Sparta was a prominent city-state in Laconia in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon, while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement on the banks of the Eurotas River in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. Around 650 BC, it rose to become the dominant military land-power in ancient Greece.
A peplos is a body-length garment established as typical attire for women in ancient Greece by c. 500 BC, during the late Archaic and Classical period. It was a long, rectangular cloth with the top edge folded down about halfway, so that what was the top of the rectangle was now draped below the waist, and the bottom of the rectangle was at the ankle. One side of the peplos could be left open, or pinned or sewn together. In Latin and in a Roman context, it could be called a palla.
Cynisca or Kyniska was a wealthy Spartan princess. She is famous for being the first woman to win at the Olympic Games, competing in the sport of chariot racing. Cynisca first entered the Olympics in 396 BC, where she won first prize competing with a team of horses she had trained herself. In 392 BC, Cynisca entered her horses in the Olympics for a second time and was awarded another victory in the same event.
A tunic is a garment for the body, usually simple in style, reaching from the shoulders to a length somewhere between the hips and the knees. The name derives from the Latin tunica, the basic garment worn by both men and women in Ancient Rome, which in turn was based on earlier Greek garments that covered wearers' waists.
Agis I was a king of Sparta and eponym of the Agiad dynasty. He was possibly the first historical king of Sparta, reigning at the end of the tenth century BC, during the emergence of the Dorians in Laconia. He is said by most ancient authors to have conquered the region and enslaved the helots.
A chiton is a form of tunic that fastens at the shoulder, worn by men and women of ancient Greece and Rome. There are two forms of chiton: the Doric and the later Ionic. According to Herodotus, popular legend was that Athenian women began to wear the chiton as opposed to the peplos after several women stabbed a messenger to death with the bronze pins characteristic of the peplos.
A himation was a type of clothing, a mantle or wrap worn by ancient Greek men and women from the Archaic through the Hellenistic periods. It was usually worn over a chiton and/or peplos, but was made of heavier drape and played the role of a cloak or shawl. When the himation was used alone, without a chiton, it served both as a chiton and as a cloak. The himation was markedly less voluminous than the Roman toga. Many vase paintings depict women wearing a himation as a veil covering their faces.
The Heraea was an ancient Greek festival in which young girls competed in a footrace, possibly as a puberty or pre-nuptial initiation ritual. The race was held every four years at Olympia. The games were organised by a group of sixteen women, who were also responsible for weaving a peplos for Hera and arranging choral dances.
The death of Hyacinthus was celebrated at Amyclae by the second most important of Spartan festivals, the Hyacinthia in the Spartan month Hyacinthius in early summer.
The Spartan army stood at the center of the Spartan state, citizens trained in the disciplines and honor of a warrior society. Subjected to military drills since early manhood, the Spartans became one of the most feared and formidable military forces in the Greek world, attaining legendary status in their wars against Persia. At the height of Sparta's power – between the 6th and 4th centuries BC – other Greeks commonly accepted that "one Spartan was worth several men of any other state."
The preservation of fabric fibers and leathers allows for insights into the attire of ancient societies. The clothing used in the ancient world reflects the technologies that these peoples mastered. In many cultures, clothing indicated the social status of various members of society.
The ancient Olympic Games were a series of athletic competitions among representatives of city-states and were one of the Panhellenic Games of Ancient Greece. They were held at the Panhellenic religious sanctuary of Olympia, in honor of Zeus, and the Greeks gave them a mythological origin. The originating Olympic Games are traditionally dated to 776 BC. The games were held every four years, or Olympiad, which became a unit of time in historical chronologies. They continued to be celebrated when Greece came under Roman rule in the 2nd century BC. Their last recorded celebration was in AD 393, under the emperor Theodosius I, but archaeological evidence indicates that some games were still held after this date. The games likely came to an end under Theodosius II, possibly in connection with a fire that burned down the temple of the Olympian Zeus during his reign.
Clothing in ancient Greece refers to clothing starting from the Aegean bronze age to the Hellenistic period. Clothing in ancient Greece included a wide variety of styles but primarily consisted of the chiton, peplos, himation, and chlamys. Ancient Greek civilians typically wore two pieces of clothing draped about the body: an undergarment and a cloak. The people of ancient Greece had many factors that determined what they wore and when they wore it.
Euryleonis was a celebrated woman, owner of a chariot-winner of Olympic games.
Spartan women were famous in ancient Greece for seemingly having more freedom than women elsewhere in the Greek world. To contemporaries outside of Sparta, Spartan women had a reputation for promiscuity and controlling their husbands. Spartan women could legally own and inherit property, and they were usually better educated than their Athenian counterparts. The surviving written sources are limited and largely from a non-Spartan viewpoint. Anton Powell wrote that to say the written sources are "'not without problems'... as an understatement would be hard to beat".
The clothing of the people in biblical times was made from wool, linen, animal skins, and perhaps silk. Most events in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament take place in ancient Israel, and thus most biblical clothing is ancient Hebrew clothing. They wore underwear and cloth skirts.
History of clothing in the Indian subcontinent can be traced to the Indus Valley civilization or earlier. Indians have mainly worn clothing made up of locally grown cotton. India was one of the first places where cotton was cultivated and used even as early as 2500 BCE during the Harappan era. The remnants of the ancient Indian clothing can be found in the figurines discovered from the sites near the Indus Valley civilisation, the rock-cut sculptures, the cave paintings, and human art forms found in temples and monuments. These scriptures view the figures of human wearing clothes which can be wrapped around the body. Taking the instances of the sari to that of turban and the dhoti, the traditional Indian wears were mostly tied around the body in various ways.
The Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia, an Archaic site devoted in Classical times to Artemis, was one of the most important religious sites in the Greek city-state of Sparta, and continued to be used into the fourth century CE, when all non-Christian worship was banned during the persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire. The sanctuary was destroyed and rebuilt a few times over many centuries and has today produced many artefacts that allow historians to better understand exactly what went on in the sanctuary during that period of time. This sanctuary held many rituals, that included cult-like behaviour by both young males and females in varying ways and has also since revealed many artefacts due to multiple excavations that have helped to deliver new information on acts and behaviours that have occurred in at the temple in Orthia.
The statues of Cynisca were two ancient Greek statues which commemorated Cynisca of Sparta’s Olympic victory in chariot racing at the 396 B.C. and 392 B.C. Olympic Games. Cynisca was the first woman to win at the Olympic Games. According to Pausanias of the 2nd century A.D., two statues were erected to commemorate her victory.
The Great Dover Street woman is the skeleton of a Romano-British woman discovered in excavations at 165 Great Dover Street, Southwark, London. She is suggested to have been a female gladiator, though this interpretation is contested.
