SPECIAL BEAUTIFICATION IN CLASSICAL ATHENS
There are many women who are said to be beautiful in Athenian literature. However, what made these women beautiful is not usually elaborated on. Instead, the audience is left to project their own ideas of beauty onto the characters.
The literary sources do give us some indication as to Athenian beauty standards in terms of women's bodies. Women's breasts were frequently compared to small fruit and vegetables, such as quince (Aristophanes, Acharnians 1198-9; Assemblywomen 901-5). Xenophon says it was important that women could control their appetites (Economics 7.6), and elsewhere, in his Memorabilia, he says that women “soft and plump, with high feeding” (2.1.22) are lascivious, suggesting that men found women with a slim figure attractive, but this may be connected to Xenophon's advocation of sophrosyne, or moderation.
We do, however, have far more evidence for the methods Athenian women had toAs Lysistrata says, there were several ways that women could look beautiful for their husbands.
