The Ancient Greek Economy. Markets, Households and City-States

WHOLE CLOTH 181

wore sleeved garments that, if not imported with the slaves themselves, might

have been created in the home; the slave of Hegeso wears just such a garment

on her mistress’ famous stele. One should, however, note the complaints of the

Old Oligarch ([Xen.] Ath. Pol. 1.10), who claims that he cannot tell the slaves

from the citizens by their clothes because the citizens were no better dressed

than the slaves. The writer might not have been speaking of all slaves, but

rather those, perhaps the most industrious, who were favored by their masters

with new or better quality used garments (Xen. Oec. 13.10).

In addition to clothing, many household furnishings were crafted of textiles.

Vase paintings of the symposion depict embellished mattress covers, pillows, and

throws, but the Attic Stelai are probably more reliable testimony on domestic

textiles (Pritchett 1956 : 203–8). The houses belonging to the Hermokopidai,

certainly the dwellings of wealthy men, were well stocked with both clothes

and textiles, as attested by the numerous textiles appearing in just one house

documented on Stele I  (IG i^3 421)  – nine amphitapes (pile rugs or blankets;

lines 164–72), one varicolored tapis (rug:  line 175), two parapetasmata (cur-

tains or hangings:  lines 173, 174, 232), many himatia (cloaks:  lines 189–201,

209–10), two knephalla (cushions or mattresses: lines 217, 218), and five epible-

tia (bedspreads:  lines 219–23). No textile furnishing has left any trace in the

archaeological record, although curtains might be attested by the metal rings

commonly found in Classical houses (Andrianou 2009 : 99). Curtains proba-

bly served for closing off the inner rooms of houses, where no stone threshold

blocks give evidence for expensive wooden doors.

There was a market in equipment and raw materials for the production

of textiles, whether at home or in the factory setting, as well as for the tex-

tiles themselves. A workshop in the Potter’s Quarter at Corinth was found to

have been producing loom weights, and the stamped impressions on these

and other weights have been suggested as maker’s marks (Stillwell 1952 : 269;

Davidson 1952 : 153); there is evidence of loom weight production at several

sites on Crete in the Hellenistic period, including Trypetos, where the weights

may have been manufactured in order increase household income (Sofianou

2011 ; Tzachiki 2008 ). While some wool may have been produced by a family’s

own flock as suggested at Vari, Pylos, and Tel Anafa, the purchasing of wool

in the market is frequently mentioned in the sources. Gorgo in Theocritus’

Adoniazusai (15.18–20) complains about the poor quality of the wool bought

for her by her husband. The young wife in Xenophon (Oec. 7.36) is also brought

wool, but whether it was purchased or shorn from the family flock is not spec-

ified. Wool in the markets derived from several sources, Milesian wool being

often attested (Ar. Lys. 729; Eubulus fr. 89 K-A; Amphis fr. 27), although wool

came also from Phrygia (Ar. A v. 493) and the Bosporus ([Dem.] 35.34). In the

Frogs (1347), Aristophanes’ Aeschylus parodies Euripides (O r. 1431–1433) as he

sings of a woman spinning flax and selling linen. Aristophanes (Eq. 129) and