In the Graeco-Roman world, the cosmic order was enacted, in part, through bodies. The evaluative divisions between, for example, women and men, humans and animals, "barbarians" and "civilized" people, slaves and free citizens, or mortals and immortals, could all be played out across the terrain of somatic difference, embedded as it was within wider social and cultural matrices. This volume explores these thematics of bodies and boundaries: to examine the ways in which bodies, lived and imagined, were implicated in issues of cosmic order and social organisation in classical antiquity. It focuses on the body in performance (especially in a rhetorical context), the erotic body, the dressed body, pagan and Christian bodies as well as divine bodies and animal bodies. The articles draw on a range of evidence and approaches, cover a broad chronological and geographical span, and explore the ways bodies can transgress and dissolve, as well shore up, or even create, boundaries and hierarchies. This volume shows that boundaries are constantly negotiated, shifted and refigured through the practices and potentialities of embodiment.

This is the first general monograph on ancient Greek dress in English to be published in more than a century. By applying modern dress theory to the ancient evidence, this book reconstructs the social meanings attached to the dressed body in ancient Greece. Whereas many scholars have focused on individual aspects of ancient Greek dress, from the perspectives of literary, visual, and archaeological sources, this volume synthesizes the diverse evidence and offers fresh insights into this essential aspect of ancient society. Intended to be accessible to nonspecialists as well as classicists, and students as well as academic professionals, this book will find a wide audience.

This is the first general monograph on ancient Greek dress in English to be published in more than a century. By applying modern dress theory to the ancient evidence, this book reconstructs the social meanings attached to the dressed body in ancient Greece. Whereas many scholars have focused on individual aspects of ancient Greek dress, from the perspectives of literary, visual, and archaeological sources, this volume synthesizes the diverse evidence and offers fresh insights into this essential aspect of ancient society. Intended to be accessible to nonspecialists as well as classicists, and students as well as academic professionals, this book will find a wide audience.