sources deal with central characteristics of their cultures:

Generally, Roman tradition views continuity, Greek historians pressure initiation. The result is
schematic, but
I hope, helpful.
The Greek word for naked, or nude, is gymnos, and
shows something fresh in the historical world. The word
refers to complete nudity. In Classical times, a man was
not gymnos if he wore a perizoma. In a military context gymnos meant "unarmed" (II. 16.815,
etc.), not
covered by armour, exposed (Thuc. 3.23, 5.10.71; Xen.
Hell. 4.4.12); and "light-armed," as opposed to the
heavy-armed hoplite. The gymnon stadion (Pind.
Pyth. 11.49) was the race run without armour, in contrast to the hoplitodromos. By far the
most common
Use, however, was especially "exercising in the
nude."22 The word had become something new, just as
the Greeks had made something new of the ancient so-

ARCHAIC PERIOD
In Homer's poems, of around 800 B.C., nakedness
Means shame, exposure, departure, and dishonor.
The naked body of the hero must be saved. Thersites is threatened with being stripped and
run naked
through the assembly. Odysseus covers himself with
leaves before Nausicaa.23 The latter case, of
course, may be because of the unique circumstances. The
hero is meeting a young, unmarried girl for the
first time, and it would scarcely be proper for him
to appear before her totally naked. Homer presents us, it seems, as so frequently, with the
old and the
new, the conventional and the first instance of what
is to come.
A crucial passage appears to exemplify this kind of coexistence. In the 22nd publication of
the Iliad, Priam and Hecuba
in turn attempt-in vain-to dissuade Hector from
going to fight and to certain death. Both allure to his
compassion, and reverence, by facing him with the scene of their nakedness. The sight of
one's parents' nakedness is awesome.24 Priam paints a picture of his
own departure and abasement. An old man's passing is
Horrible: "When an old man is dead and down, and the
dogs mutilate the grey head and the grey beard and the

Components that are shameful (albi^), this, for all sad mortality is the sight most pitiful" (II.
22.74-76). Instantaneously
after this, Hecuba shows her breast and holds it out
for Hector, in entreaty (79-81). This pitiable value refers to the conventional awareness of
nakedness.
What is new is what Priam compares with the
grisly, black, horrible departure of an old man: the attractiveness
of the nakedness of a young man. "For a young man
all is decorous when he's cut down in battle and torn
with the sharp bronze, and lies there, and though dead
all that shows about him is beautiful... " (II.
22.71-73). The image is startling at this kind of early
date. It was intelligibly famous. Echoes of the
passage sounded down the centuries, among them
Tyrtaios's well-known poem, with its contrast of ugly
and lovely.
For this is black, for an elderly guy fallen in conflict
among the front line fighters to lie before the young
men, an elderly man with his hair white and beard silvery, breathing his virulent life into the
dust, his
bloody genitals in his hands and with his skin all naked.
This sight is shameful for the eyes to beholdand reprehensible. But in contrast among young
men all these
things are appropriate as long as he shines in the blooming of
Wonderful youth manhood. They are admirablefor guys to
see and incredibly attractivefor girls while he is
alive-and he appears also honest and amazing
fallen in the front line.25
There is no hint of any difference between Greeks
and barbarians in Homer in relation to language, faith (the Trojans' sacrifice at the temple of
Athena),
dress, or nudity. In the athletic competitions, the
heroes "gird their loins" to prepare for the wrestling
match. Early writers presumed this meant that The American Sunbathing Association
(A.S.A.), prospered during the next eight
wore the perizoma. Lately others have indicated
that they were engaged in belt-wrestling, known from
the ancient Near East, where nude male bodies wearing thick belts were common in early or
protohistoric
times.
cover their genitals. Total nudity for guys could signify service to the god, a rite "costume."
The nude girl, consistently shown in front view, was

a very common motif that could have different significance at different times. In Near Eastern
art goddesses
were so signified, primary among them Ishtar
(Astarte), whose strong, nude image was extensively
Spread, and powerful in many areas and intervals.28 The most common connotation of
female nudity
in historical times seems to have been service rendered
in the temple.29 For men, yet, in the early
Near East and elsewhere it was a sign of defeat. As in
the Old Testament, nakedness signifies poverty,
Disgrace, captivity, humiliation.30
Greek prehistory offers fewer examples of whole
nudity. Lively younger men and heroes were represented in artwork wearing the perizoma or
short pants31
throughout the Aegean and the entire Mediterranean,
in contrast to old guys, dressed in long chitons and