Greece— Tattoo scenes & cities

In ancient Greece, tattooing had a bad name. According to Herodotus, the Greeks first encountered it in the 6th century BC among the Persians, who forcibly tattooed their subordinates. The Greek word for it, stigma, gave us our "stigma". Among the neighbouring Thracians, however, Herodotus writes that tattoos were a sign of good birth.

The Greeks tattooed criminals, slaves and prisoners of war; runaway slaves were often marked above the eyes. During the Samian war (440-439 BC), Plutarch reports that Samians and Athenians marked their prisoners on the forehead, with a ship or an owl. Around 480 BC, the grave stele of Pollis of Megara, now at the Getty, has him die "at the hands of the tattooers", no coward.