What Not to Wear: Clothing Regulations at the Andanian Mysteries

Laura GAWLINSKI What Not to Wear: Regulating Clothing at the Andanian Mysteries

The sacred law regulating the celebration of the Mysteries at Andania in the Peloponnese (IG V,1.1390, 93BC) includes instructions about the clothing to be worn by participants. These rules not only inform us of the visual features of this particular festival, but also demonstrate the many uses of clothing in a religious context. Regulations about dress and the significance which they imply about dress reveal underlying concerns about status, gender and ritual propriety.

The importance of dress as a method of communication in Greek society has been gaining scholarly attention (Llewellyn-Jones, ed. Women’s Dress in the Ancient Greek World. 2002). Greek laws regulating clothing have found a place in these studies as well as works on gender, since most of them are directed at women. Laws dealing with dress at religious festivals have been rightly associated with similar rules at funerals, since the public nature of both makes them opportunities for display which then requires regulation (Mills, ZPE 1984, 255-265). These public events are also a prime target for the control of women who participate in them in large groups (Garland, Gynaikonomoi. 1981 and Ogden, “Controlling Women’s Dress” in Llewellyn-Jones, ed., 203-225). Although the Andanian law does express an interest in these issues, a closer examination of its details show that the rules are more complex and nuanced than previously recognized. Ritual concerns are perhaps even more prominent than public ones, and there is a clear desire to create a specific kind of “religious costume” for use at the Mysteries.

This paper will explore the rich details of the Andanian clothing regulations to find the underlying concerns of the community who wrote them. Several factors came into play when creating the religious costume: an interest in distinction by status and age, a desire to curtail spending, a preoccupation with women’s public appearance, and a need for ritual propriety and purity. The law limits the amount to be spent on clothing and the number of garments that may be worn. Since these restrictions differ for women and girls, slave and free, a visual separation among participants is created. A person’s position in the ritual is shown in his or her dress; members of the select group organizing the festival get special headwear, and initiates are marked by wearing white and going barefoot. In the extensive list of items forbidden to women are bordered dresses, transparent dresses, gold jewelry and make-up; since these are often grouped together in descriptions of hetairai, the reason for banning them is not simply an attempt to curb the display of wealth. Ritual concerns are shown by forbidding the binding of hair and the wearing of shoes not made from the leather of sacrificial victims. The different stages of the festival are marked by different rules for the public procession and the initiation. There is also a clear attempt to associate these Mysteries with their more-famous counterpart at Eleusis by the wreathing of initiates and the wearing of a strophion by the Council of Ten, the headband worn by the Eleusinian Hierophant. The symbolic use of dress in Greek society as a whole took on a new life in a religious context.