Meaning of charopos

According to the exhaustive study [1] of all uses of the Greek color term charopos, its meaning in Ancient Greek was thus mainly amber of light brown. Charopos was often used to describe the color of eyes, and it was contrasted with glaukos [light blue], the most common eye color of northern peoples and melas [black], the most common eye color of southern peoples.

Socrates in the Republic advises that eyes of statues be painted melas so that they will look natural. Thus, they must have been common, and indeed ancient art seems to verify this impression. Pausanias for example was surprised to find a statue of the goddess Athena painted with blue eyes, ascribing these to the Libyan version of the goddess's birth. This is quite important, since Athena was the only Greek divinity to be blue-eyed, glaukopis. Hence, even in her case, depiction with light eyes was not common. Blue eyes were infrequent in Greece, and are usually deprecated in the physiognomic writers, while charopoi eyes are exalted, in keeping with the doctrine of the Mean.

Interestingly, light eyes (Bunak grades 9-11) occur in frequencies of no more than 6% in most provinces of Greece. Intermediate (5-8) and dark (1-4) shades account for the remainder, with some provinces showing an excess of the former and others of the latter. The mean grade is between 4 and 5; while we cannot determine what the distribution of eye color was in Ancient Greece, its present distribution is in accordance with the ancient sources.

[1] Maxwell-Stuart, P. G. Studies in Greek colour terminology, vol.2 "Charopos". Leiden : Brill, 1981