The practice of covering the feet seems to have varied somewhat among the Greeks. In all probability it was the custom to go barefoot indoors, and the habit prevailed among certain classes of going always unshod in the street also. It was a mark of hardihood in the Spartan youths always to go barefoot, and at Athens, in addition to the lower orders, who probably never wore shoes, philosophers and those who affected a simple life were in the habit of going unshod. That Socrates rarely covered his feet is proved by more than one reference in Plato’s Dialogues;—PhÆdrus[187] speaks of him as ?e? ???p?d?t??, “always unshod,” and in the Symposium[188] we learn that for the occasion of Agathon’s banquet Socrates has washed and put on his shoes, ? ???????? ?p??e?, “which he seldom did.”

Other references in literature show that he was not the only philosopher who preferred to have his feet untrammelled.[189]

The normal fashion, however, for people of good breeding was to wear sandals or shoes out of doors, and we learn from Aristophanes[190] that the Athenians at least were particular about the fit;—to “swim about” in large boots was a mark of boorishness. Xenophon[191] notices the division of labour in the shoemakers’ trade, where he mentions at least four different hands employed in making a pair of shoes.

The simplest form of footgear was the sandal, the p?d???? of Homer, the ?p?d?a of later times; this consisted of a leather sole cut to the shape of the foot and fastened on by means of straps or thongs, passing sometimes round the instep, sometimes between the toes and round the heel and ankle.[192] At times a piece of skin was attached to the sandal at the back, so as to cover the back of the heel, or even to wrap round the instep entirely, leaving only the toes bare;[193] from this form of sandal the ?a?, or slipper, was probably developed. This is described by Pollux[194] as e?te??? ?? ?p?dea, T?????? d? t? e???a, “a cheap shoe, of Thracian invention.” Its name suffices to show that the foot was inserted into the ?a?, in contradistinction to the sandal, which was bound under the foot; and the epithet signifies that it covered the foot completely. This description could be applied to many varieties of shoes and boots represented in extant art. Fig. 46 (e and f) gives two examples of shoes—e being an ordinary soft shoe covering the foot completely to the ankle, f is turned up at the toes, like a modern Greek shoe, and reaches above the ankle at the back. A vase at the British Museum represents a woman cleaning a shoe of this shape. We learn from Aristophanes[195] that shoes were cleaned with blacking made of pitch and applied with a sponge; they were usually black, except when the leather was allowed to retain its natural colour. The word ?a? seems to have been used for various kinds of foot-covering; in Aristophanes it refers sometimes to a kind of easy slipper worn by old men,[196] and in other instances it is used of any ordinary shoe or boot. The mention by Pollux of its Thracian origin perhaps refers to the high boot turned over at the top, frequently represented on vase-paintings as being worn by horsemen with the Thracian cloak and petasos.[197] Different varieties of this kind of boot are to be seen in Fig. 46 (g, h, i, and j).

An article in Daremberg and Saglio’s Dictionnaire suggests an Asiatic origin, and indeed the resemblance between Greek boots and those represented on Assyrian monuments is striking. A comparison is actually made by Herodotus[198] between Assyrian boots and Boeotian ??de?.

It is quite possible that boots of this kind may have come to Greece from the East by way of Thrace, and the fact that Dionysus is very frequently represented wearing them seems to add confirmation to this conjecture.

A variety of the ??de? is to be found in the ??d???de?, a kind of boot worn by runners, as also by Hermes, Artemis, and the Amazons. They seem to have had no flap at the top, and to have been laced over a tongue either through holes or round buttons.[199] Another kind seems to have consisted of strips of cloth or leather, or possibly felt, wound round the legs like the modern puttees.

The word ???p?de? is frequently used of some kind of foot-covering, and we learn from Theocritus[200] and from Pollux[201] that these were worn by soldiers. The ???p?? was probably some kind of sandal with a thick sole and stout straps interlacing one another in such a way as to form a protection for the heel and instep.[202] Pliny[203] tells us that sometimes they had nails in them.

Many varieties of shoes or boots are mentioned by Pollux[204] and other ancient writers. We read of ????a?, ?????de?, a cheap kind of boot worn on journeys; ?a?ta?, light sandals with latchets, called also ????p?de?, from the fact that they allowed the feet to get covered with dust; e????de?, Persian slippers of yellow kid; ?e?s??a?, cheap white shoes worn by women, especially by hetairÆ; ?a?????a?, distinguished by their red colour—these were probably the same as the ????a? mentioned by Theocritus. One of the archaic female statues in the Acropolis Museum at Athens wears red shoes. Wood was sometimes used for sandals. Pollux tells us that ????p???a were a special kind of wooden sandal used for dancing, and that Pheidias represented Athene Parthenos wearing ?????????, sandals with high rectangular wooden soles and gold latchets.

Other shoes are too numerous to mention, and cannot be identified with certainty.