PA
25
S5
No 9
1927
University of Virginia Library
PA25.S5 1927 NO.9
ALD
Color in Homer and in ancient
CX 002 220 879


UNIVERSITY
OF
VIRGINIA
1819


PA
25
SMITH COLLEGE CLASSICAL STUDIES
35
10.9
927
Number 9
December, 1927
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN
ANCIENT ART
Preliminary Studies
BY
FLORENCE ELIZABETH WALLACE, A. M.
JULIA HARWOOD CAVERNO
EDITORS
FLORENCE ALDEN GRAGG
NORTHAMPTON, MASSACHUSETTS
1927

Color in Homer and in
Ancient Art
COMPOSED, PRINTED AND BOUND BY
The Collegiate Perss
GEORGE BANTA PUBLISHING COMPANY
MENASHA, WISCONSIN
Ι.
II.
COLOR CHART
I. Standard Colors (Classical Greek Period)
II. Colors of the Spectrum plus Brown (Modern)
III. Colors Mentioned in Homer (Prehistoric Greek Period)
Upper row: Colors Used also in Ancient Art
Lower row: Colors of Naturally Colored Things
9
2
10
11
12
I.
α. Ερυθρόν
b. πυρρόν
C. ξανθόν
d. ώχρον
2. πράσιον f γλαυκόν
Η κυανούν
1. αλουργόν
4
5
6
Π.
1
a. Red
b. Orange
IIIK
1
13
c. Yellow
d. Green
e. Blue
f. Indigo
g. Violet
h. Brown

10
14
15
12
α. μιλτο
b. ώχρός
C. κυάνεος Α
d. ονομ
16
17
18
19
κ. ερυθρός Α
φοιν- Α
απορφύρεος
φαίνε
ν. φοιν Β
Ερυθρός Β
W.
ξανθός
x.
χλωρός
γ. κυάνεος Β
Z. io-
Vide, Appendix A, pp. 54-57 for explanation.
>III.

SMITH COLLEGE CLASSICAL STUDIES
Number 9
December, 1927
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN
ANCIENT ART
Preliminary Studies
BY
FLORENCE ELIZABETH WALLACE, A. M.
JULIA HARWOOD CAVERNO
EDITORS
FLORENCE Alden Gragg
NORTHAMPTON, MASSACHUSETTS
1927
PA
25
. S5
371531
no. 9
1927
EXCH
DES
TO MY MOTHER
PREFACE
This paper was written two years ago while I held a fellow-
ship at Smith College. It soon grew beyond the bounds for a
master's thesis. I have not added to it, except for an occasional
note, nor attempted to revise it since that time, but am letting
it stand in most particulars as it was accepted by the Committee
on Graduate Instruction in May 1926. Additional data on the
use of color in art would not, I am certain, cause me to alter
any of the generalizations in Chapters IV and V. Further study
must be along the line of ascertaining the color vocabulary of
later authors. I have a few scattered references to these, where
some usage is parallel to or in striking contrast with Homer's.
I wish to take this opportunity to express my gratitude and
appreciation first and foremost to Professor Sidney N. Deane,
whose wide scholarship in both Greek art and literature were
at my service in the preparation of the paper, and who has
added to my obligation by meticulous care in the correction
of the proofs. Professors Julia H. Caverno and Emily L. Shields
saved me from many a blunder by their careful reading of the
manuscript. I am indebted to Professor A. T. Jones and Dr.
and Mrs. H. G. Bishop of Smith College, Mr. F. E. Frey of the
Bureau of Mines, and my brother for advice and assistance on
Appendix F. I owe thanks to Mr. G. E. Houlé of the Eclipse
Engraving Company of Cleveland for the painstaking care he
gave to making the plates for the Color Chart, to my mother
and Mr. J. P. Knott for the many hours they have spent in
going over the manuscript and helping collect data, and to
Mrs. F. R. Cuddy and Miss Agnes Millar for help with the
proof-reading.
Library, Cleveland Museum of Art.
November, 1927.
F. E. W.
COLOR CHART
CONTENTS
BIBLIOGRAPHY...
I. HISTORY OF THE PROBLEM.
Frontispiece
1
4
Introduction 4, Gladstone the first to write on it 4,
Object of this work 6, What is color? 6
Keersmaecker 5.
II. PROLEGOMENA..
III. COLOR IN HOMER.
Classification 7. §1.
Artificial color in Homer 7,
Tyrian dye 7, Paint 9, Etymologies 10, Yellow and
green 10, Blue 10, Black and White 12. §2. Natural
color in Homer 13, Metals 13, Rock 13, Soil 14, Snow
15, Water 15, Landscape 16, Green 16, Wine and
Grain 17, Flowers 17, Linen 18, Human anatomy
18, Blood 18, Skin 19, Hair 20, Eyes 22, Animals'
anatomy 22, Wool 23, Birds 23, Snakes 23. §3.
Colored light (the rainbow) 24. §4. Illusions of
color 25, The sky 25, The sea 26, Blue or violet
shadows 27. §5. Black and white or Value words 28,
Applied to intangible things 28, Applied to concrete
things 28, Preponderance of these words over those
expressing hue 29. §6. Figurative use of color 30,
For a storm 30, For thoughts 30, For fear 30, For
death 31.
IV. COLOR IN ANCIENT ART..
Novelty of the subject 32, Classification 32. §1.
Egyptian art 32, Primitive pigments 33, Faïence and
glassware 33. §2. Pre-Hellenic art 35, Frescoes 36,
Vases 37, Metal work 38. §3. Archaic Greek art 38,
Prehistoric period 38, First historic period 39, Hypo-
thetical bronze paint 39, Conventions 41, Paint used
on Greek vases 41, Purple paint 42. §4. Classical
art 43, Encaustic painting 43, White ground vases
44. §5. Hellenistic and Graeco-Roman art 45, Paint-
ing 45, Tanagra terracottas 47.
6
7
32
V. INTERPRETATION OF USE OF COLOR IN ART..
Conventional stage 47, Idealistic stage 48, Realistic
stage 48, How conventions of color in art arise 48,
Influence of available pigments 48, Conservatism 49.
VI. INTERPRETATION OF USE of Color-WORDS IN HOMER
Conventional stage in literature 49, Later stages of
idealism and realism 49, Comparison of the use of
color in Homer with the use of color in archaic art
50, Homer's wholly abstract uses of color surpass
the use of color in ancient art 51, How conventions of
color in language arise 51, Lack of attention in the
observer 51, Primitive words for color 51, Influence
of artificial colors on the formation of a color-
vocabulary 51, Genius of the language 51, Precision
in the use of color-words 52, Color-idioms 52, Con-
servatism of the Greek language 52, The Homeric
Greeks were not color-blind 53.
VII. CONCLUSION...
Gladstone's theories without ground 53, Further
research needed by color-psychologists, students of
semantics, and Homeric scholars for the bearing of
color-words on the Homeric Question 53.
APPENDICES
A. NOTES ON THE COLOR CHART..
Notes on the different colors 55.
B. GENERAL INDEX OF COLOR-WORDS USED BY HOMER
AND MENTIONED IN THE TEXT..
...
47
49
53
54
57
C. TABLES SHOWING THE DISTRIBUTION OF COLOR-
WORDS IN HOMER..
66
a. Distribution in the Iliad facing p. 66. b. Table of
first occurrences in the Iliad 66. c. Distribution in
the Odyssey facing p. 67. d. First occurrences in the
Odyssey 67.
D. STATISTICS ON COLOR-WORDS IN HOMER..
E. COLOR IN BEOWULF..
F. SCIENTIFIC THEORIES OF COLOR, ANCIENT AND MODERN
§1. Ancient writers on color 70, Note on color in
Pliny 73. §2. Color in modern scientific investigations
73, The spectrum 74, Pigments distinguished from
0800
68
69
69
colored lights 75, Rainbows 76, Modern con-
ception of light 76, Hue 77, Intensity 77, Satura-
tion 77, Helmholtz theory of color-vision 78, Ladd-
Franklin theories of color-blindness 78, Possible
color-blindness of Homer and Whittier 79, Katz'
types of color-sensation 79, Colors of colloidal
systems 80. §3. Points of similarity in ancient and
modern theories 80, Physical theories 80, Color-
illusions 81. §4. Present unsatisfactory state of study
of color 81, Reasons 81. $5. Conclusion 82,
Theoretical embryonic eye 82, Homer throws little
light on the problem except possibly for twilight
vision 82.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Works on Use of Color in Homer and Other Ancient Literature
GLADSTONE, W. E. Studies on Homer and the Homeric
Age (1858); The Colour Sense, Nineteenth Century II, pp. 366–
388 (1877).
MAGNUS, H. Die Geschichte der Entwicklung des Farben-
sinnes (1877).
SOURY, J. De l'évolution historique du sens des couleurs
(1878).
LORZ, J. Die Farbenbezeichnungen bei Homer mit Berück-
sichtigung der Frage über Farbenblindheit (1882).
KEERSMAECKER, A. DE Le sens des couleurs chez Homère
(1883).
VECKENSTEDT, EDMUND Geschichte der griechischen Far-
benlehre; das Farbenunterscheidungsvormögen, die Farben-
bezeichnungen der griechischen Epiker, von Homer bis Quintus
Smyrnaeus (1888).
CLERKE, A. Familiar Studies in Homer (1892). Pp. 294–
302 for kúavos.
BÉNAKY, N. P. Du sens chromatique dans l'antiquité sur
le base des dernieres découvertes de la prehistorie, de l'étude
des monuments écrits des anciens et des données de la glossologie
(1897).
Works on Scientific Theories of Color
PLATO Meno, pp. 74-76; Timaeus, pp. 67c-68d.
ARISTOTLE De Sensu, pp. 439a-440b; De Coloribus, pp.
791a-799b.
THEOPHRASTUs De Sensu §§73-82.
SCHULTZ, W. Das Farbenempfindungssystem der Hellenen
(1904). Has color charts.
ABNEY, W. Researches in Colour Vision (1913), etc.
HURST, G. H. Colour: A Handbook of the Theory of
Colour (1916).
MUNSELL, A. H. A Color Notation: Hue, Value, and
Chroma (1919). An unscientific, metaphysical, but interesting
little book.
TROLAND, L. T. The Present Status of Visual Science,
Bulletin of the National Research Council (1922). The most
1
2
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
concise work on the physics, physiology, and psychology of
color to date.
PARSONS, J. H. An Introduction to the Study of Colour
Vision (1924).
Aesthetic Rather than Scientific Works
LEONARDO DA VINCI (1452-1519) A Treatise on Painting,
translated by Rigaud (1871).
GOETHE, J. W. VON (1749–1832)
Part II, Vols. 1-5 Zur Farbenlehre.
Werke, ed. Sachsen,
ALLEN, GRANT The Colour-Sense: its Origin and Develop-
ment (1879).
On the Use of Color in Ancient Art
PERROT, G. et CHIPIEZ, C. Histoire de l'art dans l'antiquité,
Vols. I-X; in English, Egypt Vol. I, p. 124 and Vol. II, pp. 335-
337.
IG 155 for textiles. (349-344 B.C.)
JUNGHANN, C.
VON MACH, E.
(1903). Chap. IX.
Die Farbe in der bildenden Kunst (1894).
Greek Sculpture: its Spirit and Principles
GARDNER, PERCY Principles of Greek Art (1914). Chaps.
VIII, XII, and XIII.
GARDNER, E. A. Handbook of Greek Sculpture (1915),
pp. 28-32.
BLUEMNER, H.
On Technical Processes
Technologie u. Terminologie der Gewerbe
u. Kunste bei den Griechen u. Römern, I. pp. 215 sq. and
251 sq. for textiles and clothes, IV. p. 391 for glass, II. p. 158
and IV. pp. 464 sq. for paints (1884).
WALLIS, H. Egyptian Ceramic Art, pp. xiii-xvi (1898,
1900).
WALTERS, H. B. History of Ancient Pottery (1905). I, pp.
226 and 449.
LAURIE, A. P. Greek and Roman Methods of Painting
(1910).
FOWLER, H. N. and WHEELER, J. R. Greek Archaeology
(1915). Pp. 526-529 for painting.
NEUBURGER, A. Die Technik des Altertums (1921).
RICHTER, GISELA M. A. The Craft of Athenian Pottery
(1923). V. index sub Color and Miltos.
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
3
Works with Colored Plates
PERROT et CHIPIEZ opera citata. Few plates but accurate.
J.H.S. IV (1883) plates 36-38 for Amazon Sarcophagus of
Corneto.
FENGER, L. Dorische Polychromie (1886). Rather arbitrary
restorations.
REINACH, T. and HAMDY BEY Une necropole royale à
Sidon (1896).
WIEGAND, T. Die Porosarchitektur der Akropolis zu Athen
(1904).
WALTERS op. cit. especially Vol. I.
SPRINGER, A. Handbuch der Kunstgeschichte I. Das
Altertum (1907).
BAUMGARTEN, F., POLAND, F., WAGNER, R. Die hellenische
Kultur (1905) and Die hellenistisch-römische Kultur (1913).
HAWES, H. B. Gournia (1908).
SEAGER, R. B. Explorations in the Island of Mochlos (1912).
Tiryns: Die Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen des Instituts
(1912).
DUSSAUD, R. Les civilisations préhelléniques (1914).
EVANS, A. Palace of Minos at Knossos (1921).
PFUHL, E. Malerei und Zeichnung der Griechen, III (1923).
PFUHL, E. translated by J. D. BEAZLEY, Masterpieces of
Greek Drawing and Painting (1926).
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART:
PRELIMINARY STUDIES
I
Not even the most casual reader can fail to observe that
Homer uses expressions of color in a very strange way. One
carries away many phrases of haunting beauty such as
ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ηώς, “rosy-fingered Dawn,” λευκώλενος Ηρη,
"white-armed Hera," and eni otvora Tóvrov, "the wine-dark
sea." A few passages are remarkable for the number of vivid
contrasting colors presented to the mind's eye, as A 477-487
and the last fifteen verses of B1 in each of which passages four
different color-words are found within ten lines. But the next
thing that one notices is how rarely they occur² and to how
few things after all color is applied, for most of the color-words
of Homer are only otiose epithets; seldom does the color men-
tioned make any difference in the story. And finally one begins
to notice that the colors seem oddly applied. That dark hair
should always be κvavo- and never μéλas, that the sea should
never be blue, that the color of the sky and vegetation should
never be mentioned at all, that cattle should be wine-colored,
and that blood should oftenest be black cannot fail to arouse
our curiosity as to why the early Greek bard used color-words
in this way.
The first to put his wonder into words was Gladstone in
his Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age (1858). He suggested
that the Greeks did not see colors as we do but rather in terms
of brightness and darkness. Twenty years later he published a
fuller study, The Colour Sense,3 in which he developed his former
thesis to such an extent as to deny that olvoy had more color
in it than alloy and declared that Kvavo- in all its uses simply
meant bronze. One is tempted to wonder whether Gladstone
1 The books of the Iliad are referred to throughout by the capital letters;
the Odyssey by the small letters.
2 There is approximately 1 color-word to every 40 lines, or 3 for every 4
pages in the Iliad and Odyssey, alike, but since there are many quite colorful
pages there are necessarily bleak stretches to make this average. For statistics
v. Appendices C and D, pp. 66-68.
3 Nineteenth Century II, (1877) pp. 366–388.
4
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
5
was not a bit "color-blind" himself to have appreciated so little
the poetic metaphors embodied in Homer's color-epithets.
Many men fail to appreciate and distinguish color through mere
lack of attention. However that may be, Gladstone wrote at
a period before the discovery at Tiryns of a frieze of actual
Kúavos, blue paste, exactly like the one described by Homer,
and long before the discovery of the colored frescoes at Phyla-
kopi and in Crete. Gladstone tries to divide all Homeric words
applying to light (or as many as he happens to think of) into
the two classes of bright and dark. So far as he treats of the
achromatic tones between black and white, his remarks are
very interesting, though he both ignores many instances in
Homer and neglects the physical and physiological laws of
light and vision while treating the matter in a "soi-disant
scientific manner." But after studying the art, as now known,
of the heroic age, no one can deny the real color values of many
words of that period.
In the meantime, Gladstone's first treatise had aroused much
excitement among certain German and French evolutionists,
who saw that if it were true that the Homeric Greeks could not
see colors as we do, this would prove that there had been an
actual physical mutation in the human species during the last
3000 years. With the idea of summing up the discussions and
lectures of the past decade or two, Dr. Magnus, an ophthalmolo-
gist and classical scholar of Breslau, with an Aristotelian
obliviousness of the possibility of testing his statements by
experiment before publishing them, brought out a dissertation
in which he accepted Gladstone's views and after a superficial
comparison with other ancient literatures of the Orient only,
stated that the "color-sense" has developed since Homer's day.
In 1883, in answer to Gladstone's second publication Dr.
A. de Keersmaecker, a Belgian ophthalmologist and friend of
the classics, published a study entitled Le Sens des Couleurs chez
Homère, the conclusions of which are quite reasonable. He says:
"If in certain passages of Homer there is an apparent or
real confusion in the verbal designations of colors, we must see
the cause of it in the vague inherent meanings of those designa-
47 87.
V. Bibliography, p. 1, for titles.
• A study of Beowulf shows quite different results. V. Appendix E, p. 69.
6
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
tions themselves-meanings adequate moreover for a very
imperfect technical knowledge—far more than in an embryonic
physiological state of the color-sense."
After much thought and study this seems to me to be the
wisest conclusion possible; unfortunately Keersmaecker's treat-
ment of the matter is not wholly consistent with it. Although
the question is far from being settled, it is a step in advance to
admit that there is a problem, though perhaps one that is in-
soluble at this date. The whole matter cannot be disposed of
by saying that Homer or the Greeks of the beginning of the
millennium preceding the Christian era were color-blind. We
now know too much both about the early Greeks and about
color-blindness to say this, but too little to settle the question
dogmatically. Keersmaecker based his study on purely literary
sources; he promised a second volume based on archaeological
evidence, but this never appeared."
In this paper I shall try to bring the discussion up to date
and present besides some observations of my own.
II
The object of this study is to make a comparison of the use
of color in literature with the use of color in extant ancient art.
This may be called the subjective compared with the objective
use of color. Although a true comparison may be made only
between the artificially colored objects mentioned in Homer
and objects of the same kind that have come down to us, it has
seemed best, for purposes of comparison, to include in this study
all words that express color or relation to black and white,
that is, "value."
At this point the question "What is meant by color?"
7 Two slightly more recent studies, one by Veckenstedt, based on a study
of Greek epics, and another by Bénaky, based on literary, archaeological, and
linguistic evidence, are mentioned in the Bibliography. These I have not been
able to examine. So far as I know, no work has appeared on the subject since
the discoveries in Crete.
¹ It is often very hard to draw the line dividing words that express color
from those that do not. I have included more than any previous writer, though
I have rejected some of Gladstone's, such as σιγαλόεις, αίθοψ, and ἦνοψ. Ι
have tried to include all those that imply tone and to exclude all those that
refer to lustre, which is independent of color, since it depends solely on the finish
of the surface.
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
7
arises and demands an answer. Feeling that a full discussion
of this question, which is far from being solved, would be out of
place in a paper on an archaeological and literary subject, I
have relegated it to the appendix.2 There I have indicated
briefly (1) the ancient theories on color, (2) the present scientific
views, and (3) their bearing on the problem of color in Homer.
III
This paper takes up the occurrences of color in an entirely
different way from that of any of the previous writers.¹ Here,
color is divided into three categories: first, color due to pig-
ments; second, colored light; and third, chromatic illusions in
cases where neither pigment nor colored light is present."
I shall take up in order the instances in Homer of (1) artificial
pigment, in which we expect and find the most accuracy since
these colors are the most concrete, (2) natural pigment in man
and the creatures and things of his environment, (3) colored
light, (4) illusions of color, and (5) achromatic light or tones
ranging from black to white, to which is added (6) metaphorical
use of color.
§1
The artificial pigments in Homer may be classified as organic
dyes for textiles, etc., and mineral pigments used in paint and
in objets d'art of a less perishable nature.³
The dye par excellence in the ancient world, that was known
long before Greece had emerged from the mists of the Aegean
civilization, until the time when the waning power of the
Roman Empire gave place to the waxing power of the Roman
2 V. Appendix F, pp. 69 sq.
¹ To group, complete, and summarize the uses of the color-words, I have
added Appendix B, p. 57, where the uses are taken up one color at a time.
2 According to physicists these illusions of color are caused by a partial
absorption of white light as it passes through a practically transparent medium,
whose particles are thus equivalent to a pigment, and the effect in either case
is the same as colored light so far as the eye is concerned. So my classification
is practical rather than scientific.
The reader is advised from this point on to refer constantly to the Color
Chart (frontispiece). Thus a clear idea of the colors mentioned can easily be
obtained.
8
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
church, was Tyrian purple. This dye was obtained by the
Phoenicians from the molluscs purpura and murex.
It is a
colorless secretion which turns colored only when it is exposed
to light or to heat.5 Then it forms one of the most stable dyes
for wool known. The color varies from the most brilliant scarlet,
as seen in the cardinals' robes, to the deepest reddish purple
or bluish red, as seen in the velvet used for the puff inside the
crowns of the monarchs of England. To the Homeric Greeks
the word poîvig, used for the Phoenician himself and various
products of his country, was the name given to this dye. Ivory
was stained with it (ἐλέφαντα φοίνικι μιήνῃ Δ141) and gar-
7
ments are called povikóels."
·
·
But the word poîvi gives no hint as to the exact shade meant.
What other words were used to denote the exact color? épvŮpós
expresses a shade, the crimson of blood and wine, that is fre-
quently found in dyed textiles, but it is never used for them in
Though my aim in general is to take up the colors in the order of the
spectrum (the order in which I have listed them in Appendix C), it is not
possible always to do so; as e.g. here where, since the murex dye ranges from
red to purple, it is necessary to treat these two colors together.
' Webster's N. I. Dictionary and Aristotle De Coloribus 795b and 797a.
• We must rid ourselves of the idea that Tyrian purple (Lat. purpura)
can ever be a true purple, that is, a color as near to blue as red. Here the reds
always over-balance the blues, so that the colors range from scarlet or cardinal
red through crimson to magenta, or a deep reddish purple. V. Lillian M. Wilson's
Roma Toga (1924), p. 119 for a reproduction of what was meant by purpura,
based on a study of wall-paintings. She says that it can be best imitated by a
use of the dyes known commercially as garnet. (V. Color Chart, nos. 1, 12,
and 16). Pausanias (v, 12, 4), calls it ẞaon Toppipas tĤjs Þolvikwv.
The Greeks had even more difficulty than we in defining exact shades.
But indeed, why should they distinguish them? The Phoenician traders, from
whom the wealthier Greeks of the Dark Age (cf. p. 38) purchased their finest
apparel, probably conducted their transactions with a minimum of Greek. In
an age when mail orders, business letters, and catalogs were unknown and buy-
ing was a personal matter, exact descriptions of merchandise were not necessary.
The Latin words puniceus and purpureus are used in almost exactly the
same ways as pow- and πоpøʊρ-; in Latin as in later Greek the latter term came
to be used as freely as the former for all shades. Indeed, the use of color-words
in general in Latin is strikingly like that in Greek. This similarity is just another
proof of the influence of Greece on Rome.
7 V. Appendix B sub pov for references; and so hereafter, when the
references required are not in the text, they will be found in Appendix B (the
index) under the stems of the words, which are listed in alphabetical order.
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT Art
9
Homer. Among later authors cited by L. & S., it is used only
by Septuagint writers for garments dyed with madder, épvłpó-
δανον. However, πορφύρεος is a regular epithet of the cloaks and
rugs belonging to the nobles, so undoubtedly refers to Tyrian
dye. The question that arises is: Does Toppúpeos refer to the
bright cardinal shades or to the darker magenta shades? A com-
parison with the other things to which it is applied, waves,
blood, a cloud, death, and painful thoughts, seems to indicate
that the dark tones are implied. Simple blood may connote a
bright red, but the blood referred to in these passages is always
shed blood which, though red at first, quickly darkens to what
we should call a reddish brown.10 So on the whole, Topoúpeos
may be interpreted as the darker shades obtainable from the
murex. Purple is the color of the ball used by the sons of
Alcinous in @ 373, which the skilful Polybus made for them. It
was probably made of dyed leather or cloth.
Let us examine the other pigments that approximate red.
μλτо-πáрnos¹¹ is used in Homer only as an epithet of ships.
Poliko-πános, 12 which is equivalent to this word in meaning,
is of course a loosely used, poetically coined term, for, although
ships might be the color of Tyrian dye, they could not be
actually painted with it.13 μiλros is a red earth, a naturally
occurring chalk-like pigment, used when mixed with wax or
oil as paint, or when dry as rouge. It was composed of minium
(red lead) or far more commonly of an iron ore (red ochre).
The color of the former is almost a tangerine or a very deep
• My statements that a word is never used in a certain connection are based
on a careful study of the definitions and references in Liddell and Scott,
Greek Lexicon, Eighth Edition (always referred to as L. & S.).
....
In the Odyssey Toppupeos is applied exclusively to textiles, except in two
cases: κûμа торóúрeov, ẞ 428 and λ 243, and σpaîpav. | πορφυρέην, θ 373;
in the Iliad the uses are more varied. Besides being applied to textiles and the
sea, A 482 and II 391, it is used of death (for the figurative use of color-words
for death v. p. 31), of blood P 361, of the rainbow P 547 (v. pp. 24 and 25), and
of a cloud P 551 (v. p. 28).
10 V. Color Chart no. 16.
11 B 637 and
125.
12 A 124 and 271.
13 V. encaustic painting, p. 43. Herodotus III 58, in telling of an oracle of
ca. 550 B.C. says: τὸ δὲ παλαιὸν ἅπασι αἱ νέες ἦσαν μιλτηλιφεῖς.
14 It can sometimes be seen on lead pipes that are not often cleaned.
10
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
orange verging on red. The iron pigment may be a little deeper
in tone, but both of them have much yellow mixed with the red.
The red clay of Attic black- or red-figured vases gives a fairly
accurate idea of what is meant by μιλτο-.15 As can easily be
seen, there is so much yellow in these shades, that iλro- could
never have been used for Tyrian dye, and in fact it never was
used for any dyeable article. Moreover, it was always the name
of a pigment, not a color.16
The etymologies of these three words are quite uncertain.¹
17
aλoupy's, the regular word for Tyrian purple in classical Greek,
is not used in Homer, though the same idea is conveyed by
ἁλι-πόρφυρος. πορφύρεος and Μίλτος are still used in modern
Greek with the meanings unchanged, but pour has disappeared.
KÖKKLVOS,18 the only common word for red in Romaic, does not
have that meaning in extant literature until the time of Theo-
phrastus (fl. ca. 322 B.C.).
Yellow dyes were probably not used by the Greeks in the
Homeric age. xλwpós, the only word approximating green in
the poems, is never mentioned as the color of anything that
could be dyed. The classical words applied to green garments,
βατραχίς and πράσινος, do not occur.19
'O Kúavos is now generally admitted to mean a blue stone or
an artificial enamel, frit, or smalt imitating lapis lazuli.20 Actual
16 μίλτος is the name given by Suidas (sub Κωλιάδος κεραμῆες) to the red
earth used in Attic potteries. It is variously translated by the words vermilion,
ruddle, red-chalk, and red ochre, but I have chosen the last as it is both more
familiar and more accurate.
16 Paint made of red ochre of the μλro- color is still seen on many ocean-
going vessels to-day, notably those of the Union-Castle line.
17 The only suggestion as to the etymology of μíλros is a possible connec-
tion with μéλas. Toppúρeos is also obscure. Cf. Lat. purpura, with a gemination
of syllables which is not a true reduplication, but only a misspelling that shows
the Roman inability to pronounce the Greek . The word is possibly of Semitic
origin, as dissyllabic roots are rare or non-existent in Indo-European languages.
pow- offers more difficulties. It seems to be a contamination of the Greek √ pov
meaning murder (cf. póvios = polvios, murderous, bloody) with the Semitic pov-
used in place-names. It appears in Latin as Punus, Punicus, or Poenus and
Poenicus, besides the literary transliterations in ph—. (Boisacq, Dictionnaire
étymologique de la langue grecque, sub µíλros and pouós. Also v. Bérard,
Phéniciens, Rev. Arch. XXIV (Oct.-Dec. 1926), pp. 133-136.)
18 From Kókкos, berry.
19 Cf. p. 22, note 4 for κpoкo- and p. 16 for πpáσivos.
20 V. p. 33.
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
11
specimens of it have been found. In Homer, the frieze of
Alcinous' hall (787), inlaid metal work (A24, 25, 26 and 39
and 2564), and table legs (2 639) are said to be made of κúavos.
This colored glass or artificial Kúavos contained cobalt, or more
often copper compounds as pigment.21
Kvavóτ pupos is another more common epithet of ships. Glad-
stone, by a questionable process of reasoning, arrives at the con-
clusion that Kúavos is bronze. But supposing that the Homeric
ships were sheathed in bronze,22 they would not be brown or
dark as Gladstone assumed but a bright, greenish blue, since a
patina would be formed very quickly in the damp sea-air and
in the water. So Kvаvóжpopоs may mean with greenish blue prows.
This is the only explanation of the epithet that occurs to me,
except the obvious one that the prows were painted with copper-
blue wax paint. The effect would be much the same though the
latter effect would be darker.23 Blue-prowed is too definite an
expression to refer to a mere illusion of color of distant ships.24
Kváveos is used but once of a garment. The mourning veil
of Thetis when she is sorrowing for her son's grief (93, 94)
is described as κάλυμμα . . . . κυάνεον, τοῦ δ᾽ οὔ τι μελάντερον ἔπλετο
toos. The meaning is unmistakable. It is a reference to the
dye nearest black that the Greeks had, one in whose composition
red was totally lacking.25 The dye used was probably woad or
21 Words containing the stem xvav- are used as follows:
14 times of hair
clouds or dark masses of men
prows of ships
8
13
7
works of art
1
eyes
1
garment
1
45 in all
For references v. 60.
wet sand
The etymology of κúavos is quite hopeless, though
some effort has been made to connect it with Skt. cyamas, dark blue or black.
V. Boisacq, op. cit.
22 The Roman naves aeratae (Caes. B.C. II 3, 2) show that ships at
least in later antiquity were so sheathed.
23 A. P. Laurie, Materials of the Painter's Craft, pp. 50 sq.
24 Cf. p. 27.
25 Cf. Plato's definition of blue as an admixture of brightness with black
and white (Timaeus 68c).
12
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
European indigo, which grows as far north as England.26 It is
a very poor dye and occurs in minute quantities, so was probably
used in early times only when a dull, dark garment was
required.27 Until the invention of aniline dyes, real blacks or
even very dark blues were comparatively rare, since those colors
are not found among the good natural dyes. Even the real
indigo from the East is a rather light color and easily fades or
turns white.28 Black garments were a sign of mourning among
the Greeks of the classical period, and they have a sinister mean-
ing in any circumstances.29 While blue garments occur occasion-
ally on painted sculpture, they are seldom mentioned in litera-
ture, and neither black nor blue garments were offered to
Artemis Brauronia,3º so were probably not held in great esteem.
No garment is ever described as either black or gray or even
dark, in Homer, yet only the shroud of Patroclus is λevKós,
white (353).31 Ladies' veils are commonly ȧpy-, as are the
fleeces of sheep. ȧpy- must refer to some special property of
reflecting light in wool.32 μéλas, the commonest color-word in
Homer by far, is only once used of an object in which artificial
color can be implied. φάσγανα καλὰ μελάνδετα κωπήεντα, (0713),
fair hilted swords with black handles. These are probably the
short, bronze swords usual in prehistoric Greece, and in this
case they would have wooden or bone handles stained black.
XeúkaσTIs, an epithet of Deiphobus (X294), cannot be explained
with any degree of certainty. It may refer to the shield as a
whole, or to an applied or painted device. The phrase vía λeúk'
élépavтi (E 583) refers to some similar adornment of leather with
pieces of ivory. The description of the skin of a shield as black³3
26 loáris, the Greek name for this dye, is used in Theophrastus De Sensu
§77. τὸ δὲ κυανοῦν ἐξ ἰσάτιδος καὶ πυρώδους. Cf. p. 34, note 9, for another
name for blue cloth.
27 Cf. Lat. toga pulla of some dull, dark color of undetermined hue. V.
Wilson, op. cit. pp. 50 and 118. This woad blue or the mauve garments of the
wall-paintings both answer the description (v. p. 46). For a suggestion as to
the color of Kváveos in this connection, v. Color Chart, 19.
28 Encyclopedia Britannica sub Indigo.
29 E.g. in Plutarch Pericles, 38 and Aesch. Eum. 52.
30 IG 155.
31 In classical times, white garments for men were very unusual and even
derided. (Herod. II 81, frgt. of Eur. Cretes, frtg. 475a, 1. 16, Plato Legg. 947b).
32 V. p. 28.
33 Z 117.
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
13
possibly implies dyed leather, but the reference is more probably
to the natural color of old leather. This paucity of references
to objects that were artificially black or white indicates that,
although the early Greeks may have been keenly aware of
black and white in their environment,34 they were not fond
enough of these colors to use them much for ornament. This is
natural to all peoples with simple tastes.
$2
In taking up the natural colors of the tangible constituents
of the Homeric world, I shall discuss the application of color-
words to mineral matter, vegetation, and animate nature.
Of actual metals in Homer, xaλκós, copper or bronze, is
called pvpós, red, once (I 365) and tin is once λeuxós, white
(A 35). A lebes given as a prize in the games ( 268) is called
λευκόν and is also said to be ἄπυρον. This use of the word must
merely mean "not blackened by smoke," since a cauldron as
valuable as this surely would be made of bronze, which could
hardly be described as white. Or possibly this is a case in which
XEUKÓS has its original meaning, shining. The very name of
silver, äpyupos, from ȧpy-, shining white, is an allusion to its
color. Iron is once lóes (¥ 850). This word is a coined term, and
besides its occurrence here is used only once and by a late writer,2
of the sea. It may be a doublet for io-edńs³ and is evidently inter-
preted that way by the later writer. If so, it refers to the gray
color of rough cast iron, not possibly at this early date to the
bluish glint of steel. This same iron is called πολιόν τε σίδηρον.
Apparently the reference is to the puzzling perforated axes
through which arrows were to be shot.5 Iron is called gray (in
the identical phrase) otherwise only in the Iliad where it is a
prize, probably cast in a rough lump. Iron in this state would
have more the appearance of a gray stone than of anything
metallic.
Actual stone or rock, however, is never called gray, nor is
34 V. p. 29.
¹ V. p. 15, note 20.
2 Nicander Alexipharmaca 171.
3 V. p. 26 for io-.
I 366, 261; 3, 81, w 168.
5 Cf. 97, where "iron" undoubtedly refers to the axes.
14
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
it called brown. Brown rocks were probably thought of as
épv@pós by the Greeks. Even to us with all our fine distinctions
of color the shade that I designate as terracotta is very hard to
define. It is called red by one person and brown by the next.
Likewise the Greeks saw the two elements of brown, "redness"
and "darkness," and used each in describing the color of rocks."
They are never actually called red in Homer, but the place-
names in 'Epve-10 certainly suggest the color of the soil or rocks
in their neighborhood." Rocks and earth are called dark, e.g.,
Telρоlo μeλalvηns ( 97 and 109) of the mainland seen from
Ithaca on the eastern horizon; yaîa péλaiva λ 365 and 7 111,
of fertile soil, and λ 587, of the wet ground left when the waters
receded, in the story of Tantalus; while the black furrow
(548), though on the Shield of Achilles, really is a description
of freshly turned soil as the poet knew it in life.
• The word brown is totally lacking in Greek, ancient and modern, and in
Latin. It is present in the Romance languages only by gift of the Germanic
element in them. Brown (Ger. braun, Fr. brun) is one of the two words that
now express real color, used in Beowulf, the oldest extant piece of native litera-
ture in any Germanic tongue. However, it seems even there as though brown
simply means dark. V. Appendix E, p. 69. In modern Greek, brown is rendered
by Kiтpivos, yellowish or paiós, which does equally well for brown or gray, and
σκούρος Οι σκοτεινός, which merely indicate darkness. Perhaps the reason that this
color is not expressed in primitive languages, is that brown is not a common
regularly recurring natural color. Rocks and soil, hair, eyes, and leaves all
may be brown at times, while living vegetation is always green, and fresh
blood is always red. The commonest thing that is always brown in a primitive
environment is the crust of bread; and surely our OE word BRUN is just a
metathesis of burn, OE brinnen, or brunen. Cf. Skt. bhru, meaning brown
(Oxford Dictionary).
7 V. Color Chart. Cf. nos. 8 and 16.
* Cf. red hair, the exact color of brown shoes; the British slang "brown"
for a penny with our "red cent."
In the English-Greek dictionaries of Yonge, G. M. Edwards, and S. C.
Woodhouse the only word for brown that has not either of these elements is
Eaveiw used for frying a fish till it is brown (Ar. Ach. 1047).
10 Ερυθραι Β 499 and Ερυθίνους . . . ὑψηλούς Β 855, Erythrae in Boeotia
and Erythini, a Paphlagonian town with two red cliffs (Seymour, Vocabulary
to the School Iliad).
"Bury's derivation of Erythrae (History of Greece, p. 67) from purple-
fisheries seems improbable, since (1) épvpós was never used of murex dye, and
(2) Erythrae in Ionia, since her colonists came from central Greece, was
probably named after Erythrae in Boeotia, on the flanks of Cithaeron.
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
15
In the Iliad¹² yaîa péλava is often an equivalent of "death"¹³
and in the expression ῥέε δ' αἵματι γαῖα μέλαινα" the adjective
seems almost to have a predicate force, as blood in these places
of slaughter is regularly uéλav.15 In the Iliad also occurs
λίθον . . . . μέλανα, α black or dark stone. In the Odyssey is
the proper name Aevкáda Téтρny (w 11) for a certain white cliff
on the edge of the world.17 Dust too is white (E 503).18 Other-
wise the color of the rocks or ground is not mentioned.
....•
16
Snow-capped mountains are never described as such, but
from occasional allusions to them, it is evident that Homer
appreciated their beauty. The Greeks' first step toward
imagining a worthy abode for the gods, after their primitive
concept of the gloomy home in the earth whence ancestors might
issue in the form of snakes, was inspired by snow-capped
Olympus. But the Olympus pictured in the Odyssey is a fairy-
land of the imagination far remote from the rugged mountain
of Thessaly.19 However, in the Iliad Mount Olympus is truer
to actual geography, e.g., in the passages "Oλvμπoν ȧyáνviḍov
(Σ 186) and of Thetis ἤ δ᾽ ἴρηξ ὡς ἄλτο κατ᾿ Ολύμπου νιφόεντος
(616), while Hector in battle is likened to opet vidbevri (N 754).
These adjectives vipóes and ȧyáv-vipos, snowy, imply white,2
but Homer says more explicitly of the horses of Rhesus
λευκότεροι χιόνος (Κ 437). The only place where λευκός is actually
applied to a mountain-top is in B 735: Trávoló te λevkà kápyva.
20
The color of water is treated under §4, except that I may
say here that Eaveos, the proper name of rivers in the Troad
and in Lycia, is undoubtedly derived from the sediment of
yellow or brown soil that was carried in their turbulent waters.
12 B 699 and P 416.
13 V. p. 31 for metaphorical use of color in connection with the idea of death.
14 0 715 and T 494.
15 V. p. 19.
16 H 265 and
404.
17 Cf. apy- used of rock, p. 28 (4).
18 Cf. with chaff p. 17.
19 . . . . οὔτ᾽ ἀνέμοισι τινάσσεται οὔτε ποτ᾽ ὄμβρῳ
....
δεύεται οὔτε χιὼν ἐπιπίλναται ἀλλὰ μάλ' αἴθρη
πέπταται ἀνέφελος, λευκὴ δ᾽ ἐπιδέδρομεν αἴγλη (5 43-45).
20 Though according to theory there should be a word for snow common
to all languages of the Aryans, whence should come a common word for white,
such is not the case. λeuxós from √LUK, like åpyńs, originally meant light or
shining and was later specialized to apply to strictly opaque whites.
16
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
Especially the Trojan Xanthus must have been a torrent, for
the tale of the battle in the river of course is based on some
actual flood. The epithet apyvpo-dívns (Þ 8), silver-eddying,
αργυροδίνης
carries out this idea. Compare with this instance of the color
of soil suspended in water giving rise to a geographical name,
the Yellow Sea and the Hoang Ho.21
Greece, to us, is preeminently a land where the green of the
rare vegetation, the ruddy browns, bluish grays, and the dazzling
white of the snow-capped mountains form a never-ending series
of pictures of striking beauty. Yet of all the obvious expressions
for these colors, the only one used by Homer is λevkótepoɩ xióvos,
whiter than snow, in a simile.22 These ideas are all suggested
in Homer, although the colors are not specifically mentioned.
Who can forget the gracious flowing sound of "woody Zacyn-
thus"23 or "leaf-shaking Pelion"24 and the images that they call
up? Leaves are mentioned in numerous places in Homer but
always when he has something definite to say about them, not
for mere poetic fullness.
IIpάowos became the regular word for the green of leaves,
cloth, and mineral pigments during the Hellenistic period25 and
has remained so ever since. The stem appears in Homer only
in paσial, garden-plots; the derivation of πрáσwos, the color
of a garden or green, is very logical.26
As to cut wood, the phrase τὸ μέλαν δρυὸς ἀμφικεάσσας (ξ 12)
is a little hard for one unfamiliar with the art of the woodman
"The epithet poivikóñedos used of the Red Sea (å.λ. Aesch. Frgt. 192)
shows that the name Red Sea was given that body of water through some more
or less erroneous idea that the soil there was red.
22 V. p. 15.
23 a 246, etc.
24 B 757, etc.
25 Plato includes πpáσtov in his standard colors. (V. Color Chart I). Accord-
ing to the theory of colors he presents (probably Pythagorean), it is the most
complex of all colors, being formed from an admixture of the highly complex
TUρpóν and black. (Timaeus 68c). V. p. 71, note 7. He coins a similar word
for a slightly darker shade of green, wo-wdŋs, grasslike, which however is used
as a designation of color by no other extant writer. Aristotle (or Theophrastus)
in the De Coloribus 799b says that hair can be οὔτε φοινικοῦν οὔθ᾽ ἁλουργὲς οὔτε
Tрáσwov. "Purple" was used of hair quite late, e. g. πорpνрaîσι xairais. (Ana-
creont. 15.)
26 I prefer this derivation to that of leek-green given by the lexicons, since
no one knows what shade a Greek leek was.
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
17
to comprehend, but evidently here μéλav, black or dark, is
applied to wood in its natural state. The word xλwpós, greenish
yellow,27 is used of the olive-wood club of Polyphemus and the
stake made from it ( 320 and 359). xλwpós here seems to describe
not the color so much as the unseasoned state of the wood,
since so much is made of heating the stake in the fire.28 This
meaning was the commonest one in classical Greek and is still
used. It is exactly analogous to the English green wood. In only
one other phrase is χλωρός used for wood, in π 47, τῷ δὲ συβώτης
χεῦεν υπο χλωρὰς ῥῶπας καὶ κῶας ὕπερθεν, where brushwood
covered with fleeces forms a rustic couch in the hut of Eumaeus.
The meaning here is probably the same: the couch was made
of yielding, freshly cut withes.
Xλwpós is also used of honey (A 631; κ 234). Now honey can
be of any tint from palest yellow to light brown, depending on
the flower whose nectar is gathered; so it is not possible to draw
from this usage any conclusions as to the exact color meant by
χλωρός.29
Grapes are black on the Shield of Achilles (≥ 562), while
wine and its celestial doublet nectar in the Odyssey are fre-
quently épu@pós; wine is μéλas three times.30 The color of wine
is never mentioned in the Iliad; nectar is once described as
épv@pós (T 38) in the embalming of Patroclus. This paucity of
color-expressions regarding wine may be accounted for by the
fact that, while the Odyssey abounds in genial scenes of hospi-
tality, in the Iliad on the other hand wine is usually the sine
qua non accompaniment of a necessary meal for warriors, to
which the poet does not devote much attention. Barley (κpî or
äλpira) is regularly λeukós, white,31 in Homer, though our
barley would be considered white only in contrast with some-
thing quite dark. Chaff is also white in αἱ δ᾽ ὑπολευκαίνονται
ȧxvpμaí (E 502). Beans are black-skinned, μeλavóxpoes (N 589).
Crocuses, hyacinths, violets, and lotus or clover are men-
27 The derivations proposed for this word (collected in Boisacq) are varied
and unconvincing. No definite color stands out among all the possibly related
words in other languages.
28 V. parenthesis in note 4, p. 49.
29 V. Color Chart, no. 18.
30 V.
p.
28 (7).
31 Five times in the Iliad; 6 times in the Odyssey.
18
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT Art
tioned³2 ( 348, E 72, ɩ 93), but the only flowers whose color is
stated in Homer are that of the olive-sapling κal Te ВpÚEL
ἄνθεϊ λευκῷ (Ρ 56) and that of the magical plant moly ῥίζῃ μὲν
μέλαν ἔσκε, γάλακτι δὲ εἴκελον ἄνθος (κ 304) which may be
identified with garlic.33
34
The λeukà loria, white sails, of the poems were probably
made of linen, since flax was known to Homer and was regularly
used by the later Greeks for sails.35 The adjective recalls the
effect of sunshine on the sails, however, as much as the original
color of the cloth.
We have now exhausted the color in man's physical sur-
roundings. Let us next turn to man himself. Here we meet
with commoner usages. Hair, eyes, and skin, fat, blood, and
bones are frequently mentioned. Bones and teeth are λeukós,38
white; fat is apуéта or ȧрyéтɩ,37 a glistening white; blood is
ἀργέτα ἀργέτι,
épv0pós,38 red, oftener pou39 with a metaphorical reference to
crimson dye, once Tорpúрeo40 with darkness added to this idea,
and finally black, its most frequent epithet, used always of shed
blood, μéλas¹¹ and keλaivóv¹² even oftener. In all, blood in the
32 For the colors of crocuses, violets, and roses v. pp. 25 and 26.
33 Agnes Clerke's Homeric Studies p. 221.
" A 480 only, in the Iliad; many times in the Odyssey.
35 Cf. the use of the same adjective (its only other application to cloth) of
the shroud of Patroclus (v. p. 12), which was probably of wool, as that was the
universal material for men's clothes.
36 II 347, E 291, a 161, 393, etc., etc. Boars' teeth, though Neukol like men's,
are also αργής (appearing in the common epithet ἀργιοδόντας, etc., always of
pigs or boars. (K 264, A 292, ¥ 32, I 539, 60, and frequently in the Odyssey)).
37 Only in the Iliad
126, A 818.
38 Only in the Iliad, in the verbs épv@aivw, K 484 and ¥ 21; and ¿pevłw, A
394 and 329. (In the Odyssey épvpós is used only of wine and nectar; in
the Iliad of nectar, T 38, and of bronze, I 365).
...
39 In the Iliad we find: πυκναὶ δὲ σμώδιγγες (welts) ἀνὰ πλευράς τε καὶ ὤμους
αἵματι φοινικόεσσαι ἀνέδραμον. Ψ 716, 717. εἶμα δ᾽ ἔχ᾽ ἀμφ' ὤμοισι δαφοινεὸν
αἵματι φωτῶν, Σ 538. [λύκοις] . . . πᾶσιν δὲ πάρηιον αἵματι φοινόν, Π 159, . .
épevybμevol pórov alμaтos, II 162, and with the specific simile in ▲ 141 sq.: ws
δ᾽ ὅτε τίς τ᾽ ἐλέφαντα γυνὴ φοίνικι μιήνῃ (141)
τοῖοί τοι, Μενέλαε,
µávonv alµarı unpol (146), and in the Odyssey polvov aiua, o 97. All of these
are cases of freshly shed blood.
40 αἵματι . . . . πορφυρέω, Ρ 361.
...
41 In the Iliad μέλαν αἷμα, Δ 149, etc. and μελαίνετο δὲ χρόα καλόν, Ε 354,
of the clotted blood on the wounded wrist of Aphrodite; in the Odyssey µédav
αἷμα, γ 455 and μέλανα . . . βρότον ἐξ ὠτειλέων, ω 315.
42 Iliad A 303, etc.; Odyssey λ 98, etc. and keλaivedés, ▲ 140, etc.; λ 36, 153.
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
19
Iliad is black 20 times and colored 9 times; in the Odyssey it is
black 10 times and colored only once. ερυθ- and φοιν-, as can
be seen from the instances cited in the footnotes, are used of
the good red color of freshly shed blood. Our word red, the
root of which is common (and is the only common color root)
to all Indo-European languages, found first in rudhird, the
Sanskrit word for blood, is really not an abstract word for color
at all, but was originally as metaphorical as violet or pink. Its
etymology, however, would indicate that it was the first color-
word to be established in the parent language.
But blood is the least stable red imaginable. It is purple in
the veins, so that the venous blood appears pale blue through
the white skin, while the arterial blood imparts a color varying
from palest pink to livid crimson to the various external parts
of the body, and when shed it changes rapidly in the air to
brown in stains or practically black in clots. The red of fresh
blood is épu@pós; blood changing color on exposure to air has the
epithets polvos, etc. and Topoúpeos, the two adjectives that
most commonly are applied to garments, ivory, etc., treated
with murex dye.45
In some of these anatomical passages, the blood, bones, and
fat described are those of animals, but in most of the cases they
are those of human beings slain in battle. Today, except for
doctors and nurses, the knowledge of human anatomy is likely
to be purely academic; but in Homer's day even to a bard the
sight of severed limbs and gaping wounds was not unfamiliar.
Homer's descriptions of wounds are notably accurate.
The color of the skin is only mentioned indirectly. The
goddess Hera and many fair women are called white-armed.46
This is the only analogue in Homer to that convention of
primitive art whereby women's skin is represented as lighter
than men's. It is no doubt true that women's skin was lighter,
for even in the simple free life of the Homeric age, as a rule the
4 There is no simple way of indicating this root. It begins with r and after
a vowel or diphthong, ends with a dental, which may by a labio-velar change
become a labial as in Lat. ruf-us.
45
15 V. pp.
9 and 10.
46 V. sub devkwdλevos in Appendix B. Cf. the wýxee λevkw of Aphrodite
(E 314) and of Penelope (240).
20
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
women stayed in the house and attended to their weaving. If
one wished to see the model wives Penelope or Arete, one had
to seek them indoors, while only the maiden Nausicaa, the
divine Calypso, and Helen and Andromache in great distress
and near their homes are ever seen out of the house, and even
these (except Nausicaa) are more often presented in domestic
scenes.
Men's skin is not called dark, as might be expected, except
twice in the Odyssey. Athena sheds beauty on Odysseus so
that he becomes μeλayxpoins (π 175), while the elderly herald
Eurybates is described as γυρὸς ἐν ὤμοισιν, μελανόχροος, οὐλοκά-
pηvos (7 246). In this latter case it surely is not meant as a mark
of beauty, in a man who otherwise is described as round-
shouldered and woolly-headed.47
The paling of the skin from fear in battle is common in the
poems. Expos and xλwpós both refer to this pallor.48 In later
Greek wxpós came to mean yellow while xλwpós always had more
of a greenish tinge.49 These two words are still used in exactly
the same sense and are used often.50 xpws, too, means the color
of the skin, when the blood recedes on a coward's face in a
moment of danger, in the expression xpȧs éтpáteто.51 In a way,
this paling of men's faces implies ruddy countenances as the
normal state.
Hair is of various colors. As said above,52 brown cannot be
expressed definitely in ancient or in modern Greek. To a race
like ours in which brown hair is so common, this is hard to
understand; but in Greece of old as today, and as in Italy, hair
was most often the dead black that we poetically describe and
in painting represent as blue-black (to show its absolute lack
of reddish lights), which is the κυανοχαίτης or lo-πλόκαμος58
of the ancient Greeks.54 In some cases hair was red to gold,
47 Herodotus (II 104) calls the Colchians and Egyptians black-skinned and
woolly-haired. Possibly Eurybates was a barbarian, though B 184 gives his
home as Ithaca.
48 xλwpós is used 11 times in connection with the pallor of fear, H 479,
K 376; λ 43, etc. wxpos occurs in г 35 and wxpáw in λ 529. Cf. p. 30.
49 V. Color Chart, nos. 10 and 18.
50 V. e. g. The Frightened Soul, a story by T. Kastanakis, in D. V. Brown's
Modern Greek Short Stories (1920).
51 N 279, 284, P 733; 412, etc.
52 V. p. 14, note 6.
53 Not in Homer; used by Simonides 21 and Pindar P. 1, 1.
54 V. Color Chart no. 19 and cf. p. 11.
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
21
which is avós in Homer and also Tuppós in later writers. As
in the Renaissance period and in Shakspeare's time, the red-
haired type55 was undoubtedly most admired (and rarest) in
ancient Greece, for in sculpture and terracottas hair is almost
always represented as μλro-color.56 The epithet denoting hair of
this or of a more golden color was applied only to the ruling
class or to deities in Homer, and never to Trojans. In both the
Iliad and the Odyssey it is applied to Menelaus, king of Sparta;
in the Iliad to Meleager, another Peloponnesian hero; to
Achilles, the typical Achaean; to Demeter, whose hair of course
had to be the color of corn; and to Agamede. In the Odyssey
the epithet is applied to Rhadamanthus and to Odysseus.
Hector, the typical Trojan hero has κváveos hair (X 402). All
this is generally taken to mean that the Achaeans, who con-
stituted the first wave of invaders from the north in well-known
prehistoric times and who became the ruling class in Greece,
were of the tall blond type so often spoken of now as Nordic.57
This type as always was assimilated by the autochthonous race.
The result was a taller dark-haired people with occasional
shorter or lighter-haired individuals. Thus the dominant
characteristics of height and dark pigment hide the recessive
ones, but allow these to crop out occasionally, producing the
admired light-haired type. Toλiós,58 gray or hoary, is used regu-
larly of the hair and beard of the aged. This is also an epithet
of iron and of the sea. 59 λeukós is never used of hair in Homer.60
The brows of Zeus (A 58 and P 209) and of Hera (0 102)
are Kvάveos like the hair of the great deity Poseidon, while the
hair of Odysseus' beard is Kvάveos though the hair of his head
55 Like the type, so often seen about Verona, with burning red hair, freckled
milk-white skin, and glowing brown eyes.
56 Cf. pp. 9 and 10. The word uiλтo-кáρηvos occurs in Oppian H. 5. 273.
57 For some interesting ideas on the hair of the Greeks, v. Homeric Sugges-
tions, N. T. Bacon, Classical Journal XXI. p. 372.
58 Boisacq connects Toλiós with reλervós, lead-color and Lat. palleo, to be
pale (Skt. palitah).
59 Toλiós has dropped out entirely in modern Greek. Its place has been taken
by yapos anciently meaning dappled, and especially used to describe the speckled
feathers of the starling. avós is now used regularly for yellow hair, but can also
be used of gray. σTAKTÚS or σтaкTEρós is equivalent to the Fr. gris cendré.
60 Cf. 43 for white hair in art.
22
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
is avós.61 We often speak of a dark-bearded man's jaws as
ξανθός.
blue, so there is nothing odd about this usage.
Kvar-mis, the epithet of Amphitrite (u 60) is the only
instance in which there is any chance of a color-word being
used of eyes, but since -ŵπis can refer to the face as well as eyes,
this may mean "with a face surrounded by blue-black locks."'62
It is very odd that the color of brown or black eyes is never
mentioned.63 However, there are many other ways of expressing
the flashing of eyes, e.g., yλavκiáw, to glare.64
The anatomy of animals calls for the same colors as does that
of man with a few additions. Ivory, like bones and teeth, is
λeukós,65 as is milk.66 The skin or ox-hide, dépμa, of a shield (Z 117)
is Keλawóν, black.
Animal's fur is more varied in color than man's hair in
Homer, though it is never kvάveos, nor is man's hair ever μéλas.
Horses are λευκός7 and Ξάνθος and once φοίνιξ with a white
crescent (454). A lion's pelt is da-pouós (K 23), while dapolvoi
Owes (A 474) are some undetermined kind of wolf-like animals.
In contrast with these, the wolf's skin of Dolon's escapade was
Toλiós, gray (K 334). Gladstone even takes exception to that,68
though gray is as good a color for a wolf as any. Cattle are
apyós, white,69 and twice olvoy, wine-colored (N 703; v 32).70
Since we often speak of red cows, I can see no reason for object-
ing to Homer's poetical version of the same idea. As there was
no word for tan or brown in Greek, it is not surprising that
approximations like ξανθός, φοιν, or olvoy are used. A glance
61 Not in the same book. V. Index.
62 Cf. the ingenious suggestion of Bacon (1. c.) that èλixwres means "with
a face surrounded by curly locks." But λuko-ẞλépapos, a later word, shows that
Hesiod and Pindar thought it possible for "curly" to be applied to the eyes.
63 Stedman, Modern Greek Mastery, pp. 195 and 207, gives KáσTavos for
brown hair or eyes, but this adjective does not appear in the dictionaries.
Méλas is now used of hair and eyes. For blue eyes, cf. p. 25.
64 V. yλauкŵπis in Appendix B.
65 E 583; 196.
66 A 434, E 902; 246.
67 K 437.
L
68 The Colour-Sense, p. 381.
69 y 30. Possibly ápyós here means inactive.
70 In the man's name Oenops the meaning is more literal, wine-faced,
which reminds one of the early worshippers of Dionysus, who smeared wine-lees
on their faces. V. L. & S. sub τρVywdós.
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
23
at the Color Chart, III, will show that these colors are nearer
brown than any others.
It is difficult to define the color of sheep. When wool is
clean, it is white, but usually it is white only when contrasted
with the green of the pasture. So in Homer a sheep is called
λευκός, pure white only once (Γ 103) οἴσετε δ' ἄρν᾽, ἕτερον λευκόν,
ἑτέρην δὲ μέλαιναν. Here λευκός is used not so much to describe
as to distinguish the white ram from the black ewe. Five other
times sheep are black (K 215; × 525, 527, 572, and X 33). Black
sheep then as now were unusual and were devoted to sacrifice
to the chthonic deities.71 Otherwise sheep were ἀργεννός. 72
This word seems to be used of a more translucent or lustrous
white than λeuUKós.73 This meaning is even more appropriate in
the case of ladies' garments, to which alone ȧpy- is applied
(Helen's veil T 141, 419 and the principal garment, pâpos, of
Calypso, e 230 and of Circe, κ 543, which is described also as
λETTÓν, delicate or fine).
Wool used in weaving is åλ-ñóρpupos († 53, 306) when dyed,
and lo-dveons, violet-dark (8 135, 426), probably when in its
natural state.74
A goose is white (0 161); an eagle is black (252.) The
nightingale ( 518) is xλwpnis (an epic feminine of xλwpós).
The nightingale is variously described as reddish-brown or
yellowish-brown in English dictionaries. Compare outós, the
later word" which is used of various birds including the nightin-
gale; it is said to mean either yellowish-brown or sweetly-singing.
Greenwood-haunting is a possible meaning for xλwpós, which by
the way gives us the name of the yellow bird oriole. It is useless
to speculate what it means here.
Δράκοντες, snakes, are δαφοινός7. I have shown that φοιν
and its compounds cover a wide range of colors, so that these
snakes need not be scarlet, but may be of the not impossible
hue of reddish-brown.77 In any case, these are all portentous
snakes which might be expected to be a little out of the ordinary.
71 V. Jane Harrison, Prolegomena, p. 68 on σpáɣia.
72 г 198, etc.
73 Cf. pp. 46 and 47 for other uses of ȧpy-.
74 Cf. p. 26.
75 First used of the nightingale in Aesch. Ag. 1142.
76 B 308, M 202, 220.
77 V. Color Chart, no. 16, pov- (2).
24
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
It is futile to take Homer's fauna and flora too seriously.
Such things are not described in a scientific spirit until the time
of Aristotle and Theophrastus. However, it is interesting to
note what colors were used, especially when we compare them
with the utterly fantastic colors of animals in early art.78
$3
Pure colored light is familiar to everyone today. Stage lights
and the colors seen when light passes through prisms or is
reflected by diamonds are examples. The only colored light
known to Homer was that of the rainbow.' 'Ipis, the messenger
of Zeus, appears frequently in the poems, but the only epithet
she has that even suggests color is xpuσóπтepos ( 398). But in
two cases the common noun is associated with color-words: in
κυάνεοι δὲ δράκοντες . ipioσw toLKóтes (A 27) on the shield of
Agamemnon, and in a simile, where Athena enters the battle
hidden in a purple cloud ήύτε πορφυρέην ίριν ... (Ρ 547).
...
3
· ·
In the first, one may wonder whether κúavos is iridescent or
the rainbows are blue. By analogy with the second quotation
and what we learn elsewhere of kúavos, the latter seems to be the
true meaning, if color is the point of similarity and not shape,
as has been suggested. In the second, ipis is definitely said to
be "purple." There are a number of reasons why Homer chose
this particular color. Topoúpeos was used especially for dyed
articles that were ordinarily of paler hue. The analogy with the
rare and vivid color of the bow is obvious. Then the three
distinctive bands of the rainbow are red, yellow to green, and
blue to purple. xλwpós, which would fit the second, was an
uncommon word and never used of any but natural color,
while Toppúρeos would do for both of the outer bands, and hence
the more conspicuous ones. As Homer was not a scientist, but
a poet seeking a beautiful word, the latter was better.
Later Greek writers called the rainbow red, green and
78 Cf. p. 36.
1 V. Appendix F, p. 76 on rainbows.
2 In this paper I shall omit from my study such words as golden, silver, and
brazen, since it is hard to decide when these words are used for their color-values,
when for the metallic qualities suggested, and when for richness' sake.
3 Keersmaecker, op. cit., p. 67.
4
• Xenophanes frgt. 28 (32); Arist. Meteor. 3. 4, 9.
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
25
purple. Three distinct colors are as many as people generally
report, unless they imagine they see seven because they have
been taught to look for that number. There really is no more
reason for saying there are seven than six or a thousand."
Perhaps Newton was influenced by a Biblical fondness for the
number seven when he defined the spectrum.7
$4
It may seem rather metaphysical to make a separate
division of color-illusions, but according to a recent theory of
colloid chemistry there may be a scientific basis for this dis-
tinction. This theory is that a colorless, semi-transparent
medium against black, or absence of light, looks blue.¹ Whether
this effect be due to refraction or absorption of white light or to
a purely psychological cause is immaterial to our discussion.
The most remarkable examples of this phenomenon are blue
skies and blue eyes, in neither of which is there the faintest
trace of any blue substance. Closely related is the blueness
of the sea, since this is largely a reflection of the color of the sky,
and is also not to be accounted for by any inherent blueness.2
Curiously enough, Homer never calls any of these three
blue (kvav-). The color of the sky is alluded to only at dawn,
when it is podo-dáктUλos, with finger-like bands of rose-color or
KроKO-TETλos, with trailing robe the color of a crocus. Since it is
"It is interesting that these three are the primary colors according to the
Young-Helmholtz theory of color-vision. V. Appendix F, p. 78.
'As Ovid says M. 6, 65.
7 Cf. p. 74, note 3.
¹ E. g. the gelatinous substance of the iris against the black interior of the
eye-ball, milk spilled on a black shoe, or white crayon over black. Analogous is
the absolute lack of blue pigment in the bluebird's wing (C. W. Beebe, The Bird,
p. 55).
2 V. Appendix F, pp. 78 and 79 for a fuller discussion of classifications of
color.
Except the a.λ. кvavŵжɩs, which I rather think means with dark hair
(v. p. 22); and once the sea is called yλauxós. This word later came to mean
bluish green or gray (Color Chart no. 11), but in Homer seems to mean gleaming,
from the same base as γλαυκιάω. V. Appendix B sub γλαυκ-.
• The crocus that yielded the dye saffron was purple. There is no literary
evidence for the use of saffron in Greece earlier than the fifth century B. C.,
so the reference here is either to the yellow spring crocus or to the reddish
autumn flower. κρókos is mentioned with spring flowers in E 348.
Xpvσół povos 'Hús (A 611 and 3 other times in the Iliad and 11 times in the
26
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
impossible to tell of what color the roses or crocuses of that
time were, I have omitted these words from the Color Chart,
but have included them in the lists as undoubtedly referring
to color; whether pink or yellow as commonly interpreted or
something else, I shall not venture to say. At any rate, they
are beautiful words, capable of calling up poetical images
whether historically correct or not. Otherwise the sky is
"wide" (0 36, e 184, etc.), "starry" (T 128), and "bronze" or
as it is generally rendered with more euphony, but less accuracy
"brazen," probably with a reference to the glare of a sunny
sky.
Both sky and sea take on a deeper hue on a clear, sunny
afternoon, when a blue so deep as to approach violet is occasion-
ally seen in the sky, more often in the sea. Homer neglects these
richer, warmer colors in the sky, but he applies more color-words
to the sea than to any other one thing. io-edns expresses the
deep violet-blue of the sea. io- is used otherwise only of
shadowy wool (v. Color Chart, no. 7). Ruddier tones are sug-
gested by olvo and Toрpúρeos. These two colors are practically
Odyssey) also probably refers to color. But cf. "Ipis xpvσóжтeрos (V. p. 24, note 2),
Poseidon's horses' xpvoénow ¿eippow (II 205), Hermes xpvσóppaπıs, etc. Attri-
butes of the gods were ordinarily of gold in Greek folklore as in that of other
lands.
6 Otherwise ῥοδο- appears only in ῥοδόεντι.... ἐλάιῳ (Ψ 186) where
Aphrodite is practicing a sort of divine embalming on the body of Hector. L. &
S. translate this simply “oil of roses,” thus cutting the Gordian knot. The
result is a very poetical incident in keeping with the character of Aphrodite, the
goddess of love from the Orient, where alone roses were known at this early time.
Both Gladstone and Keersmaecker take the color of this oil quite seriously, but
we must not try to force podo- to mean what we do by rose. Color is undoubtedly
referred to in pododáкtuλos since the latter part of the compound gives a form-
metaphor that precludes that of the rose. The two colors that dawn and the
rose have in common are pink-to-red and yellow. If podóes has any color
connotation, either of these might do, though yellow is better. However, oil of
roses is a perfectly satisfactory meaning; or the word may refer to the fragrant
smell of fresh oil as Keersmaecker suggests (op. cit. p. 85). In later Greek
literature podóxpous and other derivatives are applied to every part of the female
body. It is to be noted that podo- compounds are never at any date applied to
dyed objects.
• The sky after sunrise (y 2); the sky over a dusty battlefield (E 504) and
σιδήρειος δ᾽ ὀρυμαγδὸς χάλκεον οὐρανὸν ἱκε . . . (Ρ 425) where the gleaming metal
of the weapons probably suggested the corresponding metallic glare of the sky.
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
27
the same." olvo contains a metaphor of the color of wine;
Toppúρeos contains one of the color of Tyrian dye. It makes
little difference whether this redness of the sea comes from
sunset light, or from the coloration of the sea near land by red
soil, or is simply in the poet's mind. The protean sea is capable
of showing many colors at once, depending on the relation of
the observer to the sun. It is not surprising that the early poems
of a sea-faring people should contain more references to its color
than to that of any other natural feature of their environment.
Words expressing quantity of light, not hue, are also used
of the sea. Toλiós, gray or hoary, is its commonest epithet,
an excellent description of the sea on a cloudy or rainy day.
Furthermore, the white foam stirred up on the dark water
when the oars beat the sea calls up an image comparable with
that suggested by Toλio-кρóтapos, with temples sprinkled with
gray.10 The smooth, rippling surface of a calm sea (ppi) is
regularly uéλas,11 as is the still water of springs,12 though the
flowing fountains in the garden of Alcinous (e 70) are white, as
is the water used in bathing (V 282). The calm surface of the
い
​sea, yaλýn, is called white ( 94).13 Smooth water can be either
black or white, according to the direction in which the observer
faces.
In two cases Homer uses κváveos to express an illusion of
darkness. The dark blurred mass of men in battle is once
called νέφος κυάνεον (π 66) and once φαλάγγες κυάνεοι (Δ 282).
Again, wet sand is called Kváveos (µ 243). This, too, is a wholly
subjective, poetical use of color, comparable with the use of
blue shadows in modern painting.¹4
7 V. Color Chart, nos. 12 and 15.
8 Thirteen times in the Iliad; 15 times in the Odyssey.
⁹ă. λ. 518 of the elders of Troy.
10 Cf. Þóρкʊʊ, the Old Man of the Sea (a 72, etc.) which probably means
the Hoary One, from the rare word popкós, gray. Pindar uses the spelling
Φόρκος, (Ρ. 12, 24).
11 H 63 and 126. Also used by later prose writers.
12 Cf. the modern Greek name for springs μavpoμáτi, Blackeye.
13 yaλývn is used several times in Homer (e 452, 1, 319,µ 168), but it is called
white only here. The word is derived from yáλa by Curtius, while Boisacq
favors deriving it from yeλáw. It was later used of a gray lead ore, and probably
through the Doric form gives the modern yaλavós, blue. Cf. yadŋvós, serene.
14 Cf. p. 26 for the similar use of io-. The painters' rule for shadows is that
they are blue when the illumination is daylight, otherwise black.
28
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT Art
$5
Certain words, such as black, white, dark, or light, express
merely presence or absence of light.¹ I shall give here a bare list
of the things described by these adjectives. Further information
and references are given in Appendix B.
Of intangible things that are described by such words there
are four classes. (1) The darkness of night is expressed by
μέλας, κελαιν-, ἐρεβ- and ὀρφναῖος (from the same root). (2) Local
darkness: mist is ερεβεννός, clouds are μέλας and κελαιν (in
κελαινεφής) and ερεβεννός Cf. the use of κυάνεος and πορφύρεος for
cloudlike mists or masses of men and the use of épeμvós and
Keλaw-for a storm.2 A ghost or image is äµavpos. Shadows would
come under this division, but their colors are not indicated in
Homer, except in e 488, ὡς δ᾽ ὅτε τις δαλὸν σποδιῇ ἐνέκρυψε μελαίνη
"as when one hides a spark of fire in black ashes." The ashes
are not black, but they look black when they show against the
fire. In the other place where ashes are called black (≥ 25),
they seem black because they are soiling a white chiton. (3)
Light: the light of the thunderbolt is regularly ȧpy-; the light
of heaven, however, is λeukós. (4) Light and darkness in water
are treated under §4, color-illusions.³
Many concrete things are described by these adjectives.
(1) Clothes are often ȧpy-; the aegis is épeμvós; the dark blue
veil of Thetis alone is μéλas. (2) Animals moving at a distance
(sheep, cattle, and a goose) are ȧpy-. (3) Fat and teeth catch the
light and gleam in their small way, as do the thunderbolt and
ladies' delicate white veils (apy-). (4) The same ȧpy- is applied
to a chalky locality and a cave. (5) For dark moving masses
of men v. p. 27. (6) Ships are regularly black, péλas. This
probably refers to their appearance when at a distance on the
sea. Any color looks black in such circumstances. (7) Wine
is black several times (uéλas). The mental image of wine would
not be red invariably for a people who kept wine in skins and
drank from dark earthen or metal cups. In the poems it is red
5
1 In art these are known as value-words. For a list v. the second columns of
Appendix C, b and d, pp. 66 and 67.
2 V. pp. 30 sq.
³ V. p. 25.
4 V. p. 11.
5 V. p. 17. Even the modern Greeks call red wine μaupo (= black).
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
29
9 times and black thrice. Shed or clotted blood is called black,
μέλας οι κελαιν-, frequently.
Such uses of color-terms, in addition to those that I have
already mentioned for μέλας, λευκός, πολιός, etc., make up by far
the greater part of the uses of color in Homer. 83% of the color-
words in the Iliad are those words expressing value rather than
hue, and 60% in the Odyssey. It may seem unfair to count all
words alike, since so many are otiose epithets. So I shall give
the percentages again, after subtracting the commonest, i.e.,
"rosy-fingered Dawn" and "tawny-haired Menelaus" from the
words of actual color, and "black ships" and "white-armed'
from the value-words. The percentages now stand, value-words
in the Iliad 86% and in the Odyssey 65%. So the use of black-
and-white words is actually far greater than that of red-to-violet
words in the poems. Although Homer is more sensitive to value
than to color, he does not call colored things black, except wine,
blood, a blue veil, and water. This use of "black" I have
explained in each case as an impression of darkness, not a
confusion.⁹
6 V. .pp.
18 and 19.
7 It has been suggested to me that the same thing may be true in modern
poetry, but the observations that I have made tend to show that it is not. Three
poets on whose work I have gathered statistics are Pope, as a translator of
Homer; Byron, a poet who dealt with the Greek landscape; and Whittier, who
is said to have been color-blind. The last in spite of the reputed defect of vision,
uses far more actual color-words than value-words. (V. Appendix F, p. 79, note
12). In the last ten books of Pope's Odyssey, where inspiration at times was low
for him as well as for Homer, he uses 48 color-words-37 of hue, 11 of value, or
only 23% value-words. In the same books, Homer has 79 color-words-25 of
hue, 54 of value, or 68% value-words. In Pope's Windsor Forest the value-
words are about 15%. Byron, in the first 22 pages of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage,
Canto II, uses 50% value-words. So, though the proportions may vary widely,
if these three widely different poets may be taken as representative, we may say
that the modern tendency is to use words of hue in poetry oftener than words
expressing black-and-white. I also have made some study of the use of color-
words by two painters who were poets as well. William Morris's poetry is rich
with color as were his designs. The first 89 pages of Psyche and Cupid contain
1.34 color-words to a page. Of these 46% express value. Rossetti's verse on the
other hand is far less colorful. The first 65 pages of his complete works average
0.50 color-words to a page, and of these 58% express value.
³ V. pp. 17, 18 and 19, 11, and 27, respectively.
⁹ Cf. Appendix F, pp. 82 and 83 as to a possible embryonic "sense of color"
in Homer's day.
30
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
§6
Three colors are used metaphorically in Homer. These are
black, the commonest color, and in almost the same ways purple,
which is otherwise used as freely as any other real color, and
finally xλwpós, greenish-yellow, which is the rarest color of all
in the poems.
Κελαινός and ερεμνός are used metaphorically only when they
modify λaîλay, tempest.¹ The metaphor is but slight in this
case, as a storm with its darkness and black clouds can be
thought of as almost literally black.
3
Black is the natural outward indication of inner mental or
spiritual distress2; consequently it is an easy shift of meaning
to describe the abstract nouns by the same sombre color.
The expression ἀμφι-μέλαιναι φρένες is used of the brooding, sad
thoughts of a hero. Translated literally it is "the diaphragm
black on both sides." The midriff was considered the seat of
the intellect, so that the meaning is "the mind darkened on
all sides as if by the dark cloud of passion." Close to this idea
in meaning is the sentence
πολλὰ δέ . . . κραδίη πόρφυρε.
"His heart purpled greatly" is equivalent to "His mind was
filled with sombre thoughts." That this use of a dark color
to express a sad mental state is a natural metaphor is shown
by the parallel occurrence in Beowulf:
Brēost innan wēoll
þeostrum geþoncum. vss. 2331, 2332.
Pain
"His heart within him welled with dark thoughts."
similarly is spoken of as black in Homer, μελαινάων ὀδυνάων.
▲ éos, fear, another mental state (or as the psychologists call
it, a physical state) assumes the color of the pallor on the face
of the person feeling it. The expression xλwpòv déos³ occurs 9
times, while the expression of the idea whence it arises, xλwpós
¹ A 747, II 384; M 375, T 51.
2 Cf. κáλvµµa κvávεov, p. 11 and p. 23, note 71.
3 A 103, P 83, 499, 573; 8 661.
4 Seymour, School Iliad, Commentary, p. 15.
'551; 8 427, 572, κ 309.
V. Appendix E, p. 69, for color in Beowulf.
7 A 117, 191, O 394.
* H 479, 43, etc.
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
31
vrai delovs, occurs only twice. It is evident from the pre-
ponderance of the more abstract expression that, as Jebb says,
"the Iliad and the Odyssey belong to the end, not the beginning,
of a poetical epoch." For an analogous case of the physical
effect of an emotion being attributed to the emotion itself,
compare κρυεροῖο φόβοιο (Ν 48).
But most common of all are θάνατος μέλας, κὴρ μέλαινα, and
πορφύρεος θάνατος (Π 687, Ε 83, etc.). In I 350 θανάτου δὲ μέλαν νέφος
is just another way of saying what all these expressions, as well
as épeμvós¹º mean, that is, black death. The personified Death,
Thanatos, is seldom found in Homer, but according to Jane
Harrison's theories," Kýp is an old word for the primitive idea
of evil sprite or bogie, who is regularly thought of as black,
as a creature of the night and underworld. The idea of black-
ness arises naturally from the terrors of darkness for primitive
man, and also more immediately from the darkness of failing
vision when a man loses consciousness¹2 and from the actual
darkness of clotted blood and of the earth into which the dead
go at last.13
An excellent passage for studying the variety of ways of
expressing the darkness of death is II 325-350.
325 . . . κατὰ δὲ σκότος ὄσσε κάλυψεν . . .
...
327 βήτην εἰς ἔρεβος . . .
...
333
...
τὸν δὲ κατ᾽ ὅσσε
έλλαβε πορφύρεος θάνατος . . .
344 ἤριπε δ᾽ ἐξ ὀχέων, κατὰ δ᾽ ὀφθαλμῶν κέχυτ᾽ ἀχλύς . .
350 θανάτου δὲ μέλαν νέφος ἀμφεκάλυψεν.
Cf. Υ 417, 418 . . γνὺξ δ᾽ ἔριπ᾽ οἰμώξας, νεφέλη δέ μιν αμφεκάλυψεν
κυανέη.
In fine, the metaphorical use of color in Homer is simple,
natural, and of rather infrequent occurrence.14
9 K 376, O 4.
10 ω 106, ερεμνὴν γαῖαν ἔδυτε.
11 Prolegomena, Chap. II.
12 Cf. the modern Greek word for kill, σKOTÓVW.
13 Cf. p. 15.
14 Of all the occurrences of color-expressions in the poems, only 7% are
metaphorical, or 24% of the uses of κελαιν-, πορφυρ-, χλωρός, ἐρεμνός, and
Méλas (not counting "black ships") or 17% (counting them). V. Appendix D (b)
for fuller statistics.
32
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
IV
It may be profitable to compare with the use of color-terms
in Homer, the use of actual color in ancient art,¹ the great
prevalence of which has become known only during the last
half-century. Prior to 1870 most of our knowledge of Greek
art came from Roman copies, usually of marble of a creamy hue
due to age but otherwise uncolored, or from existing archi-
tectural sculptures as those of the Parthenon, where all notice-
able color had weathered away centuries ago. But the dis-
coveries at Mycenae and Tiryns, at Phylakopi, and in Crete,
and particularly the thorough excavations of the Acropolis
at Athens (1885-1891) and in the Ceramicus (1872-1874 and
1913-1915) have given us a host of painted or colored works
of art.
In discussing any phase of Greek art, it is best to see how
it compares with the corresponding Egyptian art. Conse-
quently, I shall give a brief résumé of color in the art of Egypt,
since there is no doubt that the Greeks borrowed their technique
in large measure from the Egyptians.
The use of color in art will be taken up in five sections,
(1) Egyptian, (2) Prehistoric Greek, (3) Archaic Greek to
480 B.C., (4) Classical Greek, 480 B.C. to 338 B.C., (5) Hellenistic
and Graeco-Roman.
$1
Since the study of Egyptian art has been based from the
beginning on actual remains found in Egypt, and not on copies,
archaeologists have always known that this art was poly-
chromatic. The dry air and sands of Egypt have preserved the
color to a large extent on every sort of monument. Color was
used profusely even on carved hieroglyphs.¹ But the Egyptian
1 The statements in the following pages are based primarily on my own
notes taken in the museums of Italy, the Louvre, the British Museum, the
Glyptothek in Munich, and in America the Metropolitan Museum, New York
(especially Rooms I and II for reproductions of prehistoric art), and the Boston
Museum of Fine Arts (for vases, glass-ware, gems, and Egyptian antiquities).
Colored plates in books are rare and do not always agree with each other or
with the originals. For a list of books containing plates and references to color
in archaeological handbooks, v. Bibliography, pp. 1 sq.
1 Painting is thought to have originated in colored hieroglyphs, which
antedate those that are also carved. Greek inscriptions carved in stone were
likewise always painted. Traces of red paint only (uíλros) have been found.
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
33
artists never became free from certain conventions that were
fully established in the Old Kingdom period (dyn. IV-VI).
These are the use of flat color for everything, that is, no shading
or chiaroscuro, and the use of terracotta color for the skin of
men and of yellow for the skin of women.2 But all colors were
used for garments, wigs, and conventional designs.
Odd colors or shades are sometimes found in colored stones,
but in painted objects of stone, wood, or terracotta the same
colors appear and are most likely identical pigments.³ These
colors are: red and orange, pale and deep yellow, terracotta,
tan, and real brown-all composed of ochres or antimony or
lead compounds; green usually of a bluish or olive cast made of
a copper carbonate, sometimes mixed with yellow ochre or a
yellow lake¹; blue with a greenish or turquoise cast also made up
of copper compounds or blue verging on violet of the rarer
cobalt salts; black, ochre or some form of lampblack; and white,
of chalk oftener than of white lead. Purple was not used or has
faded beyond recognition.5
Glazed ware and glass were early invented by the Egyptians
and were never made extensively by any other people, except
their pupils and imitators the Phoenicians, until Roman times.
To make them more durable and impervious to moisture, jars
were treated with a glaze, into which or under which pigments
could be introduced. Of the pigments just named the iron
compounds (or ochres) and copper compounds are not de-
composed at high temperatures, but of these the ochres are
very sensitive to length of firing, temperature, and amount of
air present, so that it is not surprising that the more dependable
2 The Fayum mummy portraits (v. p. 46), if not actually by Greek artists,
were at least the work of men trained in the traditions of Hellenistic painting,
so are not included in this generalization.
³ My statements as to the composition of pigments are based on Ancient
Egyptian Materials by A. Lucas; Wallis, Egyptian Ceramic Art, passim; Laurie,
Materials of the Painter's Craft, passim; and Walters, History of Ancient Pottery,
I, pp. 226 and 449.
A few lakes (dyes mordanted with alum on a chalk base) with a pigment
of vegetal origin have been found, e.g., madder (Laurie, op. cit., p. 25).
That is, purple in a modern sense. Paint of the bluish-red of ancient
purpura occurs (nos. 12 or 15 on the Color Chart, Appendix A).
34
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
copper glazes are used almost exclusively." Faïence later
developed into glassware, which is pure glaze with no stone
or clay foundation. Egyptian (or Phoenician) glass is regularly
of the copper-blue color," though the more valuable cobalt is
sometimes used.8 Bits of opaque yellow clay are often found
forming "eyes" in the beads or in the decorations on the glass
vases. Manganese was not used much until the Alexandrian
period to make the comparatively rare amethyst glass, al-
though some examples of it have been found at Memphis, the
Old Kingdom capital. Vases with a gray glaze of various shades
were popular ca. 1200 B.C. (New Kingdom). This color was
probably that of the natural clay. Unglazed gray ware, as well
as yellow and red, was always made locally, but it was not
usually thought worthy of being placed in a tomb.10
In the architecture of houses and temples, paint was used
lavishly in the colors mentioned above," though blue and green
were most popular. In the Old Kingdom, even private villas
had ceilings painted blue with golden stars sprinkled on them,
palm tree columns with green foliate capitals, and floors painted
green to imitate grass. In general, the designs and coloring of
interiors at all periods imitate out-of-doors.12
Among Egyptian gems, real amethyst of a purple color,
shows that this shade was appreciated, even though it is lacking
in the artificial pigments.13
"If fired in an oven with a good draught the glaze has the bright blue of
cupric compounds; if reduced they change to the yellow cuprous salts, which
mixed with the original blue result in various shades of green. Sometimes a
vase is found that is part green and part blue when reduction has not been
uniform. Cuprous oxide if formed is brown and odd patches of brown on a green
vase may be due to this. Manganese is sometimes purposely used to give a
rich brown, which may once have been violet for inscriptions or patterns.
7 Blue Egyptian vases are called in Greek κaλáïvos képaµos (Suidas), or
καλάϊνα ὄστρακα, Galen 13.478. τὸ δὲ καλλάϊνον [κιτώνιον], (Tebtunis Papyri 4,
21, 1. 7) shows that this same adjective was used for blue dyed garments.
Blue glass today is usually made of cobalt. When it is ground, the pigment
smalt is formed. It is the color seen in willow-ware.
There is less chance of reduction in the manufacture of glass, which is
merely fused and blown, cooling at once, than in pottery, which is fired in an
oven with little air for hours.
10 Cf. the gray Minyan ware of contemporary Greece.
11 P. 33.
12 Breasted, Ancient Times, p. 68 and Perrot and Chipiez, Egypt, II, p. 355.
13 Cf. similar purple stones in Crete, p. 35.
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
35
The Late New Kingdom, or Saite period of Egyptian chron-
ology (ca. 663-332 B.C.) witnessed a revival of the art of the Old
Kingdom, so that the earlier, more rigidly conventional style
rather than the more naturalistic one of the New Kingdom
(contemporaneous with the great days of Cnossus) was the one,
if any, to influence the Greek artists. It was during this time
that Naucratis was founded, that the Ionian mercenaries of
Psammetichus travelled in Egypt, and that Herodotus and other
travellers brought to Greece tales of the marvellous sights in
what was to them the old world. Small objets d'art of Egyptian
origin are found in Greece of every period, notably blue glass
beads and imitation gems, or scarabs, of pressed glass.
The characteristic colors of Egyptian art are blue¹¹ and green,
but on the whole, Egyptian polychromy is very complete.
Nothing like its variety of color and imitation of nature is
found, not even excepting Minoan art, until the Augustan Age.
$2
The polychromy of Aegean art is far better known to us
than is that of the art of the historical Greek period. The
colors, and presumably the pigments, are the same as those
used in Egyptian art, but here the stress is not on greens except
in a few direct imitations of Egyptian work.
From the total lack of large sculpture in the round among
the extant remains, it is assumed that it was never attempted.
However, a number of faïence and terracotta figurines and
plaques, as well as carved vases, lamps, reliefs, etc., of steatite,
limestone, and marble show the plastic artists' skill. The lime-
stone reliefs are no more than embossed wall-paintings, but the
few we have show a decided advance over the incised wall-
paintings of the Egyptians. The famous bull's head from
Cnossus is dark red with a grayish-blue horn. Notable among
objects in harder stone are the lavender gypsum lampstand
found in the smaller palace or Royal Villa at Cnossus,¹ and a
purple limestone weight with an octopus design on either side,
in New York. It seems likely that the lions of the gate at
14 A light blue is common on mattmalerei vases (dyn. XVIII). This
fabric was imitated in Cyprus but was never used on early Greek vases, unless
the unusual blue ware found at Olympia may derive ultimately from Egypt.
¹ Baikie, Sea Kings of Crete, p. 108. Cf. Bossert Alt Kreta (1921), fig. 36.
36
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT Art
Mycenae were painted, by analogy with other reliefs and with
the slab of carved red stone in the corresponding triangular
space over the door of the "Treasury of Atreus."
Many well-preserved wall-paintings remain, in which the
range of subject is most varied. The hair of human figures is
invariably black, in contrast with the multi-colored wigs of the
Egyptians and the popular red hair of Greek art. The Egyptian
conventional color of the skin prevails. The men are of the
same terracotta shade, but the ladies' skin is less yellow and
a little closer to nature. The greatest variety of colors is seen
in their clothes and jewelry. Gold is represented by yellow and
silver by grayish blue. The backgrounds are commonly divided
into three sections by wavy horizontal lines. These sections
are of different colors; one is always a bright blue. It is not likely
that this band represents the sea, for it appears on paintings of
processions of ladies, as well as on the cup-bearer fresco. It is
probably merely a conventional treatment for backgrounds.
In a second class of frescoes, depicting plant and animal life,
it is surprising to note that, though green is used for decorative
purposes even on the bodies of animals, vegetation is usually
brown or grayish blue. However, it may be that the latter
color was once of a shade nearer green.³ In their use of natural
designs, the Minoan and Mycenaean artists were farther ad-
vanced in form than in color. An excellent example of this is
seen in the fresco from Tiryns of dogs attacking a boar. The
action is splendid, but the dogs are painted in rose and blue
calico patterns while the boar has longitudinal stripes.*
The interiors of the palaces were gay with such frescoes,
which were of precisely the same style on the mainland as on
the islands, that is, in Crete and at Phylakopi, except for local
styles of clothes and coiffures. Paint was undoubtedly used
for the wooden columns and their capitals. Carved colored
stone took the place of painted members in structures of special
magnificence on the mainland, e.g., the porphyry slab mentioned
above² and the green schist carved in an Egyptian scroll-
2 Anderson and Spiers, The Architecture of Greece, revised by W. B. Dins-
moor, p. 53.
3 Cf. the green lily leaves on a fresco, Evans, Palace of Minos, Plate VI.
♦ Dussaud, op. cit., Planche C.
At Thebes and Tiryns where wall-paintings have been found.
Cf. the green alabaster shafts, Anderson and Spiers, op. cit. p. 52.
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
37
design forming the ceiling in the side-chamber of the bee-hive
tomb at Orchomenus." We know nothing of the exteriors of
the palaces, but a series of terracotta plaques shows the façades
of private houses in red, black, and green with red windows.
In Minoan vases of the EM and MM periods polychromy
is commoner than monochromatic decoration. The great period
for colored vases is that of the Kamares ware (MM II, ca. 2000
B.C.). The colors employed are: red, rose, orange, yellow ochre,
black, white, and brown with some purple. Following this ware,
in MM III came the great period of naturalistic designs. Again,
form was developed to the neglect of color, for the designs are
commonly in one light color on a ground of dull purple. Later,
colors became even more conventionalized, so that in the LM
period, the vases including those of the Palace Style, usually
have a design painted in brown with some added white, on the
natural ochreous clay ground.
Human figures do not appear on vases till a very late period
(LM I and LH). They are not shown in colors but are either
silhouettes in brown on clay or in relief on steatite (probably
once gilded), gold, or silver. On the mainland, human figures
were used on vases during the great days of Mycenae and
survived the Dorian invasion to appear on Geometric ware
and finally to become the typical decoration of Greek vases.8
The Cretan naturalistic designs were imitated in Greece prin-
cipally in Ephyraean ware, a development of gray Minyan
ware. The red and purple that appear on these vases were to
survive¹º though the designs entirely disappeared.
In those other products of ceramic art, terracottas and
faïence, the colors are limited. Terracottas are regularly painted
red brown, or black. A life-sized head from Mycenae has
cream-colored skin, black hair and eyes, red rosettes on his
cheeks, and a bright, light blue cap.10a Faïence, by which term
is usually meant glazed terracotta work, is evidently copied
from that of Egypt." Precisely the same colors, green, greenish-
blue, and brown are used, however inappropriate they may be,
7 Tsountas and Manatt, The Mycenaean Age, p. 129.
8 E. Buschor, Griechische Vasenmalerei, p. 27.
9 C. Blegen, Korakou, passim.
p.
42.
10 V.
10a Eph. Arch. 1902, plate 1.
11 V. p. 34.
38
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
as e.g., in the goat-and-kid and cow-and-calf reliefs, and the
green-skinned snake goddess from Cnossus. The façade plaques
mentioned above with their black, red, and green, combine the
colors of both terracotta and faïence, and indeed their glaze is
so dull that even technically they may be regarded as on the
border between the two.
In inlaid metal-work, which we know from several dagger
blades found on the mainland, a slightly polychromatic effect
is obtained by the use of white, green, and red gold, silver, tin,
and a black substance that has been rather loosely called κúavos
in an effort to make these swords fit the descriptions of the armor
of Agamemnon and Achilles in the Iliad.12 The name Kúavos can
be applied with more propriety to the inlaid blue frieze¹³ found
at Tiryns, which is the same in composition¹ as the blue pastes
of the Egyptians. The pea-green and blue inlays of the gaming-
board of Cnossus may be regarded as bits of the same glaze that
appears on faïence.
Color in Aegean art differs from that of Egyptian chiefly
in that blue is never used on vases and in that green is seldom
used in representations of leaves.
§3
From the Greek Dark Age practically no colored works of
art have come down to us. The few gems are oftenest of black
steatite, or of blue and green Egyptian faïence or glass. Attic
Geometric vases are brown-figured¹ on a yellow ochre ground,
the natural clay of the Ceramicus. Vases from other localities
differ with the local clays.
Ivory, gold, and amber jewelry, found principally in Aegina,
shows that the Phoenicians brought the art of all the world with
which they were in contact to Greece. This earlier age must
not have been so colorless as extant remains lead us to suppose,
as is indicated by the extensive use of color in the succeeding
age of commercial activity on the part of the Greeks themselves.
It is noteworthy that the Homeric poems had been composed
before the historical period, as even the most ruthless separatists
12 A 15-41 and 2 478-613.
13 V. pp. 5, 10, and 11.
14 V. p. 34, note 6.
1 V. p. 41, note 15.
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
39
admit, except in the case of lines that refer to Athens. As none
of the passages containing color-words come under this head,
it can safely be said that the Iliad and Odyssey correspond to
the Late Mycenaean and Geometric ages in art.
In the Greek historical age, to be dated from about 750 B.C.,
the earliest painted works are the terracotta metopes from
the archaic temple of Apollo at Thermon in Aetolia. These
look like enlarged vase paintings. Only red, yellowish brown,
and black occur on a cream-colored background. In de-
cided contrast with these is the earliest group of painted
pediment-sculptures found on the Acropolis of Athens.2 These
coarse limestone sculptures represent Heracles and the
Lernaean hydra, horses, a crab, etc., painted in red, blue, and
bluish green. One of the horses is of the last named color. The
later sculptures in the round belonging to the earlier Old Athena
Temple³ are of a better quality of limestone and are painted in
the same colors. The figures are the Typhon (the so-called
Bluebeard), the monster Triton, and storks, eagles, and flowers
(a lingering trace of the Aegean interest in nature) painted on
the under side of the stones of the raking cornice. It is often
impossible to distinguish between the blue and the green. The
best we can do is to say bluish green or greenish blue. The
skin is of a quite natural shade and the eyes are of a reddish
brown, a favorite color for eyes with the Greeks. It seems
hard to believe that the artists ever intended the hair and beards
to be the green or blue they are now.5 Possibly copper com-
pounds were used in a dark pigment, which was not lasting.
Another solution to this problem offered itself to me as I
was studying a case of terracottas in the Louvre. There was
a small statuette of a nude athlete (sixth century B.C.) painted
pale green all over." This color, according to commonsense
2 These and the following sculptures are now kept under glass in the
Acropolis Museum. For colored plates, v. Wiegand, Porosarchitektur.
3 That is, the temple that was later (ca. 530 B.C.) rebuilt by Pisistratus.
4 Cf. the glass eyes of the Delphi charioteer.
5 Green and blue wigs are common in Egyptian art, but there is no evidence
that the Greeks ever wore wigs. Again, it is not likely that the Typhon was
meant to have monstrous hair, for the Greek anthropomorphism tended against
anything inhuman outside of appendages.
York.
There is a similarly green Tanagra figurine of Hellenistic date in New
40
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
reasoning, must be the remains of a coating of bronze paint
or copper leaf which when exposed to a damp atmosphere for
even a short time becomes covered with a patina of dull bluish
green (e.g., the statue of Liberty). How certainly it would
happen in the ground! Most of these statues of the archaic
period have been buried in the ground for over two thousand
years. A thin coating would oxidize even more quickly than
the solid metal. How much more reasonable for the hair,
beards, and brows of men and the coats of horses to have been
bronze-colored rather than either deep or pale blue or green.8
Yet the description of hair as kvavo- rather favors the suggestion
that the paint was once a bluish black. But in the case of
statuettes, especially when we consider the popularity of the
more expensive bronze figurines, bronze paint is the only
rational explanation of green skin, for by its use as in modern
art the same effect could be gained at a comparatively slight
cost.⁹
The latest group of archaic sculptures from the "Pisistratean
recension" of the Old Athena temple and the Kópaι of the
Acropolis, 10 all of marble and of very similar style, are painted
in the same style and colors as the earlier poros sculptures,
except that their hair bears traces of a terracotta color and that
some of their garments are white with colored borders. These
were regularly known as Toukiλos, variegated, i.e., embroidered
A chemical analysis would not show that the original paint was bronze
rather than green or blue.
Bronze paint would be just a step farther than gilding, which Pliny
barely mentions (N.H. xxxvi. 28, 14, xxxiii. 12, 18, etc. V. Index of Pliny sub
auratus, inauratus, etc.) though we know that it was very common, especially
on the Myrina terracottas; so his failure to mention bronze paint is not sig-
nificant. He pays scant heed to technical processes, except when they serve
to adorn a tale.
• The label of a "Tanagra" forgery in New York, states that the green
goose with the blue-cloaked Eros, was formerly gilt. The ancient gilding that
has survived is of gold leaf, which is not affected by dampness, but this modern
gilding was of brass, which, like my hypothetical bronze paint, turns green.
10 Mr. Joseph Lindon Smith's attractive paintings of the maidens (in
Boston) are too impressionistic to be used as data in a study of color.
11 E 735, etc. (Also used regularly all through the classical period.) In
Κ 29 & 30 παρδαλέῃ . . . ποικίλῃ is a rather metaphorical use of this term for
a leopard's spots. Cf. the calico dogs of the Tiryns frieze (p. 36).
...
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT Art
41
or woven in a colored pattern. Archaic stelae from the Creami-
cus, etc., show traces of red on background, hair, eyes, and
garments. Other colors must have been used but have dis-
appeared.¹2
In the architecture of the period, as in all later periods, the
decorative parts of the order, e.g., guttae, taenia, and triglyphs,
were painted blue or red, while the tympana of the pediments
and backgrounds of metopes or Ionic friezes were likewise
painted red or blue, so that the figures (dia) might stand out
more vividly. These figures were painted rather conventionally,
no doubt, as were the free-standing maidens, with red, or brown,
or black hair, reddish brown eyes, and garments of red, white,
and blue with either real bronze armor and trappings or sculp-
tured helmets and shields overlaid with metal foil or painted
with bronze paint as suggested above.¹³
Besides the convention of having regular colors for each
thing painted, at this stage we find another rule that is very
simple but shows the beginning of the decorative sense. It is
that no two adjoining architectural members or parts of a
figure can be of the same color, e.g., if the cornice is red the
guttae cannot be red, but must be blue. Or if a warrior's hair
is red, his helmet cannot be, etc. We find a balance and rhythm
in the distribution of colors, just as we find it in lines.¹4
The Clazomenian sarcophagi, like the Thermon metopes,
are closely related to the vase-painting of the period. They are
totally lacking in color, until the latest period, when there is
some use of deep red. They most resemble early black-figured
12 Shown by omissions of essential parts in carving, as, e.g., the stem of
the central flower of an anthemium finial.
13 Pp. 39 and 40.
14 Very little actual paint remains on architectural members, so that the
restoration of color is largely conjectural. The red is the usual μλтo- color of
red earths; the blue is not so certain. A fairly large piece of blue chalk or pig-
ment is exhibited in the Elgin Room at the British Museum. Its date is un-
certain. The color is a quite light, bright blue with no tinge of green. Its color
would be subdued of course if it were mixed with wax and melted. It is quite
uncertain what word the Greeks would have used to describe this shade. Only
in Theophrastus (Lap. 31) is it suggested that κvavo- was used for any but dark
blues. kaλáïvos (cf. note 9, p. 34) was used for bright blue color in general in
the Greek version of the Talmud, but it is used only of glaze otherwise.
42
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
17
vases, with black, brown,15 or opaque white on a cream-colored
ground. In the orientalizing vases16 as well as the Proto-Attic
and black-figured vases, we find in addition to these colors a
beautiful dull purple, sometimes more like a deep red,¹7 possibly
due to some change in firing rather than differenceof composition.
Hair, horses' manes, palmettes, weapons, and garments (not
so often) are painted in this color. Beautiful as it is, it prac-
tically disappears with the establishment of the red-figured
style ca. 500 B.C. and is never again used for broad surfaces,
15 Paint Used on Greek Vases. The most characteristic feature of Greek
vases is something that certainly comes from Crete, and possibly ultimately
from Egypt, that is, the lustrous black paint which on analysis is found to be
largely ferrous oxide but cannot be successfully imitated by modern ceramic
engineers. This black is called "glaze" by Miss Richter and both "glaze" and
"varnish" by Fowler and Wheeler (Handbook of Greek Archaeology); probably
they are influenced by the German Firnismalerei. The term "enamel" is also
used. These terms according to their definitions (Oxford Dictionary) are all
equally incorrect. All imply a treatment of a whole surface, not part of a design.
Glaze implies a vitrified surface; varnish implies the use of a resinous gum;
enamel is much the same as glaze except that it is usually applied to metal sur-
faces. So the awkward phrase lustrous black paint seems to be the only correct
term.“Glaze”may be used if it is distinctly understood that it is not at all a glaze
in the true sense, like that of the faïence-work of Egyptian or Minoan art. Miss
Richter has proved by actual experiment that all reddish clays, which as well as
this paint, contain iron, may be black, brown, or red depending on method,
length, temperature, and luck of firing. Even the black Etruscan bucchero ware
owes it color to firing in reducing conditions. If black-painted vases are oxidized
through faulty firing, they sometimes turn red in spots. Imperfect vases of
this sort can be found in almost any collection. Mottled red and black ware
is found in the EM period (not later than 2200 B.C.) and indefinitely zoned red
and black ware, with more of an appearance of having been done deliberately,
in the Hyksos period in Egypt (1700-1575 B.c.). When thinned, the black
paint, on being fired, turns brown or even a light golden brown, if it is very
thin. The Greeks found, rather than invented, a good thing in this black iron
paint and used it to greatest advantage, developing all its possibilities.
16 On the Corinthian, Rhodian, Naucratite, and Cyrenaic vases, and es-
pecially on the Caeretan hydriae.
17 This deep red or purple paint is a modification of the fundamental black.
It is often laid on over the black, instead of on the clay ground. This may partly
account for its darkness. It is dull and flakes off with less difficulty. As this
paint is often the color of wine when seen by reflected light (not the transmitted
light that makes wine in glass gleam) I have tentatively given it the name of
olvoy. (v. Color Chart, no. 15.) This name or oivoxpoûs would be very likely to
occur to their minds, as the Greeks drank wine from cups bearing this color.
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
43
but only occasionally for a fillet or some other detail. It is
interesting to note that in all archaic vases, women's skin is
white while the skin of men is not differentiated from the rest
of the black silhouette.18 Gray hair, too, is conventionally
represented as white.19
In small works of art, amber and imported glassware and
beads continued to be popular. Green glass is seen along with
the blue. The workmanship and the shapes are improved, but
the New Kingdom Egyptian glass had more brightness and
purity of coloring. Seals and gems, now made of hard stones,
are oftenest reddish or colorless, as they continue to be until
the Hellenistic period. In the relief from Thasos in the Louvre,
shining black beads20 are set into the headbands of the nymphs
and Graces. The relief dates at the end of the period that we
have been considering or the beginning of the next.
84
From the classical period of the fifth and fourth centuries,
there are practically no examples extant of colored sculpture
or architecture, but slight traces of color on many works¹ show
that color was still regularly employed. By analogy with the
Greeks' growing artistic sense in other phases of art, it is safe
to assume that color was used with greater taste and refinement
than before.
The encaustic process of painting had probably been used
from time immemorial for painting ships, but perhaps was first
used in painting architectural decorations,2 sculptures, and
pictures in the fifth century.3 The treatment for marble
(yávwois) by which the marble became colored rather than
painted, was later developed to a high point by the Roman
18 Cf.
p. 20.
19 V. p. 44 for color on later vases.
20 Cf. p. 13.
¹ E.g. on sculptured grave stelae (cf. P. Gardner, Sculptured Tombs of Hellas,
p. 116 and Pausanias vii, 22), the Hermes of Praxiteles (cf. E. A. Gardner,
Greek Sculpture, p. 31 with Pliny N. H. xxxv 133, for the coöperation of the
painter Nicias with that sculptor, etc., and in architecture on the Theseum
(Frazer, Pausanias, ii, 151), and the red and blue mutules and triglyphs on
the Nicias monument (now part of the Beulé Gate) (ibid. p. 250).
2 V. Roberts, Greek Epigraphy, II, p. 332.
³ Cf. Pliny N.H. xxxv 149 with 39, 101, and 135.
44
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
artists and afterwards by the Italian sculptors.4 The result
must have been very effective.
It is easy to reconstruct in one's imagination such a statue
as the flying Victory of Paeonius (ca. 424 B.C.). The goddess
is separated from the lofty triangular pedestal by a pyramid
on which the eagle of Zeus is represented in flight; no doubt
this pyramid was painted blue to imitate the sky, so that the
goddess would appear to be in the act of alighting from heaven.
The purple lining of her mantle would carry one's eyes away
from her feet to the beautiful form beneath the close-clinging
rose-colored chiton.5 Such a use of color is purely decorative
since it is all calculated to heighten the effect and impress
the beholder.
We know nothing of the colors of the great paintings of the
fifth century beyond the fact that they usually were varied.
The very name Zrоà Пoukiλn indicates a variety of colors.
Probably the ochres, red, and black were most used, but one
can only conjecture. However, if any strikingly new use of
color had been invented, we should probably have heard of it.
6
During this period, no new colors were used on vases,"
except in the special class of polychrome vases, known as white-
ground ware. In these the figures are drawn in outline with
thinned black or red paint on a white clay or lime-wash ground
and are brightened by touches of color. The effect is somewhat
like that of tinted etchings. Color is most commonly applied
to the garments and fillets (woollen ribbons) used on tombs.
These are in all shades of red, rose, and brown, occasionally
yellow, and are more rarely green and blue. Purple is used
only in the tones approaching deep red. The reds and browns
are best preserved. The white does not seem to be so good a
8
'Probably the innovation of leaving the marble white was a result of the
Roman fashion of copying famous bronzes in marble. Since the coloring of such
works would require an original artist, painting may have been allowed to lapse
at times.
Traces of these colors have been found (A.J.A. XXVIII, p. 466). It is
known that a purple lake was made of Tyrian dye (Laurie, op. cit., p. 6).
Whether this purple was used for the statue described above, I do not know.
Cf. p. 45 for the colors used by later painters.
7 Cf. pp. 41 and 42.
• Walters (History of Ancient Pottery, I, pp. 226 and 449) says that these
colors are due to the usual pigments (v. p. 33).
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
45
9
ground for color as the clay, so that in most cases only a few
traces of coloring are left. At the same time, the end of the
fifth century, vases of the Late Fine Style were sometimes
decorated with touches of color including blue and green.10 The
coloring and style are so similar to those of the white-ground
vases that it is obvious that their technique is transferred to
the red-figured vases. Along with this innovation is the use
of added white, which though common in black-figured is rare
in red-figured ware of the best period. A central figure was likely
to be white. On the vases of Southern Italy white figures
became very common, along with gilding and some use of color.
Colored glass, gems, and jewels show a corresponding
development in refinement of workmanship, but the colors are
as before." The bright colored Tanagra terracottas are treated
under Hellenistic art.12
$5
In the early Hellenistic period, the "Alexander" sarcophagus
gives the best-preserved example of colored sculpture since the
archaic period. Here the colors are many and varied, but show
a close attempt at realism. The hair is yellow, red, or brown;
the eyes are brown; the skin is of a natural flesh tint; while the
garments are white, red, rose, and lavender (probably the
remains of brighter shades), and a light, bright blue; the steel
armor is rendered in a bluish gray.
Painting reached its height about the end of the fourth
century with Apelles, who used only four pigments¹: red from
Sinope, ochres from Attica, white from Melos, and the black
that Pliny calls atramentum, probably some form of lampblack
or charcoal. Human beings and animals could be represented
in these colors, but landscapes could not. It seems as though
until Roman times very little attention was paid to realistic
painting of vegetation, but all the interest was directed toward
the perfection of the representation of animate forms. An
• Walters (1.c.) sets the outside limits at 480-350 B.C., but most white-
ground vases fall within the last third of the fifth century B.C. More recent
writers (e.g., Pfuhl) set the outside limits at 460-400 B.C.
10 Cf. p. 35, note 14.
p. 43.
11
V.
12 V. p. 47.
1 Pliny N.H. xxxv 50.
46
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
excellent illustration of this tendency is seen in the Alexander
mosaic in Naples. Though the battle scene is very realistically
portrayed, the frugality of color is worthy of Apelles himself.
The horses are a very dark brown; the queer bare tree² that
shows the scene to be a wooded country is gray. Some black is
used. The only touches of real color are reddish trousers on a
Persian and touches of olive green on shields and trappings.
Although the artist had colored stones at his disposal and could
have made many red garments and green leaves on the tree, he
preferred the grays and browns. He must have been following
a masterpiece of some famous painter who did not use color
freely.
After mentioning the four colors of Apelles, Pliny says,
"Now we even have purple on our walls!" And it is only from
the wall-paintings of Pompeii with their portrayals of rich
drapery, that it is possible for us to gain some idea of the color
of Tyrian purple. Here, blue and green are used frequently
as well as purple, violet, mauve, and much lemon yellow. In
fact, we find once again the complete polychromy of Egyptian
and Minoan paintings, plus a more frequent use of purple.
Now the unsolved and perhaps insoluble question is whether
these colors were used continuously between these two periods.
Pliny suggests a complete evolution from monochromy in red
or yellow ochre to polychromy during the last six centuries B.C.
There is no tradition of the sea or sky being represented in
color. Trees are almost never shown with more than a few
conventional, neatly arranged leaves in any form of art. It is
impossible to determine whether green was used very much
by the Greeks, as it was by the Romans," for foliage.
The Fayum portraits show an absolute fidelity to nature.
in color as the Roman portrait sculpture shows it in form.
Blue-black or brown hair, brown eyes with high-lights, olive
or swarthy skin, colored garments (violet in some cases), a pearl
necklace, red or even anaemic lips are all shown accurately.
2 Trees of this sort, little more than stumps, are common on vase paintings
and are not uncommon in Greece today.
3 V. p. 8 and no. 12 on the Color Chart.
4 N.H. xxxv 16, 57, 50.
The Augustan painter Studius (N.H. xxxv 116) and many extant Pom-
peian wall-paintings.
"In the National Gallery in London.
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
47
Indeed, they look more modern than many of the crayon por-
traits of our grandfathers' generation.
7
The South Italian vases of this period have been mentioned
before. Glass was now blown, to make large vases of amethyst
and yellow (iron) glass as well as the usual blue and green.
8
The terracotta figurines from Tanagra reached the height
of their elegance in the latter part of the fourth century while
the Myrina figurines fall entirely within the Hellenistic period.
In colored terracottas the whole surface was usually covered
with a white slip and then the colors added. Hair, sandals, and
other details were uλro-red, sometimes very bright indeed,
but garments were in pastel tints, most often light blue, often
rose, sometimes yellow or pale green. Dark colors are practically
never used. This coloring is closely followed in late plastic
vases of a very free style. In shocking contrast are the crudely
colored Etruscan terracotta sarcophagi or cinerary boxes of
the third century. Sometimes even on the Tanagra figurines we
feel that the juxtaposition of red hair and a pink dress is not
wholly pleasing, but the coloring is so daintily done that we can
get used to it; but on these Etruscan terracottas the workman-
ship is so very poor, the colors so bright, and the surfaces so
much larger that the effect is wholly barbarous.
Now at last all colors are used freely for gems. Indeed, by
the time of Augustus complete freedom in the use of color is
reached in every branch of art.
V
The use of color in art is, generally speaking, either con-
ventional or realistic, but between these two is an intermediate
stage that may be called the idealistic. The three stages are
clearly defined in ancient art.
In Egyptian art, the earliest or conventional stage persisted.¹
Once in the period of the New Kingdom, Egyptian painting
gained new vitality, with an added interest in out-of-door
scenes showing animal and vegetable life.2 Some archaeologists
are inclined to believe that the inspiration for this style came
from Crete, where the use of natural motifs in art began some
7 V. P.
45.
V. p. 9 and nos. 9 and 13 on the
1 P. 33.
2 P. 35.
Color Chart.
48
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
3
centuries earlier. However this may be, the movement was
short-lived; archaism took its place so completely that it is
sometimes hard to tell the archaic art of the Old Kingdom
from its imitations in the Saite period.
In Aegean art, though in subject and craftmanship there was
great progress until the end, there was a decadence or reaction
in the use of color. Polychromy was attained ca. 2000 B.C.
and continued to be employed to the end in frescoes," but in
vases it was soon given up. Even in wall-paintings whose
subjects were taken from nature, the color was usually strictly
conventional. The use of color in archaic Greek art shows
little advance if any over that of the Mycenaean period.
9
8
The use of color in classical Greek art, best known to us
from the white-ground vases, shows more taste in selection,
a less rigid adherence to rule, and may be considered to be of
the period when ideal beauty or supreme decorative effect was
sought in color as in all phases of art.
The Hellenistic period with its interest in anatomy and
portraiture, its fidelity to life in every genre, brought realism
in the use of color as well.10
Color conventions in art are based first of all on an imperfect
or casual observation of the colors of nature combined with a
primitive sense of decorative value in the use of the pigments
at hand. Since these pigments are often only approximations,
the results are far from realistic. For example, the Egyptians
of course did not think that women had yellow skins but as
yellow ochre was the pigment whose color was closest to that
of an olive skin, they were satisfied with the convention."
The colors used in ancient art12 are reds and yellows for the
most part, for the obvious reason that the ochres as well as
other red pigments occur naturally everywhere. The white of
chalk (limestone) is equally universal; black is easily obtained
from charcoal or iron compounds. Blues and greens occur more
rarely, but can be prepared from copper when once the secret
3 P. 36.
• P. 37.
'P. 36.
'Pp. 38-43.
8 Pp. 43-45.
'P. 44.
9
10 Pp. 45-47.
• P. 37.
11 P. 33.
12 P. 33 and Color Chart, III, especially the upper row.
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
49
is learned. The earliest Egyptian statue shows green paint.18
The Egyptians never lost the secret of its preparation; the
Aegeans apparently did. The Greeks never used blue and
green with the freedom of the Egyptian artists, not from any
peculiarity of vision or taste, but from a general conservatism
in keeping to artistic types and from inertia in mechanical
inventiveness.
VI
The Iliad and Odyssey are the supreme literary works that
correspond to the conventional period in art.¹ It is not surprising
then that the color-adjectives are practically always in the
attributive position in Homer, not the predicate. The color-
words are applied to nouns or names of things exactly as colored
pigments are applied to the representations of things in art.²
This conventional use of color-words prevails in all cases of
epithets; but there are besides many cases where the words
are used with pertinence. However, Homer never adds "local
color" in any sense. Wordy though he may seem, he never stops
to describe a scene or a person, but plunges into the narrative,
or more often makes the characters break into speech. The
descriptions are incidental unless they are essential to the plot,
when they are given in a word. But there is no instance where
the plot hinges on a point of color, as it often does in later folk-
lore.¹
The later stages of the use of color in art are paralleled by
the use of color in later literature. In the fifth century, color-
13 Perrot and Chipiez, Egypt II, p. 336.
¹ Cf. pp. 38, 39, and 48.
? E.g., when women's arms are mentioned, they are white according to rule,
not because the poet stopped and thought that they actually would be at the
moment. For instance, Nausicaa, after superintending the washing and playing
ball at an all-day picnic under semi-tropical skies, might more appropriately
have had rosy arms.
As in the xλwpós olive-club, the κváveov veil of Thetis, poɩov used of
flowing blood, etc.
E.g., the Four Riders of the Apocalypse, Rose Red and Snow White, etc.
(Note: The fact that the olive-club was xλwpós made necessary the elaborate
process of hardening it, or as Professor Caverno suggests made it possible to
super-heat the steam in the wood, making it a more deadly searing instru-
ment; but in this story, however it is interpreted, the point is not color, but
the condition of the wood to which the color is incidental.)
50
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
6
words were used more freely (e.g., the sea was now kvάveos)
but still only with a view to artistic effect. Scientific accuracy
first appears in the late works of Plato and his disciple Aristotle,
who was the first scientist in at all a modern sense."
It remains to comment on the subjective uses of color in
Homer as compared with the objective uses of color in art.
Of three possible classes of artificial color, dye, paints, and
pigments in ceramics, the last is never mentioned in the poems,
and the monochrome decoration of the vases of the period shows
that color was not used. Dyes were probably two, purple and
woad, by the former of which I mean Tyrian dyes not actually
used by the Greeks but by the Eastern peoples from whom they
bought dyed articles; and with the latter, woad, may be included
any others of the class of natural vegetal dyes. These dyes
would of course be used for the dull clothes of Thersites but
are mentioned only once in the poems, since as a rule only
princely garments are described.10 Paint is indicated only for
ships, in which case its use is practical rather than decorative.¹¹
There is no hint in the poems of either painted statues or painted
walls. The former were never borrowed from Egypt in the
prehistoric period; the latter would soon be forgotten after the
citadels of the Mycenaeans had fallen. But what artificially
colored things Homer does mention are mostly red or reddish
purple; this preponderance of red agrees with the archaeological
findings.¹2
Amongst naturally colored things mentioned, too, the ab-
sence of skies and foliage agrees with Mycenaean and archaic
art, in which true landscapes are unknown and nature studies
are not done in natural colors¹³; while the colors used for skin,
5 Simon. 18, Eur. I.T. 7, etc.
(604a).
Cf. the story of Sophocles and the boy's "purple" cheeks, Athenaeus
7 V. Bibliography, p. 1.
8 P. 38.
⁹ Cf. ▲ 141 and 142, the only direct reference to dyeing in Homer.
10 Cf. pp. 11 and 12.
11
Pp. 9 and 10.
12 This fact and the probability that the easily found reds were used most
commonly, make it highly probable that if all the colors employed had been
preserved perfectly we should not find violets, subtle shades of green and blue,
or a true orange.
13 P. 36.
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
51
hair, and blood are analogous to the conventional colors for
representations of these in art.14 Red blood was regularly painted
on statues of wounded soldiers.15 Animals in both art and in
Homer are treated conventionally.16
In the wholly abstract uses of color-words, in describing
color-effects, light and shade, and in metaphors,¹7 Homer shows
a more accurate observation¹8 and poetical feeling than is shown
in ancient art of any period. This quite subjective use of color
in Homer can only be compared with its objective use in modern
painting.19
There are three factors that determined this largely con-
ventional use of color-words in Homer, or in the early period of
the language in general. They are: faulty observation, exigency,
and the genius of the Greek language. Like natural pigments in
art, the earliest color-words in the language were applied after
a casual observation. μέλας, λευκός, ἀργής, κελαινός, and ερυθρός
all come from older words in the parent language, so that they
often mean reddish, blackish, or whitish as well as the absolute
colors.20 Next, the names of dyes or pigments were the most
familiar color-words, so these shades were given names very
early. φοιν, πορφυρ-, and μιλτο- are derived from the names of
reddish pigments.21 Kvάveos may be from an original pigment
Kúavos, but when we leave the reds the etymologies grow more
obscure. ξανθός, ὠχρός, χλωρός, and πολιός again are doubtful.2
But οἶνοψ, ἰοειδής, ῥοδο, κροκο-, and the later πράσινος are all
frank similes in meaning.23
22
Each language has characteristics of its own and one of the
peculiarities of Greek is an over-nice use of color-words rather
14 Cf. pp. 18-24 with pp. 33 and 36, as well as 42.
15 E.g., on the Aegina figures.
16 Cf. pp. 22-24 with 36 and 42.
17
Pp. 28-31.
18 Cf. p. 27 and Appendix F, p. 83.
19 P. 45.
20 V. L. & S. for full etymologies, and the Index, Appendix B, p. 57 for
treatment in this paper.
21 Pp. 7-10.
22
Pp. 16, 17 and 21.
23 P. 16 and pp. 26 and 27. Since they are similes, they are applied with
the greatest freedom.
52
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
than the vagueness of use that appears at first sight. In some
instances the Greeks used a word for a color in one class of
objects, but never used if for an identical hue in another.24 This
precision in the use of color-words is partly responsible for our
lack of understanding of color in Greek literature, since in
English we can use names of colors derived from artificial
pigments for naturally colored objects, and vice versa, with
perfect freedom.
However, there are in every language certain usages or
combinations of words peculiar to it alone, which are called
idioms. Color-idioms appear in Greek as well as in other
languages. For example, the use of xλwpós in connection with
fear25 is as regular in Greek as green is in connection with jealousy
in English; in French a person is blanc de peur. Blue-black hair
is idiomatically κváveos, never black.26 Animals can be of the
color of wine, but cannot be rоppúрeos,27 though the color is
almost identical. Idioms of the color of hair are of early origin.
Compare the use of red for hair or fur that is found in all
Germanic languages, though the hair is actually no nearer red
than it is to yellow or brown; the Romance languages on the
other hand do not use the common word for red, but either have
a special word or use a word meaning reddish.28
The general conservatism of the Greeks, shown in art, is
also noticed in the language. As compared with English, Greek
has always been conservative about adopting words from other
languages. It tended to keep out new color-words and to use
the old ones, even when they were quite as inadequate for the
realistic expression of color in life as were the simple pigments
in art.29 To this tendency may be attributed the paucity of
words for distinguishing one shade from another, although the
language is rich in color-words, especially in those expressing
colors ranging from red to yellow or purple of a reddish cast.
24 E.g., pov, the color of the dye is given to things that have that color
by nature; but μλro- in the classical period is applied only to objects that owe
their color to a red, chalklike pigment. épve pós on the other hand can only be
used of natural reds, both organic and inorganic.
25 Pp. 20 and 30.
26 V. p. 1 and pp. 20-22.
27 Pp. 22 and 23, also 42. Cf. Aristotle, quoted in note 25, p. 16.
28 E.g., rufus in Latin, châtain in French, etc.
29 Cf. p. 48.
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
53
Since the development of languages is rapid compared with
evolutionary processes, and since Homer's use of color-terms
is not really very extraordinary when one looks into it carefully,
it is better to say that any peculiarities in the use of color in
Homer originate in the early stage of the language and in the
genius of that language, rather than in an embryonic state of
the so-called color-sense of the Homeric Greeks.30
VII
Since an untrained or unobservant eye today can be in as
"embryonic" a state regarding color as that of the most primi-
tive savage, the perception of color cannot be regarded as a
problem in biological evolution, at least within the historical
era.
However, the selective perception or selective use of color-
terms in Homer¹ may be of great interest to the color-psycholo-
gist, the student of semantics, and finally to the Homeric scholar
who is concerned with proving or disproving the unity of the
poems.
30 These expressions are those used by Dr. Magnus, whose theories were
fostered and approved by Gladstone. V. p. 5.
¹ For data, v. tables in Appendix C and statistics in Appendix D.
54
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
APPENDIX A
NOTES ON THE COLOR CHART
The colors of the plate which forms the frontispiece are
not set forth dogmatically, but are simply put down to aid the
reader in visualizing the color that I had in mind in each case.
The colors were worked out originally with a twenty-four
crayon box of Dixon's Artists' Crayons. For accurate hand
work these are much more satisfactory than water color. The
three-color process of printing allows greater accuracy, but
since all effects must be obtained by an admixture of magenta,
yellow, and blue inks, some shades are rather difficult to re-
produce. I shall comment on the individual colors on the pages
following.
It may be helpful to give a list of some of the colors in series
from red through yellow to green and blue. Beginning with
the red of blood (1) the colors follow the order 13, 9, 17, 2, 10,
3, 18, 4, 14, etc. Also 15 is meant for a deeper shade of 12.
I. Platonic or Pythagorean Colors¹
a. pulpóv is the red of fresh blood. The powɩkoûv of Aristotle²
seems to be the same color.
b. πʊррóν, fiery, is the regular adjective for describing red
hair. I have chosen the color that appears oftenest on the hair
of terracotta figurines of Plato's time.
c. Caveóv had come to mean, by the beginning of the fourth
century, a warm, reddish yellow (which we call orange), though
it was still used also of blond hair.
d. wxpóv, yellow. I have chosen the color that still bears
the name of ochre (a light tan or buff).
ε. πράσιον (for πράσινον) is here represented as the average
color of leaves in mid-summer.
f. yλavkóv is a bluish or greenish gray, a color applied to
eyes,
the sea, or olive leaves. It may vary toward blue or green.
g. Kvavoûν is the average, rather dark blue, that used to be
called navy blue.
¹ As given in Timaeus 68b and c.
2 De Sensu 439b.
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT Art
55
h. ἁλουργόν from its very name is the characteristic color of
Tyrian dye (a dull magenta), and not violet as it is usually
erroneously translated. V. III e.
II. Colors of the Spectrum
The spectral colors are accurately defined by the Fraunhofer
lines of the solar spectrum and by their respective wave-lengths.
The colors shown on the chart are as close to these as possible.
Brown is added here as an essentially modern color.
III. Upper Row. Colors Used in Homer and in Ancient Arts
a. μλro- is the usual red found in works of both Egyptian
and Greek art of all classes and periods. μiλros means red
pigment (red ochre or red lead) and is oftenest translated
vermilion, though there is no suggestion that piλros ever came
from a worm as real vermilion did originally. However, the
latter term is also used of cinnabar (mercuric sulphide). The
Greeks called cinnabar uiros, as they did all red powdered
pigments, but they used it very rarely in works that have
survived. It does not occur naturally in Greece.
b. xpós is the color of the Attic clay of the Dipylon vases,
which are of course made of ochre (yellow clay). (The color as
printed is somewhat too bright.) V. end of xλwpós (x).
C. KváνEOS A is the blue-green color of the patina of bronze.
It is also the color that copper pigments tend to take on with
age.
d. olvo as it is represented here is the nameless color
of an iron pigment that was often used on orientalizing and black-
figured vases.¹ It is a little duller than the deepest tones of
Tyrian dye, though this effect cannot be shown clearly on
paper. The pigment on the vases varies. This is an average.
It is not far from our idea of wine-color.
e. Tорpúρeos represents the darkest color obtained from
Tyrian dye, so I call it pour-C. For another reproduction v.
Wilson, Roman Toga, p. 119.
For a fuller discussion of the colors under III see the references under
the stem of each word in the Index, Appendix B, p. 57 and v. p. 33 for
pigments.
4 Cf. p. 42, note 17.
56
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
III. Lower Row. Colors Reconstructed from Nature, that are
Used in Homer
u. épvpós A and pow-A are the color of wine, fresh blood,
and the lighter tones of Tyrian dye. Cf. Isaiah 63: 1-3.
v. pow-B is applied to blood that is changing color in the air
and to the pelts of animals. Under the name of pulpós it was
applied to rocks and soil. This color is commercially known as
terracotta and in fact is made of red clay. It can be described
as reddish-brown. It is a little too blue in the chart.
w. Eavlós, the color of light hair, of the pelts of tawny
animals, or of a muddy river.
x. xλwpós is the color of "green" wood or pale honey. It is
impossible to try to show xλwpós as applied to the skin of a
terrified brunette. "The color of a sick nigger" is a vulgar ex-
pression that conveys the idea of this ghastly shade, but no
color on paper can. ¿xpós used in the same way probably is to
suggest a slightly less alarming hue.
y. Kvάveos B fails to reproduce the effect of blue-black hair,
but it may show the color of a mourning-garment dyed with
woad. By artificial light it is practically black.
z. io-, violet, is the bluish-purple of violets, pansies, or irises
and the color that we seem to see in shadows when artificial
illumination is absent, especially at twilight.
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
57
APPENDIX B
ALPHABETICAL LIST AND INDEX OF COLOR-WORDS¹
[aλoupyns (not in Homer)].
°àμavpós, á, óv (dim, dark; = mod. μaûpos, black)
2 eldwλov, image 8 824, 835
ȧpy- (swift motion>shining>white) glistening white...
35....
.....
pp.
10, 16
27, 28
.......
12, 13, 15, 18, 22, 23, 28, 51
åpyevvós, ý, óv (Aeolic and Doric white)..
1 60óvn, veil г 141
5 sheep г 198, Z 424, Σ 529, 588; p 472
ἀργής (gen. ἀργῆτος oι ἀργέτος)
1
avós, robe г 419
5 thunderbolt @ 133; e 128, 131, n 259, μ 387
2 fat A 818,
Ιἀργικέραυνος
127
3 epithet of Zeus T 121, T 16, X 178
Ι αργινόεις (chalky)
2 places: Lycastus in Crete B 647 and Camirus in
Rhodes B 656
ἀργι-όδους (gen. όδοντος)
11 epithet of swine I 539, K 264, A 292, ¥ 32; 0 60,
476, 413, 416, 423, 438, 532
ἀργός, ή, όν
1 cattle 30 (may mean slow from ȧ+√Fepy)
1 goose o 161
ἀργύφεος (Epic variant
1 σπέος, cave Σ 50
2 pâpos, cloak e 230, K 543
23
¹ I or O before a word indicates that it occurs only in the Iliad or Odyssey
respectively; a dagger that it is an Homeric ăraş λeyóμevov; brackets that it
is not an Homeric color-word. The Arabic figures to the left give the number
of occurrences in Homer (with the noun following) of the word or stem under
which they are placed; the figures to the right are page references to my study
for fuller discussion. The Greek capitals refer to books of the Iliad; the small
letters to the books of the Odyssey. The meanings in parentheses are from
L. & S.; those in italics are my own.
58
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
(cf. d äpyupos, the white metal i.e. silver).....
[Barpaxis (not in Homer)]
•
13, 16
10
Brown...
.14
[γαλανός].
27
[yλaux-(gleam> post-Homeric light blue, light green,
or
gray, often with metaphor from yλaûg, owl) .... 22, 25
Ιγλαυκιάω, (glare)
1 a lion's eyes T 172
Ιγλαυκός, ή, όν
1 sea, as producing a relentless mind II 34
(cf. Taukos, 22 occurrences, and гλaúкŋ, 1, one
of the sea-nymphs Σ 39, proper names from the
same but with the recessive accent).
γλαυκώπις
89 epithet of Athena A 206, a 44, etc.
This epithet seems to refer to the connection of
Athena with the owl with its remarkable eyes.
Some scholars hold that this word means "Owl-
faced" and is a trace of early animal worship.³
Cf. Attic coins, and for a beautiful adaptation
of this "owl-faced" Athena during the fifth
century, v. A.J.A. XXVIII, p. 117. For a
defence of the old view that yλavкŵπis means
blue-eyed v. Frazer Pausanias' Description of
Greece, Vol. II, p. 128. His argument is based
entirely on late literary evidence.]
épeß- (dark). Cf. oppvaîos, both from √e/opoß*. . .. .28, 30, 31
Τερεβεννός
6 night E 659,
488, I 474, N 425, 580, X 466
1
ȧýp from clouds E 864
1 clouds X 309
épeμvós (syncopated form of above)
1 the aegis ▲ 167
2 Maîλay, a tempest M 375, T 51
1
night X 606
1 earth as equivalent of death w 106
2 Not a color until after Homer.
3 Breasted, Ancient Times, p. 278.
4 Curtius, Greek Etymology, p. 437. Boisacq, sub opøvós, as usual does not
commit himself.
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
59
(cf. "Epeßos, gen. 'Epéßevs, place of nether dark-
ness)
épve (red) the red of fresh blood>red of liquids>red of
mineral matter..
Ιερεύθω (redden)
.......8, 9, 13, 14, 17-19, 51, 52
2 with blood ▲ 394, Σ 329
Ιερυθαίνομαι (be reddened)
2 with blood K 484, § 21
1'Ερυθῖνοι (place in Paphlagonia)
1 B 855
I"Ερυθραι (city in Boeotia)
1 B 499
ἐρυθρός, ά, όν
1 bronze I 365
9 wine or nectar T 38; € 93, 165, 163, 208, µ 19,
327, 69, π 444
io-(violet from toy the violet € 72)
οιο-δνεφής (violet-dark from δνόφος, darkness)
2 wool & 135, 426
ἰοειδής (violet-like)
3 the sea A 298; e 56, à 107
·
13, 20, 23, 51
Ilóels [?] (perhaps from iós, rust, and not ïov) .... ....13
1 epithet of iron ¥ 850
lipus (I. Iris, occurs many times; II. rainbow)...
1 blue snakes on Agamemnon's thorex were like
rainbows; perhaps of arching coils, not color.
A 27.
1 called purple P 547
[ioáris (post-Homeric)]...
[kaλáïvos (post-Homeric)].
[KáσTavos (modern Greek)].
Keλaw-(black).……….
14 άκρο-κελαινόω
1 the Scamander & 249
.24
12
34, 41
18, 19, 22, 28-31, 51
.22
κελαινεφής (for κελαινο-νεφής, cf. ἰο-δνεφής), black, wrapped
in black clouds
11 epithet of Zeus A 397; 552, etc.
7 blood ▲ 140; X 36, etc.
κελαινός
10 blood (only of blood in Od.) A 303, λ 98, etc.
60
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
2 night E 310, A 356
2
tempest, Xaîλay A 747, II 384
1 skin of which a shield was made Z 117
1
wave I 6
[KiTpivos (not in Homer)]
[KÓKKIVOS (not in Homer)]
Iκpoкo- (crocus> later yellow, saffron).
κροκόπεπλος
4 epithet of Dawn ✪ 1, T 1, ¥ 227, № 695
(cf. Kρókos, crocus E 348)
14
.10
25, 51
Kvav- (dark blue). ... 10, 11, 21, 22, 24, 25, 27, 28, 30, 31, 38, 40,
κυάνεος
1 Hector's hair X 402
41, 49-52
3
eyebrows A 528 & P 209 (Zeus), O 102 (Hera)
1 beard # 176
7
cloud E 345, II 66, î 417, Y 188; µ 75, 405, § 303
1
3
ranks of men ▲ 282 (cf. II 66 for meaning)
metal work
serpents A 26, 39
a fence Σ 564
1
wet sand μ 243
1
a mourning garment (κáλvμμa) 93
Ι† κυανό-πεζος
1 table in Achilles' tent ▲ 639
κυανοπρώρειος οr κυανόπρωρος . . .
.11
13 ships, 3 times in Il.; 10 times in Od. O 693,
ὁ κύανος.
T 299, etc.
5, 10, 11, 24, 38
2 inlaid metal-work, on Ag.'s shield A 24 & 35
1 frieze of Alcinous' hall ʼn 87
κυανοχαίτης . .
η
8 epithet of Poseidon N 563, E 390, O 174, 201,
T 144; y 6, 528 & 536
1 horse (Boreas in disguise) T 224
°†кvav-wπis, with a face surrounded with dark hair
1 epithet of Amphitrite μ 60
XEUK (white) usually opaque white..
.20
.22
12, 13, 15-19, 21, 23, 27-29, 51
Ο λευκαίνω
1 water μ 172
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
61
ο Λευκάς
1 a rock w 11
Ι†λεύκ-ασπις . . .
1 epithet of Deiphobus X 294
λευκός, ή, όν
8 sails A 480; ẞ 426, 8 783, 0 54, ɩ 77, к 506, µ 402,
o 291
11 barley E 196,
8
564, A 640, Σ 560, T 496; 8 41,
604, K 520, X 28, μ 358, § 77
teeth E 291, K 263, A 416; τ 393, 465, ø 219,
74, w 332
7 bones II 347, y 253, £ 793; a 161, λ 221, w 72 & 76
4
skin A 573, 0 316; of arms E 314;
3 milk ▲ 434, E 902; 246
240
3
water ¥ 282; € 70, k 94
2 ivory E 583;
196
1
tin A 35
1
a lebes y 268
1
1
1
1
1
tops of mountains B 735
a city B 739
horses white as snow K 437
a crescent on a horse's head y 455
a sheep of color opposite to μéλas г 103
1
dust E 503
1
stones y 408
1
a flower P 56
1
the shroud of Patroclus Σ 353
12
1 a celestial light αἴγλη ξ 45
λευκώλενος .
24 epithet of Hera (only in Iliad) A 55, etc.
2 epithet of Helen г 121; X 227
3 epithet of Andromache Z 371, 377,
4
723
epithet of Nausicaa 101, 186, 251, ʼn 12
3 epithet of Arete n 233, 335, X 335
η
3 serving-maids ( 239,
Ι †ὑπο-λευκαίνομαι.
1 heaps of chaff E 502
μeλav- (black) . . .
198, T 60
19
17
12, 14-18, 22, 23, 27-31, 51
62
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
ἀμφι-μέλας
5 the diaphragm fig. used for mind A 103, P 83,
499, 573, 8661
†μελαγχροίης and μελάγχρους (or μελανοχ-) (black or dark-
skinned)]
....
1 beans N 589
2 men 175, 246
Ιμελαίνω
1 blood (dried) E 354
1 a freshly plowed furrow Σ 548
20
Itμeλáv-deтos (mounted with black) with black handle.....12
1 swords 0 713
1 μελάνω
1 the calm, rippling surface of the sea (ppi) H 64
μελάνυδρος
5 water in a spring I 14, II 3, 161, Þ 257; v 158
μέλας, μέλαινα, μέλαν
82 ship A 141; ß 430, etc.
11 night 486; n 253, etc.
2 evening a 423, o 306
6
δ
a cloud ▲ 277 (as pitch); ♪ 180, etc.
13 water B 825; 8 359, etc.
2 κύανος Λ 24, 25.
2 stone H 265, § 404
9 earth B 699; λ 365, etc.
12 blood ▲ 149; y 455, etc.
24 death or fate B 834; ß 283, etc.
3 pain ▲ 117, 191, 0 394
4 sheep г 103, K 215; k 527, 572
1 eagle + 252
2 ashes Σ 25; € 488
1 grapes (on the Shield) 562
1 κάλυμμα κυάνεον Ω 94
3 wine e 265, 196, 346
1
1
a drug κ 304
wood & 12
Οπαμ-μέλας
3 animals for sacrifice
bulls to Poseidon y 6
γ
sheep to Teiresias K 525, X 33
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
63
μλro-, painted with red ochre 9, 10, 21, 32, 47, 51, 52.
μλτо-тáρηos (red-cheeked), having sides painted with red ochre9
1 Odysseus' ships B 637
1 the ships the Cyclops did not have 125
kave (yellow). . . . .
.14, 15, 21, 22, 51
Eavós, n, óv, epithet meaning tawny-haired
31 Menelaus г 284, etc.; a 285, y 168, 257, 326, 30,
59, 76, 147, 168, 203, 265, 332, o 110, 133, 147
2 Achilles A 197, ¥ 141
1
Meleager B 642
1 Demeter E 500
1
Agamede A 740
2
Rhadamanthus & 564, n 323
2
the hair of Odysseus v 399, 431
2 horses I 407, A 680
ΙΞάνθος
14 name of rivers in the Troad and Lycia B 877, Z 4,
etc.
1
name of a Trojan E 152
5 name of one of Achilles' horses (and of Hector's
185) II 149, T 400, 405, 420
[govoós (not in Homer)]. .
olvo (wine-colored or) wine-faced..
23
22, 26, 27, 42, 51
16 the sea B 613, E 771, H 88, ¥ 316; a 183, ß 421,
y 286, 8 474, € 132, 349, 221, ʼn 250, † 170, µ 388,
T 172,
274
2
cattle N 703; v 32
n
2 a man's name (a Greek) E 707; ø 144
ὀρφναῖος (dark) ....
4 night K 83, 276, 386; 143
.28
Note: The later Greeks used this word for a color approach-
ing black, whether brown or gray.
TOMO- (gray, hoary)..
1 πολιο-κρόταφος. .
1 Trojan elders 518
πολιός, ή, όν
30 the sea A 350; ß 261, etc.
.13, 21, 22, 27, 29, 51
.27
4 hair of head or beard £ 516, X 77; w 317
5 iron I 366, ¥ 261; ø 3, 81, w 168
1
a wolf K 334
64
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
Top Up- (dark-gleaming) purple of a shade approximating ma-
.8-10, 18, 19, 23, 24, 26–28, 30, 31, 50-52
genta...
ἁλιπόρφυρος, ον.
2 wool 53, 306
1 rugs v 108
πορφύρεος
15 garments or rugs г 126, 221, I 200, X 441,
₪ 645, 796; 8 115, 154, 298, ʼn 337, 0 84, k 353, τ 225,
5
242, v 151
η
Φ
waves of the sea A 482, II 391, Þ 326; ß 428, λ 243
3 death E 83, II 334, T 477
.10
1
blood P 361
1
the rainbow P 547.
1
a cloud P 551
1
a ball 0 373
1 the sea E 16
Tордúρw (gleam darkly>ponder)
·
24, 25
4 man's heart or thoughts 551; 8 427, 572, x 309
[πpάoivos (not in Homer)].
podo-(rose).
ροδοδάκτυλος
It
27 epithet of Dawn A 477, ẞ 1, etc.
Η ροδόεις
1 ambrosial oil y 186
10, 16, 51
25, 26, 51
[cf. the island 'Pódos, mentioned in B 654, 655,
and 667, and 'Podios, one of the rivers of the
Trojan plain M 20.]
[TUppós (not in Homer)] . . . .
[σκοτεινός, σκούρος (not in Homer)].
[στακτύς (modern)] . . . .
[palós (not in Homer)] . . .
pow- (blood-red or purple)...
Ιδα-φοίνεος and δαφοινός.
16, 21
14
21
.14
8-10, 16, 18, 19, 22, 23, 49-52
22, 23
1
a serpent B 308
2 animal's fur K 23, A 474
1 blood Σ 538
φοινήεις
2 serpent M 202. 220
φοινικό-εις
[1 reins 116 (not in Teubner text)]
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
65
3 garment K 133; § 500, & 118
1 blood y 717
φοινικο-πάρῃος. . . .
2 ships in general X 124, 271
Ο φοίνιος
1 blood 97
ὁ φοίνιξ,-ικος
1 dye for ivory ▲ 141
2
a belt Z 219, H 305
1
1
a horse y 454 (perhaps means Phoenician)
a helmet 0 538
1
a leather strap ¥ 201
Ι †φοινός
9
1 blood II 159
Xλwpós (of a color ranging from yellow to bright green)..
10, 17, 20, 23, 24, 30, 31, 49-52
9 fear H 479, 77, P 67; λ 43, 633, μ 243, x 42,
w 450, 533
2 pallor caused by fear K 376, O 4
2 honey A 631; k 234
2
olive club 320, 379
1
brushwood π 47
1 nightingale, xλwpnis r 518.
[cf. woman's name XXŵpis λ 281]
xpa- (to graze a surface> surface> color (post-Homeric))
ὁ χρώς
Used often simply of skin, but with the added idea of
color in N 279, 284, P 733; ø 412
[apos (not in Homer)].
ώχρα-
ὠχράω (to turn pale)
.23
.20
21
20, 51
1 skin λ 529
I †ὦχρος (pallor)
1 Paris' cheeks г 35
[xpós, pale, yellow >Eng. ochre, is not used in the Iliad
or Odyssey.]
66
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
APPENDIX C
b. Words Used for the First Time in Each Book of the Iliad
23 words of Hue
Α ροδοδάκτυλος
26 words of Value
ξανθός
κυάνεος
πορφύρεος
ἀμφι-μέλας
μέλας
κελαινός
κελαινεφής
λευκός
Β ερυθρός
μιλτο-πάρηος
δα-φοινός
λευκώλενος
πολιός
ἀργινόεις
οἶνοψ
Γ
AE
Δ φοίνιξ
ἀργής
ἀργεννός
ὦχρος
ἐρεμνός
μελαίνω
ὑπο-λευκαίνομαι
Z
Η χλωρός
Ο κροκόπεπλος
I
Κ φοινικόεις
ἐρυθαίνω
Λ ἐρεύθω
κύανος
κυανό πεζος
ἰοειδής
Η φοινήεις
Ν κυανοχαίτης
Ε πορφύρω
Ο κυανόπρωρος
Η φοινός
μελάνω
πολιο-κρόταφος
μελάν-υδρος
ἀργι-όδους
ὀρφναῖος
μελανόχροος
χρώς
μελάνδετος
Ρ
Σ
T
ἀργύφεος
ἀργι-κέραυνος
а.
Distribution of Color-Words in the Iliad
Color
A
B
г
Δ
E
Ꮓ
podo-
1
71
H
I
K A
M
N
[1]
O
II
Р
Σ
T T Φ Χ Y Ω Total
1
φοιν-
1
1
1
1
2
1
2
ἐρυθ-
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
μιλτο-
1
ξανθός
1
2
2
2 3
2
2
1
1
3
1
1
1
7
1
31
2 1
6
14
8
1
2
5
4
1 44
1 1
72
2
κροκο
χλωρός
1
1
1
1
1
1
146
κυαν
1
1 1
5
1
1
4
1
1
1
3
13
1 25
io-
1
1
olvoy
1
2
1
1
1
6
πορφυρ-
1
1
1
μέλας
1
4
3 4
3
3
ship
5
14
2
12 2
12 2
1
2 6
1
63
2
21
2
42
2
6
1
352
1
21
5
2
ང་
2
24
17
73
1
1
39
κελαιν-
2
1
1 2 2 1
1
5
1 1
12
3 1
1
24
λευκ
1
2 1 2
-ωλενος
5
1
65
1
2
4
1 1 1
2
1
1
5
2
3
1
3
1
1 4
2
12
32
28
ἀργ
2
3
1
1
1
1
2
3
11 1 1 2
20
πολιός
2
έρεβ
1
1 2
1
1
1
1
2
1
2
1 1
1
2
2
2
21
1
1
1
2
1
2
11
ὀρφ
3
3
ΐρις
1
1
χρώς
1
1
2
ὦχρος
Total
20 30
12
12
1
13
27 9 7
16 12 19
الله
33 7 10
8 19
15
21 13 9 13 24
9 24 17
387
Number of
different
words
11
9 8 8 12 7
8 12 7 6 10 10 10 15
5 7 7 11 88
8
8 7 10 10 7 14 10
Words*
used for the
first time
11
5
3
2
2
0
2 2 2 3 4 1 3 1
2 1
0
1
1 0
1
1 1
0
49
* V. list pp. 66 and 67.
Color
a
β
Y
podo-
1
72
δ
3
φοιν
ερυθ
μιλτο-
ξανθός
1
3 9
κροκο
χλωρός
22
2
2
1
1
0 し
​K
λ
μ
V
1
5
1
2
1
2
la
1
c. Distribution of Color-Words in the Odyssey
Š
3
лер
π
Q
5
T
い
​Ө
Χ
א
1
1
1
9112
3
Total
22
22
6
1
8
1
2
3
19
0
κυαν
2
1
24
1
3
3
1
1
1
1
2
12
1
1
7
2
1
1
20
io-
oivoy
1
1
---
1
1 1
--
1
1
1
4
3
1
1
1
1
πορφυρ-
1
5
2 1
2
2
1
2
μέλας
1
1
3
4
3
1 1
2
3
3
4
++
1
3
1
1
2
1
func
1222
1
14
1
19
•
1
1
4
3
46
ship
1
4 3
1
4
1
7
2
3
1
1
5
3
1 1
2
1
1
42
κελαιν
1
6
2
2
1
1
13
λευκ
1 1
1
--
3
2
1
1
2
3
-ωλενος
4
3
21
3
1
1
1
2
1
14
31
1
1
11
ἀργ
3
1
2
1 1
1
4
1
1
15
πολιός
1
2
1
1
5
1
2
2
1
1
2
19
ἐρεμ-
--
1
1
2
opp-
1
ἀμαυρός
2
ὠχράω
Total
4
7
2
1
1
16 33 17
11
9
10❘ 27
19
25
26
11
14 12
8
5
5 12 2 8 8 6 13
308
Number of
different
words
4
6
8 1196 665
5 12 9 15
12
86 5 5
6
3 4 925766
Words*
used for the
first time
4
3
3
4
4
2
1
1
4
0
4
3
0
1
1
1
1
010 0 11
40
*V. list on the following page.
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
67
Υ
Φ
X
ἀκρο-κελαίνω
λεύκασπις
Ψ ῥοδόεις
Ω
d. Words Used for the First Time in Each Book of the Odyssey
Ο ξανθός
οἶνοψ
21 words of Hue
β ροδοδάκτυλος
πορφύρεος
γ κυανοπρώρειος
κυανοχαίτης
δ ιο-δνεφής
πορφύρω
ε ερυθρός
ἰο-ειδής
ζ ἁλι-πόρφυρος
η κύανος
19 words of Value
μέλας
λευκός
πολιός
παμ-μέλας
ἀμφι-μέλας
ἀμαυρός
ἀργής
ἀργύφεος
λευκώλενος
θ
ἀργιόδους
ι μιλτο-πάρηος
κελαινεφής
χλωρός
ὀρφναῖος
K
λ φοινικο-πάρχος
κελαινός
ἐρεμνός
ὠχράω
μ κυάνεος
λευκαίνω
κυανωπις
ξ φοινικόεις
Ο
Π
Ρ
σ φοίνιος
T
μελαγχροῦς
ἀργεννός
Φ
37 3
Χ
ψ φοίνιξ
ω Λευκάς
μελάνυδρος
68
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
APPENDIX D
STATISTICS ON COLOR-WORDS IN HOMER
a.
The first column of figures gives the number of lines per
color-word; the second gives the number of color-words per 100
lines. The figures are round numbers.
A
31
3.3
α
111
.9
B
29
3.5
β
62
1.6
r
39
2.6
γ
31
3.2
A
42
2.4
δ
26
3.9
E
34
3
29
3.5
Ꮓ
59
1.7
Š
30
3.3
H
69
1.5
η
39
2.6
35
2.9
0
59
1.7
I
59
1.7
21
4.8
K
30
3.3
K
30
3.3
A
26
3.9
λ
26
3.9
M
67
1.5
μ
17
5.8
N
84
1.2
V
40
2.5
65
1.6
ૐ
38
2.7
39
2.6
46
2.2
II
58
1.7
π
60
1.6
Р
36
2.8
ρ
121
.8
Σ
48
2.2
σ
86
1.2
T
47
2.2
T
50
2
T
39
2.6
υ
197
.5
Φ
25
4
φ
54
1.9
X
57
1.8
Χ
63
1.6
¥
37
2.7
¥
62
1.6
Ω
47 2.2
W
42
2.4
Av. 40 2.5
Av.
40
2.5
b.
The total number of color-words in the poems is 695, out of
which 52 or 7% are used metaphorically (v. pp. 49 sq. and
Appendix C). These uses are 24% of the total 223 uses of the
words so employed, if µéλas (when applied to ships) is omitted;
or 17% of the 304 uses if included.
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
69
APPENDIX E
COLOR IN BEOWULF
The Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf is a poem of 3183 lines.
16 different words are employed that have similar meanings to
those that I have chosen as color-words in Homer. There are
39 occurrences of these in all; one to every 82 lines or 1.22 to
every 100 lines. So color-words are twice as common in Homer
as in Beowulf, but the average of the latter is higher than that
of one book of the Iliad (N) and 4 books of the Odyssey (a, p,
σ, and v). V. Appendix D to compare similar statistics on
Homer.
Of the 16 words, only 1 is a word expressing real color, that
is geolo-, which is twice applied to a shield, once with the added
suggestion that the shield is of lindenwood. The meaning here
is perhaps yellowish, rather than yellow. The other 15 words
are black, ǎπag λeyóμevov, white, two different words both
åñağ deyóμeva, and 12 more meaning gray, dark, bright, or pale.
I include brun in the colorless group, for it is used in exactly
the same way as græg and is applied only to armor, for which
iron seems to be the only metal employed. There is a possibility
that this use of brūn as an epithet of sword and helmet may hark
back to the period when bronze armor was used, but since it
is never applied to anything that is definitely brown such as
hair, it appears that in this stage in the development of the
language, it simply meant dark and could be applied with equal
propriety to either brown or gray objects, like oppvaîos in
Greek or fuscus in Latin.
The words red, blue, and green do not occur, though they
are Anglo-Saxon words. The idea of the redness of blood, with
which the poem reeks, is suggested by such periphrases as
"waves turbid with blood," "water colored with blood," and
"the bloody shield." There are many interesting analogies of
the use of color in this epic to that in Homer, which I hope to
make the subject of a separate paper in the future.
APPENDIX F
SCIENTIFIC THEORIES OF COLOR
No other phenomenon is the immediate concern of so many
fields of science as color. In some respects color can be satis-
70
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
factorily explained; in others we are as far from understanding
it as were the ancients.
§1
The Greek loci classici for color are passages in Plato's
Timaeus and in the books called De Sensu by Aristotle and Theo-
phrastus, in each of which color is treated under psychology
or a study of the senses, a short passage in Plato's Meno, and
the De Coloribus, perhaps wrongly attributed to Aristotle.
I shall give brief résumés of each of these.
Plato, who never specialized in natural philosophy, reflects
the scientific theories of his age. In the Meno, a fairly early
work, he puts the usual Empedoclean or Democritean theories
of vision into the mouth of Socrates, who uses them half
jokingly for the sake of an analogy. He says "Color is an
effluence (or emanation) of form, commensurate with sight,
and palpable to sense." Previously in defining form he had
said, "Form is the only thing that always follows color."
In other words, the perception of color arises from the impinge-
ment on the eyes of certain eldwλa from an object, and the eïdwλa
of color are distinguished from those that reveal form or shape.
This is essentially the doctrine adopted later by the Epicurean
philosophers, especially by Lucretius. Here the ȧropрon must
refer to these images, and not to a stream of particles, which
takes their place in the discussion of color in the Timaeus."
The specific expression To Tês Ŏews peûµa, in 45c, Archer-Hind
considers justification for translating is as "the visual current"
throughout. The stream from the eyes is met by a similar stream
of particles coming from the object seen. Plato wrote the
Timaeus late in life, after his visits to the West, so that besides
174-76.
...
4
2 Cf. Charmides (168e) “the eye cannot see that which is without color.”
3 ἔστιν γὰρ χρόα ἀπορροὴ σχημάτων ὄψει σύμμετρος καὶ αἴσθητος (Meno 76)
and σχῆμα . 8 μόνον τῶν ὄντων τυγχάνει χρώματι ἀεὶ ἑπόμενον (75). Cf. a
modern definition of color (Century Dictionary) as "that quality of a thing
or appearance which is perceived by the eye alone, independently of the form
of the thing."
4 V. L. & S. sub ȧπорроń.
67c-68d.
• The Timaeus of Plato, edited with introduction and notes, by R. D. Archer-
Hind.
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
71
presenting these Democritean theories, it has a decided Pytha-
gorean cast, as exemplified in the theories as to the origin and
perception of color. According to these doctrines, color arises
as a result of the disparity in the size of the particles in the
stream of light entering the eye and those of the stream of light
leaving the eye. When the entering particles are larger white
is seen; when they are smaller, black. Red (épvpóv) comes from
the commingling of tears with the fire or light that enters the
eye. Black, white, and red then are the elementary colors, and
from them, with occasional additions of rò λаµπρóν, brightness
or radiance, all other colors are derived. Ten colors are men-
tioned in the following lines. They are those in Color Chart I,
with the addition of pacóv, gray, a simple mixture of black
and white, and oppviov, probably a dull brown, as it is not gray.
The philosophers tried to give these words specific meanings,
but the people continued to use them interchangeably for dark
gray or brown, as they are used today. Plato says that God
alone knows in what proportions the elementary colors combine
to form the secondary colors, but it is likely that the Pytha-
goreans who devised the combinations thought they knew, for
the four elements are combined symmetrically to form the ten
colors, although similar combinations of pigments would not
result in these hues. Rather, some metaphysical ideas are back
of the formulae." If Plato had not been copying down the canon
established by others, with the feeling that God alone knew
the reasons for it all, he probably would not have given exactly
ten colors (the number of which the Pythagoreans were
fondest), nor would he have omitted xλwpóv, which was always
a common color-word in Greek and was regarded as an ele-
mentary color by Democritus.& It seems then that these ten
compose a Pythagorean canon of standard colors which was
but vaguely understood by Plato; however, this theory has
been presented by no editor of the Timaeus. The capriciousness
7 E.g., the color that is particularly held up as an example of the oddness
of these definitions is πράσινον from πυρρόν and μέλαν. But μέλαν is made of
ξανθόν and φαιόν, of which in turn the former is made of red + White+ τὸ λαμπρόν
and the latter of black+white. Adding up these elements we get red+тò λaµπрóv
+2 parts of black+2 parts of white, or 6 parts in all. No other color adds up
to more than 5 parts, so evidently green was regarded as the most complex
of colors.
8 V. p. 73.
72
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT Art
with which the different translators render the words for colors
shows how little meaning such passages have usually had to
modern readers. The colors as interpreted in the Color Chart
make a very good canon, indeed a more reasonable one than
that of Newton (Color Chart, I and II).
11
Aristotle likewise has two loci classici on color. They are
fuller and more serious discussions than Plato's, as would be
expected of one who was preeminently a scientist. In his
De Sensu,¹º he takes up the question "rí xpŵµa;" The Pytha-
gorean definition offered is "Color is the appearance or surface."
This definition goes back to the root-meaning of the word for
color xpâμa (and its older form xpoía), that which is grazed by
light contact or surface. Aristotle knowing that color as seen
in an opaque body is always at the surface while it can be seen
all through a transparent body, said that color was a property
of the all-permeating transparent element, (rò diapavés) so that
it showed at the surface of a solid, but all through a translucent
substance. He goes on to say that black and white are the
elementary colors and that all others are composed of varying
proportions of these, in simple commensurable ratios if the
resultant color is a pleasing one. This theory is a simplification
of that of the Timaeus.
In the De Coloribus12 another writer of the Peripatetic school,
probably not Aristotle,13 names three elementary colors, black,
white, and yellow (avtóv) and by most fantastic reasoning he
derives all others from them. He includes a discussion of natural
colors and dyes.
E.g., Jowett translates aveóv auburn; while Archer-Hind translates
TUρρóv by the same word. Jowett renders öppvivov as umber, while Archer-Hind
on very shaky grounds calls it dark violet.
10 439a-440b, Chap. III, in the Cambridge translation of Aristotle by Ross.
11 V. sub xpws in Index, Appendix B.
12 791a-799b, 19 pp. in the Teubner text. A translation can be found in
Vol. VI of the Oxford translation of Aristotle, ed. Ross.
13 The work differs greatly in both style and content from the work of
Aristotle cited. Theophrastus has been suggested as the author. The space
devoted to plants and animals would favor this authorship, but the color
vocabulary is quite different from that of Theophrastus' De Sensu. povikov
and ¿λoupyóv, the only two colors outside of black and white, however, that
are mentioned in Aristotle's De S. are mentioned in the De. C., but not in
Theophrastus' De S.
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
73
Theophrastus in his De Sensu, probably of a later date than
the De Coloribus, gives first a summary (§§73-78) of the
Democritean classification and theories of color. Black and
white, red (épvpóv) and greenish yellow (xλwpóv) are the elemen-
tary colors. The composite colors named fall into three sections:
1. metallic colors with some red in them-golden and copper-
colored or bronze; 2. purple (rорpνроûv), woad (loáris), green, and
blue, which, although no reason for the grouping is stated, are
seen to be four of the most important artificial pigments used by
the Greeks; 3. brown (kapúïvov), orange (pλoyoeidés), and yellow
(evayés xλwpóv) three colors that occur in nature, but in art are
used only when the material employed happens to be of those
colors, as in clays and semi-precious stones. In all, Theophrastus
gives 11 colors besides black and white. No two are the same,
and the whole range of colors is accurately named, though as
he himself says an infinite number of shades is possible (878).
In §§79-82 he points out very clearly the faults in the Demo-
critean system, and then expresses the need for further re-
search, pointing out the lines on which work should be done¹4
on the whole a masterly treatment considering the limited
progress that science had made by the end of the fourth century
B.C.15
I may add at this point that Pliny in treating of Greek art,
though he propounds no theories, names several colors. All
of these are mentioned in one chapter, xxxiii 117. They are
black (atramentum and niger), white (albus), browns (sila-
cium), reds (rubra), and in addition to these primitive colors,
purple (purpura). Blue, green, and yellow are not mentioned.
$2
In modern times color has been an important subject for
research in physics, in psychology, and in the biology and
physiology of the eye; and of course it is of interest to chemists,
artists, and aesthetes. Physics deal with the phenomena of
light, which physicists regard as radiant energy travelling
14 V. p. 82, note 3.
15 These standard colors are fuller and more definite than those of the
Pythagoreans, but I chose the latter for Color Chart I, as they show most
simply the advance that had been made since Homer's time and also compare
well with modern standards.
74
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
through space in the form of electromagnetic waves of fre-
quencies approximating 500 x 1013 per second; physiology with
the effects of this radiation on the eye, and psychology with the
interpretation by the mind of the resulting stimuli.¹
The first scientist to take up color was Newton (1642–1727),
who established the seven colors of the visible spectrum caused
by the refraction of white light by its passing through a prism
(Color Chart II). Blue and indigo are so similar that it would
be just as reasonable to say that there are six colors.2 Then, too,
the shade between red and orange is even more of a separate
color than indigo. This is Tuppóv in Greek, but as there is no
special word for it in English, Newton left it out. At any rate
the number seven is wholly arbitrary. Orange until Newton's
time was no more serious a definition of color than were cinna-
mon, buff, lemon, etc.; even today orange is commonly called
yellow. Indigo has never become a color-word in common
parlance. Violet likewise is seldom used for the older word
purple, which includes tones nearer the antique purple than
violet does. Violet strictly speaking is only the last color in
the spectrum, a very bluish purple. The word violet is used
very loosely by those who are not physicists, e.g., it is constantly
used to translate αλουργής and πορφύρεος, an absolutely incorrect
use of the word.
The spectrum may be considered to consist of three or four
principal colors with the colors lying between them which
¹ Troland, The Present Status of Visual Science (1922), is my authority
for figures and definitions in the following section, though many of the state-
ments are based on my own general understanding of the subject, gained
through several years' study along scientific lines. V. Bibliography, p. 1, for
further references.
2 Goethe (v. p. 2 for reference) took exception to Newton's canon of seven.
He treated color, like the ancient and medieval writers, as metaphysics. He
stressed the aesthetic or spiritual effect of colors. He even proposed a system
of psychotherapy by the use of colors, which was tried later with varying
degrees of success.
The followers of Oscar Wilde and the French symbolists late in the nine-
teenth century again made a point of the aesthetic aspects of color. Green
as the color of languor as opposed to its complementary color red, connected
with energy, is an old conception. Yellow for corruption is not so universal,
though even among the later Greeks, saffron robes came to have an evil connota-
tion (v. L. & S. sub Kρoкwτós).
* Besides possibly feeling a sense of fitness in the mystic number seven or
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
75
partake of the nature of each of their neighbors. Usually these
secondary colors can be obtained with paints by mixing pig-
ments of the color of the neighboring colors of the spectrum,
e.g., yellow+blue-green. But, though green lies between
yellow and blue in the spectrum, it has a separate origin, for
blue and yellow light when mixed produce not green, but white.
Two such colors of light which when mixed give white are called
complementary colors. Another pair are red and green; when
pigments of these colors are mixed, however, the result is brown.
Since green is a mixture of yellow and blue pigment, brown is
formed by combining three colors, red, yellow, and blue. So in
painting, it is called a tertiary color, as are olive, gray, and
black which are similarly produced by mixing varying pro-
portions of the primary colors red, yellow, and blue. In colored
light effects, too, brown is produced only by adding a color
from one end of the spectrum to one at the other, so it only
results when spectra overlap. This occurs in the iridescent
colors of oil rings on water to be seen on asphalt pavements on
a rainy day. In these, brown of a luminous golden tone is very
conspicuous.
Secondary or tertiary colors (in artists' language) are very
common. Besides orange and green, the secondary colors that
occur in the spectrum, purple is called a secondary color by
artists, since it is made by mixing red and blue, which of course
come at such different points in the spectral band that purple
cannot be considered really to partake of the nature of those
two kinds of light. In mixing the two pigments, by letting red
preponderate, the antique purple is obtained; by letting blue,
a violet approximating that of the pure spectral color is ob-
tained.4a
wishing to have a number of color-tones that would correspond to the seven
tones of a musical octave, Newton may have been influenced by the fact that
the colors from green to violet are spread out disproportionately by a triangular
prism. Evenly distributed colors may be obtained with a diffraction grating.
4 Cf. p. 34, note 6, for green copper pigments. Physicists explain this
phenomenon by saying that the pure yellow absorbs the pure blue light, so
that only the green light of the impurities in the pigments reaches the eye.
4ª A very clear discussion of color from the artist's point of view is found
on pp. 37-53 in John Collier's Primer of Art (1882). Though many of the
scientific theories therein presented have since been modified, it is still helpful.
76
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
Like prismatic colors or the iridescence of oil, rainbows are
spectra, in this case reflected on the clouds by sunlight refracted
by raindrops. Double reflection causes two concentric rainbows
to be seen. A magnificent double rainbow that lasted about
half an hour was seen in London, at 6:30 P.M., Sept. 12, 1925.
The present writer (X) and another observer (Y), whose
appreciation of color values is very accurate, independently
recorded the colors observed, in order from the top to the
bottom (i.e., theoretically from red to violet) of the uppermost
or clearest arc. These observations are recorded below. The
colors in italics are those that seemed to stand out most
plainly. As the bow was visible so long, these observations are
X
Y
Violet
Rose
Orange
Wide orange band
Yellow (very plain)
Bright yellow
Green, blue, and indigo, indistinguishably blurred
Light green
Blue
Antique purple
Red
Red
Violet
the result of careful judgment. Their disparity shows: 1. the
variation in what is seen by the eyes of different individuals
and in the interpretation their minds make of what they see;
2. that the rainbow does not consist of seven ordered bands of
distinct colors; 3. that the ancient descriptions of it as red,
yellow-green, and Topoúрeos were nearer what one actually sees,
than are the spectral colors.
Since Newton's time, when scientific data on light and color
were very meagre indeed, many experiments and observations
with new and more refined instruments have given modern
physicists a far more intimate knowledge of the properties of
light and their relation to the structure of the atoms and
molecules generating it. The modern conception of light is
that it is a radiation or wave-movement in space set up by
5 Cf. tò diapavés of Aristotle and the void (tò kevóv) of the Epicureans (p. 72
and Lucretius passim) with the modern conception of the all-pervading, in-
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
77
atomic motion, and affecting the sensitive screen of the eye
called the retina.
Quality of light or hue varies from violet to red and depends
on the actual wave length of the radiation, 429μμ for violet
and 687μμ for red." In sunlight all the colors are so blended that
the result is practically white. In ordinary language color is
used for hue.
Quantity of light, or intensity as it is called in physics, is
proportional to the amount of light energy received by unit
area of an illuminated object and is thus measured. In the
solar spectrum it is 100 times as great in the yellow-green region
at the center (wave-length 556μμ) as it is at either extremity.
Intensity is called brightness in ordinary languages; Munsell
calls it chroma. (V. Bibliography, p. 1.)
Quantity of hue, on the other hand, is due to saturation.
The color of an object comes from the light of certain wave-
lengths which is reflected from it, but with every color (except
the pure colors of colored light) a certain amount of white light
is mixed. The white light of daylight (or the slightly yellow light
visible, impalpable, imponderable something that fills the spaces between the
quanta of the electrons as well as the space between the stars. However, the
relativists following Einstein, throw such doubt on this hypothesis of long
standing that it is safer to say space than ether. Yet the terms wave-length,
etc., although they imply the existence of a medium, cannot well be dispensed
with until a more complete new hypothesis for light is worked out, and all
present data are translated into the new terminology.
• A µµ is one millionth of a millimeter in length and is called a millimicron.
The advantage in using this unit is that three significant figures can be given
in it. However, the present tendency is to use the Ångstrom unit which is
only one tenth as large, so that the above figures must be multiplied by ten
to convert them into Å's.
7 Shorter waves than the above are called in general ultra-violet. Of these
the best known are the x-rays and the recently discovered Millikan rays which
are still shorter. Those of greater length are called infra-red. The radiation
whose effect is called heat begins almost at once above that of the visible spec-
trum, and it gives way through thermo-electric radiation to the purely electrical
waves whose length theoretically goes to infinity. Those of between 100 and
10000 meters are used in wireless telegraphy or "radio," those of about 360
meters being the average length in common use.
In scientific mathematical language, intensity is the amount of light
energy that crosses one square centimeter in one second. An illustration that
is easily understood is that of an electric light filament that becomes brighter
when the vibration of the atoms in it is increased by raising the voltage.
78
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
of artificial illumination) is either all reflected from a white ob-
ject, partially absorbed and partially reflected from a colored
object or almost all absorbed and absorbed evenly by a black
object. But even in the case of black objects some light is re-
flected; in colored objects a varying degree of white light is
returned, and this is called degree of saturation. E.g., pink is a
red of low saturation, or in common parlance it is lighter than
red, although possibly not so bright. When a great deal of
white is reflected, colors are called opaque; when they seem
transparent they are called clear.
The problem of how we see colors is harder to explain and
is still far from solution. The first to arrive at plausible theories
on this subject was the great German scientist Helmholtz.
A development of his theory is the one held today. He postu-
lated three colors to which the retina is sensitive, red, green,
and blue, and that all colors are seen in terms of these three
sensations. If the nerve endings specialized for red were lacking,
the person would be color-blind so far as red was concerned, and
would see everything, including red objects, in terms of green
and blue, and so on. Young used violet as the third color.
Hering added yellow, so as to have nerve-endings specialized
to receive the two pairs of complementary colors, or as they are
called in psychology the four critical colors, red and green,
yellow and blue.
Mrs. Ladd-Franklin has developed fantastic theories of
color-blindness based on these four colors and on the assumption
that the retina is divided into zones as follows. The outer zone
is the region where nerve-endings shaped like rods are found.¹º
The rods are used in scotopic vision, that is, in seeing things in
semi-darkness or twilight. They are thousands of times more
sensitive than the cones at the center, the specialized nerve-
endings which perceive color in ordinary or photopic vision.
' In the last case, we do not see the object really so much as its surroundings.
When we look, for instance, at a piece of black velvet or a black cat in a dim
light, we actually see nothing. Cf. De Coloribus 791a where Aristotle says "An
invisible object in visible surroundings looks black.” τὸ γὰρ μὴ ὁρώμενον ὅταν
ὁ περιέχων τόπος ὁρᾶται, φαντασίαν ποιεῖ μέλανος. Practically, however, in a
bright light, some light is always reflected from black on account of its surface
catching the light.
10 Abney recently discovered rods in the very center of a retina that he
examined, but such an eye is probably a sport, or at any rate a very rare type.
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
79
(The central part of the retina, where red and green are per-
ceived, is also the part that is used in reading fine print.)
Elaborate tables show what colors are seen by the color-blind
according to the Ladd-Franklin theory, based on four critical
colors. The only trouble is that the facts in cases of color-
blindness fit quite different theories as well as hers, if not better.
And very recently a new experiment on color-fatigue¹¹ seems
to prove quite conclusively that there are only three colors
to which the eye is adapted, as Helmholtz first propounded.
In the introduction to his study, Keersmaecker plays with
the idea that Homer had some congenital defect in his vision,
that his traditional blindness was really color-blindness.12 As
a matter of fact, Homer shows none of the true characteristics
of a partially color-blind person. He never confuses red and
green as a color-blind person is most likely to do. The totally
color-blind see everything in terms of grays, but this type of
color-blindness is extremely rare.
In the field of pure psychology Katz has proposed three
types of color-sensation, Flächen-, Überflächen-, and Raum-
farbe, or non-localized, bidimensional, and tridimensional color,
depending not on the original color at all, but on the way the
light reaches the eye. What I have called color-illusions (p. 25)
11 The Second Half of Vision, a paper presented by Frank Allen of the
University of Manitoba at the joint meeting of the American Physical Society
and the Optical Society of America, in Montreal, Feb. 26, 1926.
12 The American poet, Whittier, is reputed to have been color-blind.
(Bliss Perry, Whittier, p. 12.) But an examination of both his prose and his
poems reveals a keen feeling for color and an accurate use of color-terms. It is
hard to believe that a truly color-blind person, that is, one who sees the world
in two colors only, could use all the common colors so well if he were simply
following literary usage. An anecdote retailed from one who knew Whittier
personally, of his thinking a scarlet necktie was a proper adornment for an
elderly Quaker, seems to indicate that there was some eccentricity in his color-
vision. But perhaps his "color-blindness" was only lack of attention to dis-
tinction of blues and greens in artificially colored objects. The confusion of
blue and green is not one of the marks of color-blindness, but is very common,
especially with men who do not make a special study of distinguishing tints.
(This confusion is not, however, found in Homer.) At any rate, Whittier knew
enough about color to mention it constantly. Of course he does not use color
so much as Swinburne, Oscar Wilde, or the symbolist poets of France, but he
uses it far more accurately.
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COLOR IN HOMER and in Ancient Art
may come under the head of Flächenfarbe, ordinary surface
colors are Überflächenfarben, and colored fluids or translucent
solids are Raumfarben.
Color-illusions also have been taken up by the colloid
chemist Bancroft, whose theory is that a translucent colorless
or whitish colloid takes on a bluish appearance when seen
against black; this can be accounted for by assuming a greater
absorption of light of other wave-lengths than blue, by such
a system. The reason for this absorption, if such it is, is not
known.13
$3
The points of similarity in ancient and modern works on
color lie in observations rather than explanations. Classifica-
tions in the former sometimes show that ancient investigators
were stumbling toward the truth. Some instances follow.
The rainbow has already been mentioned as the nearest
approach to a spectrum in antiquity. The primary colors of
Theophrastus include two of the pairs of modern complementary
colors, black and white, red and green. The author of the
De Coloribus (791b) says "Darkness is not a color, but privation
of light." And in 792b he says "We must not proceed in this
inquiry by blending pigments as painters do," a caution that
is as necessary today for one who wishes to gain a clear under-
standing of color. Farther on he says "We never see an unmixed
or pure color, but colors are always mingled with one another."
In his De Sensu (440b) Aristotle says that the various colors
result from the blending of black and white in certain com-
mensurable ratios, as for instance, to produce red or purple.
This is a stumbling toward the truth. For if to white light be
added black, i.e., negative light or an absorption of a certain
part of it, colors do result. Moreover, there is a law of mathe-
matical ratios back of color as music; e.g., the wave-length of red
is exactly twice that of violet; the colors of the visible spectrum
correspond to an octave in musical tones. The Pythagorean
system presented by Plato in the Timaeus likewise postulates
numerical relations for the components of colors. This system
13 Chromatic emulsions, metallic sols, and other colloids have interesting
colors, partly dependent on the size of the particles.
1
¹ Pp. 24, 25, and 76.
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
81
also anticipates modern discoveries in indicating that something
in the eye is sensitive to color.
Some hints are also given at types of color and color-illusions;
e.g., Theophrastus De Sensu (§§73 and 79) says that a friable
substance though rough may look white because the edges of
the particles fit together in such a way as to avoid shadows.
In chemistry, many substances that are dark when in large
crystals (e.g., blue vitriol or chrome yellow) become almost
white when powdered, not because shadows are driven out, but
because more light is reflected from the minute, uneven surfaces,
since it cannot pass through as it did before. Aristotle (De
Coloribus 772a) observes that waves appear to be purple when
one side is in shadow. In his De Sensu (439b) he speaks of
internal colors in unbounded things (i.e., fluids), such as air
and water which are changed by distance. In the De
Coloribus (794a) he says "Air seen close at hand appears to
have no color; but when seen in a deep mass it looks practically
dark blue (kvavoelds)." Again in the De Sensu (440a) painters
are said sometimes to put a light whitish wash over other colors
when they wish to make something appear to be seen through
water or air.
$4
Altogether, the whole subject of the psychology and physi-
ology of the perception of color is too embryonic at the
present day, to permit an authoritative statement that there
was anything unusual about the eyes of the Homeric Greeks.¹
It will probably be long before the study of color-vision reaches
as demonstrable conclusions as the study of the physics of light,
since in any question of vision, the human eye, the most delicate
and complex member of the body, is the thing upon which
experiments must be made. Moreover, individual variations
in perception of color are great, sometimes even between the
two eyes of one person. Color-blindness exists in all degrees,
and some eyes are undoubtedly supersensitive to color. But
¹ The term "color-sense" used by Magnus, Gladstone, and other writers
cannot be used properly speaking, as color is only part of the visual sensation,
so comes under the sense of sight. The term color-vision is used at present.
2 Even the actual microscopic appearance of the retina cannot be affirmed,
since radical changes may take place at the moment of death, and of course
vivisection is impossible.
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COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
the greatest obstacle to research in color-vision and one that
can be removed is a terminology that varies with every psychol-
ogist. When as precise a nomenclature as that of the physicist
is employed by the physiological psychologists, it may become
possible for an investigator in one field to be benefited by reading
the publications of those in other fields. The greatest need for
investigation lies along lines of physiological psychology.³
$5
I undertook the study of the use of color in Homer with the
conviction that its peculiarities were caused by shortcomings
in the vision of the Homeric Greeks. But further study of both
Homer and modern scientific theories of color have failed to
reveal grounds for this idea.
To the embryonic eye, human or otherwise, bright flashing
white would be the first color perceived; from its intensity the
stimulation would be greatest.¹ Yellow-green is the color that
has the next highest intensity, that is, it is seen first when a
darkened place is gradually made light, but a bright red can
be seen as such at a greater distance than any color but white.
So it is hard to say what colors would be seen first by the
primitive eye.
One would infer from Mrs. Ladd-Franklin's
theory that blue and yellow would be the first specializations
of dark and light, but however that may be, Homer offers no
evidence for or against it. The problem is a complex one, and
cannot be solved by saying that the colors were perceived in
order of wave-length or of intensity, without proof.2 The only
trace of a perception of colors in Homer different from our own
Theophrastus (ca. 320 B.C.) suggested that future investigators should
determine: 1. What are the simple colors? 2. What are the compound colors?
3. How do colors originate? (op. cit. §82). These questions we can consider are
now answered, but a fourth, How is color perceived? the ancients considered
solved, while we do not.
¹ When the intensity of light of any wave-length is increased indefinitely
the resulting sensation is white. Cf. Theophrastus (De Sensu §75) λaµπpórara
μὲν γὰρ εἶναι τὰ πλεῖστον ἔχοντα καὶ λεπτότατον πῦρ, “the most radiant, i.e.,
gleaming white things are those that have the most energy.”
2 Both Magnus and Gladstone were too little versed in the scientific theories
of color of their own time (Helmholtz was their contemporary) to try to advance
or defend theories of an "embryonic color-sense" in Homer.
COLOR IN HOMER AND IN ANCIENT ART
83
is the preponderance of black, gray, and white words over those
expressing hue.
Homer, to be sure, fails to mention the colors of certain
natural features, but it is unwise to base an argument on
negative evidence. The colors that Homer does use and the
colors mentioned by later Greek writers on color, show an
appreciation of color possibly greater than ours.


45
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