Footwear of Ancient Greeks

 The Ancient Greek Fashion.

                                          Footwear of Ancient Greeks

 Its said here that To one commending an orator for his skill in amplifying petty matters, Agesilaus said, “I do not think that shoemaker a good workman that makes a great shoe for a little foot.” Plutarch


A shoemaker with an arbelos cutting leather for shoes. The Greek word: o (a)/rbhlos [the arbelos; of masc. gender] means the knife of the shoemaker (h is used for the symbol eta) . From the same stem arb- we have also: h (a)rbu/lh [of fem. Gender] : a kind of shoes (half-boot; like soldier's half-boot). This word survives in modern Greek but in its Doric form, that is, with the ending alpha (a) instead of eta (h) : h (a)rbu/la Antreas P. Hatzipolakis


See: http://www.vannacalzature.it/Storia_inglese/greci_inglese.htm


Askerai, Attic footwear Ἀσκέραι: ὑποδήματα Ἀττικά. . A winter shoe with fur lining

Cothurnus a leather boot with high soles to give them extra height (theater, actors). According to Webster from "the first certain picture of tragedy [on] an Attic oenoche painted about 470 BC," we can conclude that male characters in tragedy were distinguished from females by wearing "laced boots instead of loose-fitting boots". Webster, T.B.L., Greek Theatre Production. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1970 p.38

Embades - an enclosed boot; from embainein ( to step into )

Karbatinai, shoes of undressed hide, brogues, made of a single piece of oxhide, so that sole and upper leather were all in one, and tied on with thongs. These shoes were so simple that they could be made easily, and so we find the Greek in the Anabasis resorting to them in an emergency. (White and Morgan, illustrated dictionary of Xenophon's Anabasis)

Krepis, Κρηπίς , Foundation, or a kind of shoe; a base , that which holds the feet (θεμέλιος, ἢ εἶδος ὑποδήματος: ὑποβάθρα. ἡ τοὺς πόδας κρατοῦσα.)

Talaria (Winged Sandals of Hermes)

Construction of shoes for a young Greek boy.

Shoe Shop, Boston Museum of Fine Arts

Example of footwear (here of Artemis) with complex decoration from a Pergamum sculpture.

 
Shoes (c. 400 BC) and Nike shoes today (Images from http://www.kzu.ch/fach/as/gallerie/rare/shoes/shoe.htm) The Nike shoes symbol “The Nike Swoosh” according to various sources is a representation of a wing (probably of the Nike of Samothrace)

Artemis Rospigliosi Louvre Ma559 (Roman Copy of Greek Original)

Perseus - Image of Hermes Shoes with Wings! (Website sometimes offline)

Nike (Victory) Adjusting Her Sandal, fragment of the parapet (Kallikrates. Temple of Athenea Nike, Acropolis, Athens c. 425 BC)

According to Aelian, Philetas of Kos (born c. 340 BC, a poet) was so thin that he had to wear weights on his shoes to stop himself blown away by the wind.

Empedocles used to wear bronze sandals, one of these according to a legend was found at the Aetna mountain where it was reported that he leapt down into the vulcano crater.

Young Spartans did not use shoes and slaves usually were not allowed. There must be different type of shoes as Laoconian, Cretan, Milesian and Athenian shoes are mentioned or types introduces by some such as the shoes of Alcibiades, even today little seems to be known how they all looked.

Katherine Ely Dohan, Hypodemata: The study of Greek footwear and its chronological value, Bryn Mawr Dissertations 1982