Ancient Greek Costumes – 3 Types Of Costume To Wear For Halloween

So these are not tattered old costumes that come from Greece, more like costumes that are inspired by the life and times of the Ancient Greek civilization. This is a very important civilization for Europe and western society as much of the principles the underpin European nations and the identity as Europeans  spring from Ancient Greece. It is often referred to as the birthplace of Europe for this reason.

Ancient Greek costumes or rather those inspired by ancient Greece can basically be broken down into three types.

You will get the fighting costumes – warrior, soldier and general type costumes. Possibly the most popular version of this currently is the spartan warrior costume as seen in the 300 movie from a few years ago. This movie made quite an impression on the popular culture and thus is a favorite at fancy dress parties or even Halloween.

You can get a fairly accurate looking version of this costume from the costume stores or online but of course the armor is made of plastic, as is the helmet and sword. It would be more authentic to have proper metal armor but not really practical in a social setting like a party and probably quite uncomfortable after a few hours.

There is also the day to day costumes that the ordinary men and women might have worn in Athens, Corinth, Sparta or other towns and cities of the Greek states. You might call these toga type costumes but in fact Greeks did not wear a toga (this was a Roman thing) but they did wear something similar. Most ancient civilizations, including Greece and Roman, wore a type of tunic.

This was a simple smock that covered the torso down to the knees. There would be holes for the arms and the head to poke through. Some tunics might have longer sleeves. Some tunics might even have longer hemlines, including down to the ankles but these  would be best described are robes or gowns.

And finally there are the costumes inspired by Greek mythology. Greek mythology takes in the gods and goddesses of ancient Greece (and there were plenty of these). It also accounts for Greek heroes and monsters (and there were quite a few of these too).

Greek mythology costumes are vast in number because there were so many different gods and goddesses. But for the sake of a fancy dress party you could probably get away with wearing a long white robe and some kind of adornments to categorize you as this or that god. Greek gods often had symbols that were identified with them.

For instance, Zeus might have a lightning bolt as his symbol. This indicated that he was master of lightning and thunder (or possibly that he could control the weather). They symbol hints at the power that each god had.