It’s unclear when the first of the bra’s many precursors was invented, but historians have found references to breast-supporting cords or belts likely worn over garments in ancient Greek works such as Homer’s Iliad, which depicts the goddess Aphrodite removing a “curiously embroidered girdle” (according to an 1898 translation by Samuel Butler) from her bosom. And in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, a woman withholding sex from her husband teases him by saying she’s taking off her strophion, a twisted cord or belt worn outside clothing and below or between the breasts for support.