Since the Neolithic
era the Greek territory was inhabited and from the very beginning
of the second millennium BCE was it invaded by peoples of Indo-Euro- pean stock like the Ionians, the Aitolians and the
Dorians who initiated the Mycenaean civilization founding towns like Mycenae, Athens, Sparta, Argos, Delos and Tirynthus and
spread it through Aegean Sea and the coasts of Asia Minor .
These populations were in touch with Mesopotamian
peoples, with the Phoenicians and they disseminated colonies, as well as in Asia
Minor, also Bosphorus Black Sea, Sicily and Southern Italy (Magna Greece)
and they were influenced by these refined civilizations also as regards the shape
of the footwear.
What we know about them, about leather tanning used for
their manufacture and about shoemaker's trade we have learnt from
literary sources and archaeolo- gical finds such as statues and vases with
painted figures, but in no Greek excavation trace of tannery systems has been found.
A Rhodian vase (Pelike 1), kept at Ashmolean
Museum of Oxford, displays a scene of a shoemaker's shop; a shoemaker cuts with a skiving knife a piece of leather according to the shape of the foot
of a boy standing up on the cobbler's bench.
Hides were tanned with alum and those treated with it
were very appreciated and therefore expensive, with fatty materials like pork fat or olive oil sludge,
which made them very smooth, with tannic extracts coming from vegetables rich
in this substance, like blackberry leaves, bark of some conifers, pomegranate
rinds acorns, wild vine roots and
berries Egyptian
acacia fruits and oak bark.
Some of these products tanned only, others, at the same
time, dyed and/or hardened and/or bleached.
The leathers made in Greece generally came from regions
washed by Black Sea, Cyrenaica and, after, also from Sicily and Asia Minor where,
as is well-known, were allocated numerous Greek colonies.
Very frequently tanning was made by the shoemaker
himself, but also industrial tanneries existed, as it were and the tanner's trade,
owing to mephitic vapours which emanated from the systems, had a bad reputation
and that counts also for all the other ancient civilizations.
Homer, in the Iliad (In the 4th canto a
woman wearing a pair of sandals is described ) and Odyssey informs us about the
existence and use of many leather and skin objects: shields, helmets, wineskins, straps
and rawhides worn like clothing, but in these more ancient ages, the Greeks, including soldiers, walked, above
all barefoot
and, only in later periods, they began to use also footwear but continuing to remain barefoot indoors.
Literary sources inform us that the Cretans wore white leather or shammy ankle boots, that warriors coming from
Orcho- menous used red leather ankle boots and those from Mycenae wore sandals
attached with dark leather leggings.
In the 7th Mimiamb2 by Heronda, Greek poet lived in the
3rd century BCE, it is a dialogue among the shoemaker Cerdon, business agent Metrò
and two customers which brings us the great variety and refinement of the
feminine footwear in use in the Hellenistic age.
In fact there are mentioned yellow or green shoes from Sicyon and
Ambrakia, shoes without heel, slippers, Ionic shoes high shoes, night shoes, open shoes, red shoes, Argive shoes, a young man shoes,
and stroll shoes.
First footwear to be used was"Upodémata"
consisting of a leather, wood or esparto sole fastened to foot by leather straps
which evolved in the "Sandalia" ( see picture n.° 15); a model of
"Sandalia" was the "Krepidoi" (see picture n.° 16) worn by
both sexes on a journey, with nasty weather and for long ways under difficult
conditions; feminine "Krepidoi" were made from softer skin, could be
dyed usually yellow and have high cork soles in order to gain some centimeter in
stature; only a free citizen could wear a "Krepis" with carved tongue.
"Embades" were ankle boots used both by men
and by women and had upper completely closed: those from Sicyon were generally white while those from Laconia were red and, if intended for women,
could be decorated with gold-lace embroidery.
The sandal represented in the picture n.° 17 is a part
of statue (abt 350 BCE) exhibited at British Museum of London representing, maybe, Mausolus satrap of Caria and coming from his mausoleum at Alycarnassus.
The models of sandals of pictures n.°18 -19 are drawn
from terracotta bottles with foot shape exhibited at British Museum and coming from Samos
(abt 575 - 550 BCE).
The "Krepis"
represented in the picture n.° 20 is a model drawn from a statue of 7th
century BCE exhibited at archaeological museum of Siracusa (Italy) and it has an amazingly topical
style.
Feminine footwear could be decorated with metal
appliqués and also dyed with purple.
"Ninfides" were white and embroidered
shoes worn by brides.
Also a kind of heavier shoes existed suitable to
military use or to a person who had to cover uneven lands called "Koila
Upodémata" (see picture n.° 21) ; they had also an hobnailed sole and
parts of upper which covered heel and sides of foot and were laced by
cross-straps.
The sandals represented in the picture n.° 22 belong
to a Roman statue of 2nd century CE copy of a Greek statue coming from Apollo's temple at Cyrene and kept at British Museum of London.
"Endromides" were ankle boots used only by
men held sticking to
the leg by leather straps while "Akatioi" were up-turned shoes,
probably of Hittite prove- nance.
"Kothornoi"of oriental origin, had a leather
thick sole and a soft skin upper high to calf and were laced in front of the leg
with red straps; Aeschylus introduced them in the performances of the tragic
theatre; the theatrical "Kothornoi" had a very high sole, raised with
layers of cork and height, until to tenth of the stature, it changed according to
character's importance who wore them so that gods and heroes seemed to be higher than
common mortals.
Comic actors, instead , wore
the "Embades".
Xenophon informs us that
shoemakers joined soles and uppers with animal tendons and that they followed a
standardized procedure into assemblage of shoes.
A rule of etiquette existed by which, who had to take
part in a banquet had to reach the house where had been invited with shoes not to soil his feet too much, but, as he arrived at the house's lobby, he
had to take them off enabling a slave to wash them before getting on the dining
room's bed.
15 16 21
20 
17 
18 
19
22
in order to know something else about ancient Greeks...
FOOTNOTES: (1) A Greek amphora with squat neck and wide bilge.
(2) A Brief composition (Mimes) in scazon verses (choliambs) in which in
realistic and comic
form, sometimes with a popular and obscene manner, detailed scenes of everyday
life are
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