Few colours are mentioned in Homer in connection with dress. The epithets “white” and “shining” are frequently applied to the chiton and κρήδεμνον and to the φᾶρος. Φοινικόεις and πορφύρεος are frequently used of the χλαῖνα and the δίπλαξ, the former meaning “red,” and the latter probably “dark purple”; the word is used also of the sea and of clouds. The veil of Thetis[77] is described as κυάνεος, indigo, probably, or blue-black, since we hear immediately afterwards that “no garment ever was blacker.” The dark veil may be a sign of mourning; but in any case, the epithet might be used of the garments of the sea-goddess, just as κυανοχαίτης, “blue-haired,” is applied to Poseidon. Only once is yellow mentioned, and that in the case of “saffron robed dawn.” The veil of Hera, that was “bright as the sun,”[78] might have been yellow-gold. Yellow is a favourite colour among the Greek peasant women of to-day for the kerchiefs with which they cover their heads; and in the clear atmosphere and brilliant sunshine of Greece, it is natural to wear bright colours. [77] _Iliad_, xxiv., 93. [78] _Iliad_, xiv., 182. The embroidered robes of the women would naturally be worked in various colours, among which red and blue probably predominated, as they do on the sixth century statues on the Acropolis at Athens, and also in more modern Greek embroideries. Enough has been said on the subject of Homeric dress to show that it differs entirely from the pre-Hellenic type of costume which appears on the monuments from Knossos and elsewhere. The absence of contemporary monumental evidence renders it impossible to make any very definite statements as to the details of Homeric dress; but the poems themselves afford sufficient proof of the fact that it was of the draped type, and resembled Greek dress as we know it from the monuments dating from historic times; the dress of the classical period is simply a development of that described in the Homeric poems, with the addition of some foreign elements which blended with it and somewhat transformed it in its details, while still preserving the main types unaltered. III DORIC When we come to the question of Greek dress during the classical period, we find that the literary evidence is somewhat scanty; however, in addition to the various casual references to dress that are to be found chiefly in the plays, there are a few passages which bear directly on the historical development of dress in Greece. The most important of these is a passage in Herodotus,[79] in which he describes a disastrous expedition against Ægina undertaken by the Athenians during the first half of the sixth century, probably in the year 568 B.C.; only one man returned alive to Athens, to meet with an ignominious death at the hands of the wives of those who had perished. Herodotus shall tell the story in his own words: