The Dorian style of dress formed the point of transition from the simple elegance of the Homeric period to the elaborate splendour of the historic age at Athens. In this mode of clothing, a modern author remarks, a peculiar taste was displayed, an antique simplicity “equally removed from the splendour of Asiatics, and the uncleanliness of barbarians.”[240] They preserved the use of the Homeric chiton, or woollen shirt, and over this wore also the _Chlaina_ or _Himation_, in the manner described above. To these was added the _Chlamys_, which, as the Spartan laws prohibited dyeing, was universally white, and denominated _Hololeukos_.[241] ----- Footnote 240: Müller. Hist. Dor. ii. 277. See the picturesque description which Hesiod gives of the rustic winter costume of Bœotia. Opp. et Dies, 534, sqq. Goettl. Footnote 241: Poll. vii. 46. ----- It was of Thessalian or Macedonian origin, of an oblong form, the points meeting on the right shoulder, where they were fastened with a clasp. This garment was not in use in the heroic ages, and the earliest mention of it occurs in Sappho;[242] but when once introduced, it quickly grew fashionable, at first among the young men, afterwards as a military cloak. At Athens it was regarded as a mark of effeminacy, and was fastened with a gold or jewelled brooch on the breast.[243] ----- Footnote 242: Σαπφὼ πρώτη γὰρ μέμνηται τῆς χλαμύδος.—Ammonius, p. 147. Valcken. Footnote 243: Heliodor. i. and ii. ----- The men of Sparta, though less thinly clad than the women, still went abroad very scantily covered. Their _Tribon_, a variety of the himation,[244] like the cloak of the poor Spanish gentleman, was clipped so close that it would barely enclose their persons, like a case, but was thick and heavy, and calculated to last. Accordingly, the youth were allowed only one of these per annum, so that, in warm weather, it is probable that, with an eye to saving it for winter, they exchanged it for that more lasting coat with which nature had furnished them.[245] In the towns, however, and as often as they thought proper to put on the appearance of extreme modesty, the young Spartans drew close their cloaks around them so as to conceal their hands,[246] the exhibiting of which has always been regarded as a mark of vulgarity. Hence the use of gloves, and the affectation of soft white hands in modern times. The same notions prevail even among the Turks, who, like Laertes in Homer, wear long sleeves to their pelisses for the purpose of defending the hand, to have which white and well-shaped is among them a mark of noble blood. ----- Footnote 244: Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 415. Cf. Vesp. 116, 475. -----