re is a little bronze statuette of Minerva (with twinkling diamond
eyes). She has a broad band of embroidered silver foliage from her
throat to her feet.

As the beauty of Greek forms acted and reacted on the beauty of their
"Art of Dress," so we may be certain that all deformity of dress has
been produced by deformity of race in mind or body, and that climate
is an important factor in both. The cold of the farthest north has
produced people short, fat, and hairy; which natural gifts have been
supplemented by their warm clothes or coverings, in the same way that
a "cosy" covers a teapot. Flowing garments there would be utterly out
of place, petticoats are unknown, and the Lapp hangs out nothing that
can be the vehicle for carrying an icicle. Their dresses, or cases,
are planned to keep out the cold, and to place another atmosphere
between the heart of the breathing mass, and the cruel, cutting, outer
wind. Hence, the materials used are not only woven hair, but the furry
skins themselves. In the south, under the sunshine, dress is for the
greater part of the year only needed for decency and beauty. The
flowing and delicate cottons and silks and fine woollens, are shaped
to cover and adorn the beautiful forms, which for entire isolation
take refuge in the never-failing mantle. The mantle was the great
opportunity for the embroiderer's craft. Alkisthenes, the Sybarite,
had a garment of such magnificence that when it was exhibited in the
Temple of Juno at Lacinium, where all Italy was congregated, it
attracted such universal admiration that it was sold to the
Carthaginians by Dionysius the Elder for 120 talents. The ground was
purple, wrought all over with animals, except the centre, where were
seen Jupiter, Juno, Apollo, Minerva, Venus, and Themis. On one border
was the figure of Alkisthenes himself, on the other was depicted the
emblematic figure of his native city, Sybaris. The size of the
garment was Homeric--it was fifteen cubits, or twenty-two feet in
breadth.[474]

That the ladies of Greece in the fourth century carried down the
historical and Homeric traditions of the embroidery frame, and made it
part of their daily lives, while the Persian women of rank left such
work to their slaves, is evident from the pretty legend told of
Alexander the Great, who desiring to beguile the weariness of his
prisoners, the wife and family of Darius, sent them some of his
garments to embroider. When it was reported to him that the