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HOW DID CLEON DRESS FOR THE ASSEMBLY? ARISTOPHANES, PEACE 685–7 AND ATHÊNAIⓞN POLITEIA 28.3
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 February 2025
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.
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- Research Article
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- © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
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.