lamp-making business see Peace 690–2 (cf. Eq. 1315, Nub. 1065; Cratinus fr. 209 K.–A.; Andoc. fr. 5 Blass ap. Σ Ar. Vesp. 1007b). Cleon was killed in battle at Amphipolis in summer 422 (Thuc. 5.10.9). The date of Peace and the festival at which it was performed are known from an ancient hypothesis to the play: argumentum A3.37–8 in D. Holwerda, Scholia in Aristophanem II.2 (Groningen, 1982), 3. For Hyperbolus’ death, see Thuc. 8.73.3; Theopomp. FGrHist 115 F 103. The date of his ostracism, a notorious historical crux, has no bearing on the present argument.

3 M. Platnauer, Aristophanes: Peace (Oxford, 1964), 126 compares Herodas (2.15) for the imagery (‘wearing the armour of a legal representative’); similarly J. Taillardat, Les images d’Aristophane: études de langue et de style (Paris, 19652), 398–9. A.H. Sommerstein, Aristophanes: Peace (Warminster, 20052), 165 notes that Hyperbolus is figured as ‘a piece of cloth’ used ‘as an emergency garment’. S.D. Olson, Aristophanes: Peace (Oxford, 1998), 210 rightly compares Theopompus Comicus fr. 38 K.–A. (for which see below).

4 The meaning of ὁρμαῖς here (not to mention the text itself) is disputed and my translation is tentative: see P.J. Rhodes, A Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia (Oxford, 19852), 353.

5 W.R. Connor, The New Politicians of Fifth-Century Athens (Princeton, 1971), 133 discusses Ath. Pol. 28.3 but does not raise the question of what Cleon wore when addressing the assembly; similarly, the fullest recent study of Cleon, V. Saldutti, Cleone: un politico ateniese (Bari, 2014), 18 n. 13. J. Fredal, Rhetorical Action in Ancient Athens: Persuasive Artistry from Solon to Demosthenes (Carbondale, IL, 2006), 168 and n. 18, assumes, with most scholars, that Cleon wore a cloak and arranged it in such a way as to free his left hand, but does not consider other garments or the meaning of περιζωσάμενος outside the Athênaiôn Politeia.

6 Yet the usual word for ‘hitching up’ clothing is not περιζώννυσθαι but ἀναστέλλεσθαι (cf. LSJ s.v. ἀναστέλλω, citing Eur. Bacch. 696; Ar. Eccl. 268).

7 Respectively, H. Rackham, Aristotle: Athenian Constitution, Eudemian Ethics, Virtues and Vices (Cambridge MA, 19522), 83; Rhodes (n. 4), 354; S. Everson, Aristotle: The Politics and the Constitution of Athens (Cambridge, 20062), 232; P.J. Rhodes, Aristotle: The Athenian Constitution (Harmondsworth and New York, 20022), 128; P.J. Rhodes, The Athenian Constitution Written in the School of Aristotle (Liverpool, 2017), 97. The word περιζώννυσθαι is rare in the remains of ancient Greek. It is found mostly in comedy and post-classical prose. The only example in classical Greek prose other than Ath. Pol. 28.3 appears to be Arist. Pol. 1324b16 (cf. LSJ s.v. περιζώννυμι), where Aristotle relates that Macedonians who had yet to kill an enemy once had to wear their horses’ halters. All the evidence suggests that the word was common in everyday speech, but either it belonged to an aspect of life so mundane that it is widely neglected in our sources, or it was considered sub-literary by authors of more dignified poetry and prose, an attitude that may have obscured its meaning for modern translators.

8 Rhodes (n. 4), 354.

9 M.R. Dilts, Scholia in Aeschinem (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1992), 20: λέγεται δὲ Κλέων ὁ δημαγωγὸς παραβὰς τὸ ἐξ ἔθους σχῆμα περιζωσάμενος δημηγορῆσαι. The scholiast on Lucian (Σ Luc. Timon 30 = Philoch. FGrHist 328 F 128B) has little to add except that he emphasizes how shocking Cleon’s style of dress was. He observes that ‘Aristotle says in the Constitution [of the Athenians] that Cleon even addressed the demos perizôsamenos, ridiculing his outrageous behaviour’ (Ἀριστοτέλης δὲ ἐν Πολιτείᾳ καὶ περιζωσάμενον αὐτὸν λέγει δημηγορῆσαι, εἰς τὴν θρασύτητα αὐτοῦ ἀποσκώπτων): H. Rabe, Scholia in Lucianum (Leipzig, 1906), 116. It is not absolutely certain that this sentence should belong to Philochorus, for the scholiast on Lucian might simply have abstracted it from the Ath. Pol., as the sequence of citations implies.

10 The translation ‘pull aside’ is not supported by LSJ s.v. περισπάω. The meaning, where clothing is concerned, is ‘strip off’, as in Xen. Cyr. 3.1.13; Isoc. Ep. 9.10; Diod. Sic. 19.9.2, etc. Contrast the more neutral word for removing an article of clothing, ἀφαίρεσθαι: e.g. Plut. Mor. 168D ἀφελέσθαι τὸ ἱμάτιον (‘… [he can] take his cloak off’).

11 A criticism of style again reflected in Plut. Phoc. 4.2 οὐδὲ ἐκτὸς ἔχοντα τὴν χεῖρα τῆς περιβολῆς (‘nor having a hand outside his cloak’).

12 Rhodes (n. 4), 354.

13 Cf. R. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Leiden, 2010), 1.504–5.

14 Van Leeuwen’s correction of the Ionic form περιεζωσμέναι with its intrusive sigma found in MSS (and Suda υ 142 Adler), though the point is immaterial to the argument.

15 Recent editors, N. Dunbar, Aristophanes: Birds (Oxford, 1995), A.H. Sommerstein, Aristophanes: Birds (Warminster, 19912) and N.G. Wilson, Aristophanis Fabulae (Oxford, 2007) adopt the emendation ἐπλινθοβόλουν (‘were laying bricks’), proposed by T.F. Higham, ‘Two notes on Aristophanes’ Birds’, CQ 26 (1932), 103–15, at 108 for the ἐπλινθοφόρουν (‘were carrying bricks’) of the paradosis.

16 Dunbar (n. 15), 411 translates περιεζωμέναι as ‘with tunic secured by waist-belt’, denies that it can mean ‘wearing aprons’ and suggests that it should indicate a χιτών (tunic) hitched up above the knees by the belt and/or allowed to fall off the shoulders and over the belt, leaving the upper body bare. Sommerstein (n. 15), 275 translates ‘with aprons on’. Both editors point to species of duck whose plumage might inspire such an identification.

17 Cf. W.G. Arnott, Alexis: The Fragments. A Commentary (Cambridge, 1996), 537 n. 1. B. Millis, Anaxandrides: Introduction, Translation, Commentary (Heidelberg, 2015), 214 objects that Arnott’s survey is not conclusive but produces no new evidence. The clearest candidate for an apron, among the artefacts cited by Arnott ([this note], 537–8), is the terracotta figurine of a comic cook found in Myrina: photograph in M. Bieber, History of the Greek and Roman Theater (Princeton, 19612), 101 with fig. 379. As Bieber remarks (this note), the actor ‘has a kind of long apron tied around him’. From inspection of the photograph under magnification, it seems that, in addition to his comic padded bodysuit, the actor wears a garment with what appears to be a short sleeve on the left arm, possibly therefore an ἐξωμίς (exômis), for which see n. 26 (below); however, the ‘sleeve’ could be part of a himation tucked over his left shoulder and under the arm. A long length of cloth is wrapped around his waist, falling to below the mid-calf: perhaps an apron, but it might simply be his himation tied around the waist while working.

18 Millis (n. 17), 311, translates fr. 70 K.–A. (ὡς δεῖ παχεῖαν τὴν περιζώστραν ἔχειν) as ‘it is necessary to have the apron which is thick’. However, the short fragment, preserved in Pollux 2.166, lacks context. Pollux explains that περιζώστρα is equivalent to the Latin fascia (i.e. a belt, band or ribbon), but as Millis (n. 17), 312 notes, Pollux appears to be ‘confused about precisely what the garment is’.

19 Hegesippus fr. 1.6–8 K.–A. οὐ γὰρ παρέργως ἔμαθον ἐν ἔτεσιν δυεῖν | ἔχων περίζωμ’, ἀλλ’ ἅπαντα τὸν βίον | ζητῶν κατὰ μέρη τὴν τέχνην ἐξήτακα (‘Well, I didn’t learn [how to be a cook] in just a couple of years of wearing an apron/belt/loincloth (?); no, I have researched the art, examining it piece by piece my whole life’). Similarly, the words of Antigonus to an alleged son of a cook ‘… your words have the smell of a perizôma’ (Plut. Mor. 182D) might only refer to a loincloth, not necessarily to an apron.

20 Pausanias mentions the perizôma in recounting the tale of Orsippus of Megara, supposedly the first athlete to compete naked at Olympia (cf. IG 7.52.5–6; Dion. Hal. 7.72.2–3 attributes this innovation in custom to a Spartan athlete called Acanthus). Discussing the origins of athletic nudity in Greece, Thucydides (1.6.5) calls this garment a diazôma, noting that in his day its use had been discontinued only quite recently (cf. Pl. Resp. 452c). Though both articles of clothing may be translated as ‘loincloth’, the diazôma was perhaps passed between the legs (hence the prefix δια-), not simply around the waist, and so could be said to be worn ‘around the genitals’ (Thuc. 1.6.5 περὶ τὰ αἰδοῖα; cf. Luc. Alex. 13) like a modern ‘athletic supporter’. The vases of the ‘Perizoma Group’ (ABV 343–6), which appear to have been produced for overseas markets, probably do not illustrate Greek practice. It is possible, but highly uncertain, that the perizôma and the diazôma were used as undergarments. See further M.M. Lee, Body, Dress, and Identity in Ancient Greece (Cambridge, 2015), 98.

21 The journal’s anonymous referee prompts me to consider the etymology of the word ‘apron’ (Lat. mappa, i.e., a piece of cloth > O.F. naperon > M.E. napron > ‘an apron’, by wrong division) and suggests that even if there was no such thing as an apron in ancient Greece, the loincloth could be considered a functional and symbolic equivalent, as a garment associated with certain activities. The point about symbolism is well taken. However, the protective function of the apron is greater than the loincloth, since it is typically larger and covers other clothing, not just the body. The expense of cloth and the difficulty of washing clothes in the ancient world may have contributed to a preference for nudity or semi-nudity, when carrying out dirty or sweaty tasks, as opposed to the use of an extra garment (cf. Hes. Op. 391–2).

22 ‘Throw this bathing cloth about yourself, wrap it round you to cover your privates’, translated by I.C. Storey, Fragments of Old Comedy (Cambridge MA, 2011), 3.337. The same garment appears in Pherecrates fr. 68 K.–A. ἤδη μὲν ᾤαν λουμένῳ προζώννυτε (‘Already you [pl.] are girding the fleece on him as he bathes’, translated by Storey [this note], 2.451). Similarly, a superstitious man sits outside ‘wearing a sackcloth, wrapped in filthy rags’ (σακκίον ἔχων καὶ περιεζωσμένος ῥάκεσι ῥυπαροῖς, Plut. Mor. 168D).

23 Anaxandrides fr. 42.12–13 K.–A. αὐτὸν δὲ Κότυν περιεζῶσθαι | ζῶμόν τε φέρειν ἐν χοῒ χρυσῇ (‘and Cotys himself put on an apron/belt/loincloth (?) | and fetched soup in a golden jug’). Millis (n. 17), 202 translates ‘And Cotys himself wore an apron | and served soup in a golden chous’.

24 Alexis fr. 179.10–11 K.–A. διακενῆς δ’ ἕστηκ’ ἐγὼ | ἔχων μάχαιραν, προσέτι περιεζωσμένος (‘but I’m standing idle, knife in hand, already wearing my apron/belt/loincloth (?)’).

25 For the various ways in which the himation, chitôn and other fundamental articles of costume were worn on the comic stage, see G. Compton-Engle, Costume in the Comedies of Aristophanes (Cambridge, 2015), 60–5; A. Hughes, Performing Greek Comedy (Cambridge, 2012), 187–9.

26 Τhe exômis was a short tunic fastened only over one shoulder, typically worn by poorer citizens (Ar. Lys. 662, 1021) and slaves (Ar. Vesp. 444): cf. Ar. Eccl. 267 with R.G. Ussher, Aristophanes: Ecclesiazusae (Oxford, 1973), 112; see further Lee (n. 20), 112 with n. 178.

27 Illustrated in K. Schefold, Die Bildnisse der antiken Dichter, Redner und Denker (Basel, 19972), 119, figs. 48a, b.

28 For further examples see Arnott (n. 17), 537–8. For instance, on a cup of the early fifth century, the Foundry Painter depicts a sculptor, holding a hammer and chisel, carving a statue of a horse (ARV 2 401.2; Boardman, fig. 264). His chitôn, which just covers his knees, has been unfastened at the shoulders and bunches around his waist in several folds; but the full picture is obscured by the sculpture of the horse. Similarly attired is a fishmonger on a mid-fourth-century krater by the Tunny-Seller Painter, though the lower part of his garment is not visible: A.D. Trendall, The Red-Figured Vases of Paestum (London, 1987), 39, no. 82, and, for an image, the frontispiece of D. Wentworth-Thompson, A Glossary of Greek Fishes (Oxford, 1947).

29 Lee (n. 20), 116, with figs. 2.7a, b.

30 Arnott (n. 17), 538. This view of Cleon is not an entirely new insight, but it seems to have been discarded or forgotten in the twentieth century. E. Poste, Aristotle on the Constitution of Athens (London, 1892), 50 translated περιζωσάμενος ἐδημηγόρησε (in Ath. Pol. 28.3) as ‘made speeches in the garb of a working man’. Poste’s translation is noted (but apparently not endorsed) by J.E. Sandys, Aristotle’s Constitution of Athens (London, 19122), 119.

31 The wealth of Cleon’s family is evident from his father’s service as producer (IG II2 2318.143–4) of a men’s dithyrambic chorus representing the tribe Pandionis, to which Cleon’s deme Kydathenaion belonged, probably at some point in the period 459–440. See B. Millis and S.D. Olson, Inscriptional Records for the Dramatic Festivals in Athens (Leiden and Boston, 2012), 8. Critias (88 B 45 DK ap. Ael. VH 10.17) claims that on his death Cleon left an estate of 50 talents, a vast fortune; but Critias is a hostile source whose purpose was to excoriate men like Cleon for profiting from the Athenian Empire: the figure of 50 talents may well be exaggerated.

32 Another example of Cleon’s ‘rhetoric of clothing’ in the assembly is the anecdote found in Theopomp. FrGHist 115 F 92 (cf. Plut. Nic. 7.5; Mor. 799D) in which Cleon appears wearing a garland and dismisses the assembly saying he had guests from abroad and was about to sacrifice. As H.T. Wade-Gery, ‘Two notes on Theopompus, Philippika X’, AJP 59 (1938), 129–34, at 129–31 (reprinted in H.T. Wade-Gery, Essays in Greek History [Oxford, 1958], 233–8) suggested, this story probably belongs to the time of Cleon’s victorious return from Pylos, and the ‘guests’ are the Peloponnesian hostages captured on Sphacteria. Arriving in the assembly wearing a garland was a calculated act of presumption, since the garland was worn to distinguish the citizen currently invited to speak (cf. Ar. Av. 463; Thesm. 380; Eccl. 130–1, 148, 163, 170–1); garlands were also worn by the nine archons (Lys. 26.8; Dem. 21.32–3; 26.5; 58.27; Aeschin. 1.19 with Σ; Arist. Ath. Pol. 57.4) and, at least in the fourth century, by serving members of the boulê (Lycurg. 1.122). Another case of a demagogue dressing unusually for the assembly was Cleophon. In the later stages of the Peloponnesian War, he appeared before the assembly drunk and wearing a breastplate (Ath. Pol. 34.1), perhaps in fear of assassination, but also demonstrating his readiness to continue the war: cf. Rhodes (n. 4), 425–6.

33 See A. Geddes, ‘Rags and riches: the costume of Athenian men in the fifth century’, CQ 37 (1987), 307–31, at 312–13. Geddes (this note, 312) mistakenly states that ‘Aeschines [1.25] held it against Cleon […] that he was the first to speak in public with his hand held outside his cloak.’ Aeschines does not mention Cleon.

34 There seems to be a widespread assumption that Athenian citizens of the Classical period routinely wore a chitôn under their himation: for instance, Geddes (n. 33), 312. But evidence for this is lacking and recent research suggests that from the sixth century on Athenian men often wore the himation alone: Lee (n. 20), 108–9, 111, 115.

35 Even the short chitôn (χιτωνίσκον) could be worn with a belt (cf. Pl. Leg. 954a).

36 Cf. Lee (n. 20), 112. It is unlikely that Cleon simply removed his cloak and spoke in his chitôn, for the term for that manner of dress used by the author of the Aristotelian Athênaiôn Politeia is μονοχίτων (cf. Ath. Pol. 25.4, where it describes Ephialtes claiming supplication at an altar, wearing his chitôn without a cloak).

37 I am grateful to CQ’s reader for making this observation.

38 The scholiast on Ar. Eq. (Σ 44) relates that Cleon inherited a tannery worked by slaves from his father Cleaenetus. See D.M. Jones and N.G. Wilson, Scholia in Aristophanem. Pars I. Fasc. II: Scholia in Equites (Groningen and Amsterdam, 1969), 19.

39 [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 10 ἐσθῆτά τε γὰρ οὐδὲν βελτίων ὁ δῆμος αὐτόθι ἢ οἱ δοῦλοι καὶ οἱ μέτοικοι (‘for in terms of their clothing, the demos there [i.e. in Athens] is no better than the slaves or the metics’). If Philocleon’s attitudes (Ar. Vesp. 1122–73) reflect genuine demotic attitudes to luxurious clothing, Cleon’s style may have appealed to them and encouraged them to identify with him: my thanks to the journal’s anonymous referee for pointing this out.

40 Similar political self-fashioning is hardly unknown in the modern era, though attitudes to male public nudity or semi-nudity are less permissive than they were in classical Greece. Benito Mussolini was photographed shirtless on numerous occasions; similarly Vladimir Putin.