But in Sparta where there existed little tendency towards art or refinement,[134] a costume the antipodes of all this prevailed. That of the virgins differed in some respects from that of the matrons, and the difference arose out of a peculiar feature of manners, in which, if in nothing else, they resembled the English. In several Ionic countries, as at present on the continent, girls were previously to marriage guarded with much strictness. At Sparta, on the contrary, and among the Dorians generally,[135] they were permitted, as in England, to walk abroad in company with young men, and, of course, to form attachments at their own discretion. In this, too, as in their dress, they only preserved the customs of antiquity; for in Homer we find the Trojan ladies making anxious inquiries of Hector respecting their relations and friends in the field, and going forth from their houses attended only by their maids. The married women led more retired lives, and when they went abroad fashion required that they should be veiled, as we learn from the following apophthegm of Charillos, who being asked why the maidens went abroad uncovered while the matrons concealed their faces, replied: “Because it is incumbent on the former to find themselves husbands, on the latter only to keep those they have.”[136] ----- Footnote 134: Cf. Montaigne, Essais, t. iv. p. 214, seq. Footnote 135: See above, chapter ii. Footnote 136: Plut. Apophtheg. Lacon. Charill. 2. t. i. p. 161. ----- The principal, or, rather, the sole garment of the Dorian maidens was the chiton, or himation,[137] made of woollen stuff, and without sleeves, but fastened on either shoulder by a large clasp, and gathered on the breast by a kind of brooch. This sleeveless robe, which seldom reached more than half way to the knee, was moreover left open up to a certain point on both sides,[138] so that the skirts or wings, flying open as they walked, entirely exposed their limbs, closely resembling the shift of the Bedouin women,[139] slit up to the arm-pit, but gathered tight by a girdle about the waist. When the girdle was removed it reached to the calves of the legs,[140] and would then, but for the side-slits, have been quite as becoming as the blue chemise of the modern Egyptian women, which is open in front from the neck to the waist.[141] When dressed in this single robe, their whole form breathing health, and modesty in their countenance, there was no doubt a simple elegance in their appearance, little less attractive, perhaps, than the exquisite and elaborate _mise_ of an Ionian or an Attic girl. In this costume Melissa, daughter of Procles, of Epidaurus, was habited when, as she poured out wine to her father’s labourers, Periander, the Corinthian,[142] beheld and loved her. The married women, however, did not make their appearance in public _en chemise_, but when going abroad donned a second garment which seems to have resembled pretty closely their husbands’ himatia.[143] -----