Did Ancient Greek and Roman Woman wear Underwear?

Did Ancient Greek and Roman Woman wear Underwear?

We do know that both greek and Roman women wore a breast band, or strophia, basically a piece of fabric wrapped around the chest to support the breasts. If you wrapped more fabric, your boobs looked bigger. These can be seen in many works of art.

Note this lovely woman is not wearing anything on her nether regions.
Here are the so-called “bikini mosaics” of the Piazza Amerina, showing strophia and bikini-like bottoms, used by Roman women as gym wear.

There are reference to Roman women wearing the tunica under their clothing, a garment noted for being uncomfortable and giving women wedgies. That suggests it passed between the legs somehow. Young women could also wear a supparus or supparum, a long piece of linen wrapped around the thighs. As we can see from my first illustration,some women clearly went commando.

In the second mosaic, the women are wearing a bikini-like bottom similar to the male subligaculum. To date we have no clear evidence regarding whether or not these were worn as female underwear, under clothing, or just as pictured, as gym wear.

It’s clear that if feminine hygiene made it desireable to cover the crotch, women of the period had several options. As a woman myself I do not believe that the women of such an advanced, sophisticated culture, accustomed to as much freedom as Roman women had, would have been content to leave a trail of blood behind them for a week out of every month, or hide themselves away in the house for that long. Not when a wrapped cloth or gym shorts could offer coverage.

Far less is known about the dress of Greek women, but logic would suggest they probably had something like the supparus, as it is consistent with Greek clothing.