Q: After some thought, I decided not to go as Agrippina the Younger as she is considered by her contemporaries (and by modern scholars) to be very evil. So I picked Pericles, a great Athenian statesman. After seeing busts of him online, would it be appropriate to wear a helmet as well as a chiton (Greek "toga")? Would he be a character worthy to portray at my Halloween party at work? All suggestions are welcome but I don't feel like memorizing his funeral eulogy, though.
A: Pericles would only have worn a helmet when dressed as an Athenian soldier, with the rest of his armour. That would be a great costume; but darn difficult and expensive to make, and probably very expensive even to hire. (You'd need good legs, too!) It'd be much easier to make a civilian Greek costume, since that's entirely based on rectangles of fabric. (BTW, the "chiton" was actually a tunic; the big cloak often draped like a toga was called a "himation".) I'd suggest a full-length chiton with a himation wrapped over it - appropriate dress for a Greek statesman. The draped himation was sometimes worn without a tunic under it, leaving one shoulder bare, but that's a bit rash for a party, I think. The URL here will give you plenty of links to help you put the costume together. You could accessorise it with a couple of scrolls written in Greek, and maybe persuade a female friend to come as Aspasia of Miletus?
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