I doubt if we find such female costumes as Homer apparently describes recognisably represented in Greek art till the sixth and fifth centuries. [Illustration: Fig. 8--Princess Frock: Tiryns--_By permission of John Murray_, Schliemann's _Tiryns_, plate xxv. c] This seems to be stated with unnecessary force, because, it may well be said, the meaning of the sentence turns on the words "_recognisably_ represented." How are we to "recognise," in art, costumes of which Homer gives us only brief verbal descriptions? Are we not deceived by the free and vivid style of Homer? All his human beings and gods come in such living forms before us, that we see the flowing, glistening garments of Nausicaa and Athene swaying with their motions. We can see nothing like this represented in Greek art till the late sixth century and onwards; because, it may be said, till that date Greek art is hard, prim, constrained, conventional,--in fact, archaic. It is therefore, we may be told, a kind of logical illusion which prevents us from recognising the costumes of Homer's women in Greek plastic art, till that art itself is beginning to attain Homeric freedom. These considerations must be kept in mind. But another error is apt to be suggested when we read that the historic Hellenic costume, or that part of it styled "the Doric peplos," "is implied by the allusions of Homer," the view of the ingenious Studniczka.[4] The remark is illustrated by fig. 10, in which we see a lady in "a Doric peplos," though how Achaean women of Homer's time could wear the dress of the Dorians whom Homer ignores is not apparent. This graceful and breezy costume is, in fact, like what we suppose Homer to have had in his mind, and to have seen. But it is not in the least like the dress shown in the art which is immediately subsequent to his age, the art of Tiryns and of the Dipylon; and, as far as I can ascertain, it is not the costume displayed in the archaic art up to the middle of the sixth century. Archaic Greek female costume, however, has this much in common with Homeric and later Greek costume, that it essentially differs, often, from Aegean or Mycenaean dress.