If Greek dress lacked variety of cut and material, the deficiency was to some extent made up by considerable gaiety of colour and ornamentation. Probably none but slaves and artisans would wear garments of one colour without pattern or ornamentation of any kind, and even they would sometimes have their dresses adorned with a simple border, such as a broad stripe. From the numerous references scattered up and down through extant literature, it appears that the favourite colours were purple, red, and yellow. Pollux[153] gives us a list of the colours most commonly used. This list includes green (βατραχίς) and gray (κίλλιον, ὀνάγρινον), in addition to those mentioned above, but strangely enough no mention is made of blue. The word κυάνεος, “dark blue,” is seldom if ever applied to garments, yet it is scarcely likely that the colour was unknown to the Greeks. Possibly some shades described as πορφύρεος approached a violet, or blue, as distinguished from ἁλοῦργος, “true purple.” For red we find the word φοινίκεος, “dark red,” used especially of the military cloak of the Lacedæmonians,[154] and κοκκοβαφής, “scarlet”; for yellow κροκωτός and θάψινος. Βατραχίς, “frog-coloured,” is the word applied to a green garment, and this is probably the colour described as ὀμφάνικος, “like unripe grapes.” Pollux[155] tells us that for mourning the Greeks wore φαιὸν καὶ μέλαν ἀλλήλοις ἔγγυς, “gray and black, very like each other.” From this we learn that φαιός was a very dark colour, probably gray or dun. [153] Chap. lviii. [154] Aristophanes, _Pax_, 1173; _Lys._, 1140. [155] 58. The ornamentation applied to dress by the Greeks was very varied in character; it is comparatively rare to find on Greek vases a dress that is entirely free from decorations, and the patterns represented are very numerous. Sometimes the ornament consists of a simple border, often of a pattern distributed all over the dress, and these designs are frequently of a very elaborate character, including animal and even human forms. In sculpture, too, this feature was not neglected; the maidens of the Acropolis at Athens all have some pattern on their draperies added in colour, and one of them has no less than seven different designs distributed over her costume. We know that the himation of the Olympian Zeus by Pheidias was richly decorated, and the fragment from Damophon’s great group at Lycosura will serve as a later example of sculptured drapery highly ornamented with patterns in relief. This has not only geometric and floral designs as borders, but the whole surface is covered with fantastic dancing figures of human and hybrid forms. References in literature are not very frequent; the most noteworthy occurs in the _Iliad_,[156] where Helen is described as working at a great loom: ἣ δὲ μέγαν ἱστὸν ὕφαινεν δίπλακα πορφυρέην, πολέας δ᾽ ἐνέπασσεν ἀέθλους Τρώων θ᾽ ἱπποδάμων καὶ Ἀχαιῶν χαλκοχιτώνων.