d at it for a time, most
began to giggle and laugh; some by their air and gestures clearly
showed their disgust; all found that it was not aesthetic to paint
a naked woman, though in Nature, nakedness was in no way
offensive to them. In the middle of the same city, at a fountain
reputed to possess special virtues, men and women will stand
together naked and let the water run over them." (Carl
Davidsohn, "Das Nackte bei den Japanern," _Globus_, 1896, No.
16.)

"It is very difficult to investigate the hairiness of Ainu
women," Baelz remarks, "for they possess a really incredible
degree of modesty. Even when in summer they bathe--which happens
but seldom--they keep their clothes on." He records that he was
once asked to examine a girl at the Mission School, in order to
advise as regards the treatment of a diseased spine; although she
had been at the school for seven years, she declared that "she
would rather die than show her back to a man, even though a
doctor." (Baelz, "Die Aino," _Zeitschrift fuer Ethnologie_, 1901,
Heft 2, p. 178.)

The Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans, appear to have been accustomed
to cover the foreskin with the _kynodesme_ (a band), or the
_fibula_ (a ring), for custom and modesty demanded that the glans
should be concealed. Such covering is represented in persons who
were compelled to be naked, and is referred to by Celsus as
"decori causa." (L. Stieda, "Anatomisch-archaeologische Studien,"
_Anatomische Hefte_, Bd. XIX, Heft 2, 1902.)

"Among the Lydians, and, indeed, among the barbarians generally,
it is considered a deep disgrace, even for a man, to be seen
naked." (Herodotus, Book I, Chapter X.)

"The simple dress which is now common was first worn in Sparta,
and there, more than anywhere else, the life of the rich was
assimilated to that of the people. The Lacedaemonians, too, were
the first who, in their athletic exercises, stripped naked and
rubbed themselves over with oil. This was not the ancient custom;
athletes formerly, even when they were contending at Olympia,
wore girdles about their loins [earlier still, the Mycenaeans had
always worn a loin-cloth], a practice which lasted until quite
lately, and still persists among barbarians, especially those of
Asia, where the combatants at boxing and wrestling matches wear
girdles." (Thucy