A foot where the second toe is the longest is called Greek foot/toe or Morton’s toe.
When I was in school or thereabouts I was told that in one ancient battle the dead soldiers had to be returned to each side and they sorted out the Greek bodies by their toes.
I’ve been googling like mad but I can’t find the source of this story anywhere. True or not, it must have come from somewhere/one?
Anyone else heard this story or does anyone know the source? My google-fu is thwarted by the many results about the Persian or Peloponnesian wars.
The Greeks thought themselves superior to the Egyptians, whose feet were splayed because they walked in the mud of the Nile Delta. So they claimed that Greeks had the “noble toe.”
Yes, it’s a real thing.
But specifically I wanted to find the source of that story. If there is any. (But even if it’s made-up, it was made up by someone.)
Huh, despite all three of the major components of my ethnicity (German, Roman, and Celtic) being on that chart, it looks like I nonetheless have Greek feet. Go figure.
First time I’ve heard the term “Greek foot”, but I had a girl friend in college who insisted that people with toes / feet of that shape are the sexiest. No, she wasn’t Greek - she was actually German Mennonite!
Yeah it’s one of those cases where the (ancient) Greek concept has somehow become sort of synonymous with “classic” and “the beauty ideal”. (Not that that’s necessarily true of course.)
I saw a chart showing the Greek (second toe being the longest) and the Roman (big toe longest, others shorter or flush.) My point is there must not have been that many chances for the Greeks to practice the theory. And besides, dress, arms, armor, even hair style are a far better way to distinguish between two nationals.
Remember, these were the Greeks: when they transitioned from Hellenic to Hellenistic, they added muscles to their male statues that don’t exist in actual human anatomy.
Still there is this anecdote about one battle that was so bloody and hard that afterwards (each group wanting to claim their own bodies for proper burial) the dead were unrecognizable except by toe.
It’s mentioned on very few websites and none that I found could name its source.
Why there was no other way, I couldn’t say. (Perhaps they fought naked as some ridiculous movies would have us believe?)
