Clothing in Ancient Rome: From Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
Clothing in Ancient Rome: From Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
Clothing in Ancient Rome: From Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
Statue of the Emperor Tiberius showing the draped toga of the 1st
century AD
Clothing in ancient Rome generally comprised a short-sleeved or sleeveless, knee-length tunic for men and boys,
and a longer, usually sleeved tunic for women and girls. On formal occasions, adult male citizens could wear a
woolen toga, draped over their tunic, and married citizen women wore a woolen mantle, known as a palla, over
a stola, a simple, long-sleeved, voluminous garment that hung to midstep. Clothing, footwear and accoutrements
identified gender, status, rank and social class, and thus offered a means of social control. This was probably most
apparent in the segregation of seating tiers at public theatres, games and festivals, and in the distinctive, privileged
official dress of magistrates, priesthoods and the military.
The toga was considered Rome's "national costume" but for day-to-day activities, most Romans preferred more
casual, practical and comfortable clothing; the tunic, in various forms, was the basic garment for all classes, both
sexes and most occupations. It was usually made of linen, and was augmented as necessary with underwear, or
with various kinds of cold-or-wet weather wear, such as knee-breeches for men, and cloaks, coats and hats. In
colder parts of the empire, full length trousers were worn. Most urban Romans wore shoes, slippers, boots
or sandals of various types; in the countryside, some wore clogs.
Most clothing was simple in structure and basic form, and its production required minimal cutting and tailoring, but
all was produced by hand and every process required skill, knowledge and time. Spinning and weaving were
thought virtuous, frugal occupations for Roman women of all classes. Wealthy matrons, including Augustus'
wife Livia, might show their traditionalist values by producing home-spun clothing, but most men and women who
could afford it bought their clothing from specialist artisans. Relative to the overall basic cost of living, even simple
clothing was expensive, and was recycled many times down the social scale.
Rome's governing elite produced laws designed to limit public displays of personal wealth and luxury. None were
particularly successful, as the same wealthy elite had an appetite for luxurious and fashionable clothing. Exotic
fabrics were available, at a price; silk damasks, translucent gauzes, cloth of gold, and intricate embroideries; and
vivid, expensive dyes such as saffron yellow or Tyrian purple. Not all dyes were costly, however, and most Romans
wore colourful clothing. Clean, bright clothing was a mark of respectability and status among all social classes. The
fastenings and brooches used to secure garments such as cloaks provided further opportunities for personal
embellishment and display.
Contents
1Tunics and undergarments
2Formal wear for citizens
o 2.1Toga
9.1.1Wool
9.1.2Silk
o 9.2Plant fibres
9.2.1Linen
10Manufacture
11Colours and dyes
12Leather and hide
13Laundering and fulling
14See also
15References
16Cited sources
Tunics and undergarments[edit]
4th-century mosaic from Villa del Casale, Sicily, showing "bikini girls"
in an athletic contest
The basic garment for both genders and all classes was the tunica (tunic). In its simplest form, the tunic was a single
rectangle of woven fabric, originally woolen, but from the mid-republic onward, increasingly made from linen. It was
sewn into a sleeveless tubular shape and pinned around the shoulders like a Greek chiton, to form openings for the
neck and arms. In some examples from the eastern part of the empire, neck openings were formed in the weaving.
Sleeves could be added. Most working men wore knee-length, short-sleeved tunics, secured at the waist with a belt.
Some traditionalists considered long sleeved tunics appropriate only for women, very long tunics on men as a sign
of effeminacy, and short or unbelted tunics as marks of servility; nevertheless, very long-sleeved, loosely belted
tunics were also fashionably unconventional and were adopted by some Roman men; for example, by Julius
[1]
Caesar. Women's tunics were usually ankle or foot-length, long-sleeved, and could be worn loosely or belted. For
comfort and protection from cold, both sexes could wear a soft under-tunic or vest (subucula) beneath a coarser
over-tunic; in winter, the Emperor Augustus, whose physique and constitution were never particularly robust, wore
[2]
up to four tunics, over a vest. Although essentially simple in basic design, tunics could also be luxurious in their
[3]
fabric, colours and detailing.
Loincloths, known as subligacula or subligaria could be worn under a tunic. They could also be worn on their own,
particularly by slaves who engaged in hot, sweaty or dirty work. Women wore both loincloth and strophium (a breast
[4]
cloth) under their tunics; and some wore tailored underwear for work or leisure. A 4th-century AD Sicillian mosaic
shows several "bikini girls" performing athletic feats; in 1953 a Roman leather bikini bottom was excavated from a
well in London.
Toga[edit]
Main article: Toga
The toga virilis ("toga of manhood") was a semi-elliptical, white woolen cloth some 6 feet in width and 12 feet in
length, draped across the shoulders and around the body. It was usually worn over a plain white linen tunic. A
commoner's toga virilis was a natural off-white; the senatorial version was more voluminous, and brighter. The toga
praetexta of curule magistrates and some priesthoods added a wide purple edging, and was worn over a tunic with
two vertical purple stripes. It could also be worn by noble and freeborn boys and girls, and represented their
protection under civil and divine law. Equites wore the trabea (a shorter, "equestrian" form of white toga or a purple-
red wrap, or both) over a white tunic with two narrow vertical purple-red stripes. The toga pulla, used for mourning,
was made of dark wool. The rare, prestigious toga picta and tunica palmata were purple, embroidered with gold.
They were originally awarded to Roman generals for the day of their triumph, but became official dress for emperors
and Imperial consuls.
From at least the late Republic onward, the upper classes favoured ever longer and larger togas, increasingly
unsuited to manual work or physically active leisure. Togas were expensive, heavy, hot and sweaty, hard to keep
clean, costly to launder and challenging to wear correctly. They were best suited to stately processions, oratory,
sitting in the theatre or circus, and self-display among peers and inferiors while "ostentatiously doing nothing"
[7]
at salutationes. These early morning, formal "greeting sessions" were an essential part of Roman life, in
which clients visited their patrons, competing for favours or investment in business ventures. A client who dressed
well and correctly – in his toga, if a citizen – showed respect for himself and his patron, and might stand out among
the crowd. A canny patron might equip his entire family, his friends, freedmen, even his slaves, with elegant, costly
and impractical clothing, impyling his entire extended family's condition as one of "honorific leisure" (otium), buoyed
[8]
by limitless wealth.
The vast majority of citizens had to work for a living, and avoided wearing the toga whenever
[9][10]
possible. Several emperors tried to compel its use as the public dress of true Romanitas but none were
[11]
particularly successful. The aristocracy clung to it as a mark of their prestige, but eventually abandoned it for the
more comfortable and practical pallium.
Stola and palla[edit]
Roman marble torso from the 1st century AD, showing a woman's
clothing
Besides tunics, married citizen women wore a simple garment known as a stola (pl. stolae) which was associated
[12]
with traditional Roman female virtues, especially modesty. In the early Roman Republic, the stola was reserved
for patrician women. Shortly before the Second Punic War, the right to wear it was extended to plebeian matrons,
and to freedwomen who had acquired the status of matron through marriage to a citizen. Stolae typically comprised
two rectangular segments of cloth joined at the side by fibulae and buttons in a manner allowing the garment to be
[13]
draped in elegant but concealing folds.
Over the stola, citizen-women often wore the palla, a sort of rectangular shawl up to 11 feet long, and five wide. It
could be worn as a coat, or draped over the left shoulder, under the right arm, and then over the left arm. Outdoors
and in public, a chaste matron's hair was bound up in woolen bands (fillets, or vitae) in a high-piled style known
as tutulus. Her face was concealed from the public, male gaze with a veil; her palla could also serve as a hooded
[14][15]
cloak. Two ancient literary sources mention use of a coloured strip or edging (a limbus) on a woman's
[16]
"mantle", or on the hem of their tunic; probably a mark of their high status, and presumably purple. Outside the
confines of their homes, matrons were expected to wear veils; a matron who appeared without a veil was held to
[17]
have repudiated her marriage. High-caste women convicted of adultery, and high-class female prostitutes
(meretrices), were not only forbidden public use of the stola, but might have been expected to wear a toga
[18][19]
muliebris (a "woman's toga") as a sign of their infamy.
Footwear[edit]
Left image: The goddess Diana hunting in the forest with a bow, and
wearing the high-laced open "Hellenistic shoe-boots" associated with
deities, and some images of very high status Romans. From a fresco
in the Via Livenza Hypogeum, Rome, c. 350 AD
Right image: Detail of the "Big Game Hunt" mosaic from the Villa
Romana del Casale (4th century AD), Roman Sicily, showing hunters
shod in calceii, wearing vari-coloured tunics and protective leggings
Romans used a wide variety of practical and decorative footwear, all of it flat soled (without heels). Outdoor shoes
[31]
were often hobnailed for grip and durability. The most common types of footwear were a one-piece shoe
(carbatina), sometimes with semi-openwork uppers; a usually thin-soled sandal (solea), secured with thongs; a
laced, soft half-shoe (soccus); a usually hobnailed, thick-soled walking shoe (calcea); and a heavy-duty, hobnailed
standard-issue military marching boot (caliga). Thick-soled wooden clogs, with leather uppers, were available for
[32]
use in wet weather, and by rustics and field-slaves
Shoemakers employed sophisticated strapwork and delicate cutting to create intricate decorative patterns. Indoors,
[32]
most reasonably well-off Romans of both sexes wore slippers or light shoes of felt or leather. Brides on their
[33]
wedding-day may have worn distinctively orange-coloured light soft shoes or slippers (lutei socci).
Public protocol required red ankle boots for senators, and shoes with crescent-shaped buckles for equites, though
[34][35]
some wore Greek-style sandals to "go with the crowd". Costly footwear was a mark of wealth or status, but
being completely unshod need not be a mark of poverty. Cato the younger showed his impeccable
Republican morality by going publicly barefoot; many images of the Roman gods, and later, statues of the semi-
[36][37]
divine Augustus, were unshod.
Fashions in footwear reflected changes in social conditions. For example, during the unstable middle Imperial era,
the military was overtly favoured as the true basis for power; at around this time, a so-called "Gallic sandal" – up to 4
inches broad at the toe – developed as outdoor wear for men and boys, reminiscent of the military boot. Meanwhile,
[32]
outdoor footwear for women, young girls and children remained elegantly pointed at the toe.
Military costume[edit]
Main article: Ancient Roman military clothing
Levy of the army during the taking of the Roman census, detail from
the marble-sculpted Altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus, 122–115 BC,
showing two Polybian-era soldiers (pedites) wearing chain mail and
wielding a gladius and scutum, opposite an aristocratic cavalryman
(eques)
Fabrics[edit]
Wool[edit]
Wool was the most commonly used fibre in Roman clothing. The sheep of Tarentum were renowned for the quality
of their wool, although the Romans never ceased trying to optimise the quality of wool through cross-
breeding. Miletus in Asia Minor and the province of Gallia Belgica were also renowned for the quality of their wool
[63]
exports, the latter producing a heavy, rough wool suitable for winter. For most garments, white wool was
preferred; it could then be further bleached, or dyed. Naturally dark wool was used for the toga pulla and work
[64]
garments subjected to dirt and stains.
In the provinces, private landowners and the State held large tracts of grazing land, where large numbers of sheep
were raised and sheared. Their wool was processed and woven in dedicated manufactories. Britannia was noted for
its woolen products, which included a kind of duffel coat (the Birrus Brittanicus), fine carpets, and felt linings for army
[65]
helmets.
Silk[edit]
Further information: Sino-Roman relations and Indo-Roman trade relations
A maenad wearing a silk gown, a Roman fresco from the Casa del
Naviglio in Pompeii, 1st century AD
Silk from China was imported in significant quantities as early as the 3rd century BC. It was bought in its raw state
[63]
by Roman traders at the Carthaginian ports of Tyre and Beirut, then woven and dyed. As Roman weaving
techniques developed, silk yarn was used to make geometrically or freely figured damask, tabbies and tapestry.
Some of these silk fabrics were extremely fine – around 50 threads or more per centimeter. Production of such
highly decorative, costly fabrics seems to have been a speciality of weavers in the eastern Roman provinces, where
[66]
the earliest Roman horizontal looms were developed.
Various sumptuary laws and price controls were passed to limit the purchase and use of silk. In the early Empire the
[67]
Senate passed legislation forbidding the wearing of silk by men because it was viewed as effeminate but there
[68]
was also a connotation of immorality or immodesty attached to women who wore the material, as illustrated
by Seneca the Elder:
"I can see clothes of silk, if materials that do not hide the body, nor even one's decency, can be called clothes...
Wretched flocks of maids labour so that the adulteress may be visible through her thin dress, so that her husband
has no more acquaintance than any outsider or foreigner with his wife's body." (Declamations Vol. 1)
The Emperor Aurelian is said to have forbidden his wife to buy a mantle of Tyrian purple silk. The Historia
Augusta claims that the emperor Elagabalus was the first Roman to wear garments of pure silk (holoserica) as
opposed to the usual silk/cotton blends (subserica); this is presented as further evidence of his notorious
[63][69]
decadence. Moral dimensions aside, Roman importation and expenditure on silk represented a significant,
inflationary drain on Rome's gold and silver coinage, to the benefit of foreign traders and loss to the
[63]
empire. Diocletian's Edict on Maximum Prices of 301 AD set the price of one kilo of raw silk at 4,000 gold coins.
[70]
Wild silk, cocoons collected from the wild after the insect had eaten its way out, was also known; being of
shorter, smaller lengths, its fibres had to be spun into somewhat thicker yarn than the cultivated variety. A rare
luxury cloth with a beautiful golden sheen, known as sea silk, was made from the long silky filaments
[71]
or byssus produced by Pinna nobilis, a large Mediterranean clam.
Plant fibres[edit]
Linen[edit]
Pliny the Elder describes the production of linen from flax and hemp. After harvesting, the plant stems were retted to
loosen the outer layers and internal fibres, stripped, pounded and then smoothed. Following this, the materials were
woven. Flax, like wool, came in various speciality grades and qualities. In Pliny's opinion, the whitest (and best) was
imported from Spanish Saetabis; at double the price, the strongest and most long-lasting was from Retovium. The
whitest and softest was produced in Latium, Falerii and Paelignium. Natural linen was a "greyish brown" that faded
to off-white through repeated laundering and exposure to sunlight. It did not readily absorb the dyes in use at the
[72]
time, and was generally bleached, or used in its raw, undyed state.
Manufacture[edit]
Ready-made clothing was available for all classes, at a price; the cost of a new cloak for an ordinary commoner
might represent three fifths of their annual subsistence expenses. Clothing was recycled down the social scale, until
it fell to rags; even these were useful, and centonarii ("patch-workers") made a living by sewing clothing and other
[75]
items from recycled fabric patches. Owners of slave-run farms and sheep-flocks were advised that whenever the
opportunity arose, female slaves should be fully occupied in the production of homespun woolen cloth; this would
[76]
likely be good enough for clothing the better class of slave or supervisor.
Self-sufficiency in clothing paid off. The carding, combing, spinning and weaving of wool were part of daily
housekeeping for most women. Those of middling or low income could supplement their personal or family income
by spinning and selling yarn, or by weaving fabric for sale. In traditionalist, wealthy households, the family's wool-
baskets, spindles and looms were positioned in the semi-public reception area (atrium), where the mater
familias and her familia could thus demonstrate their industry and frugality; a largely symbolic and moral activity for
[77]
those of their class, rather than practical necessity. Augustus was particularly proud that his wife and daughter
[78]
had set the best possible example to other Roman women by spinning and weaving his clothing. High-caste
[79]
brides were expected to make their own wedding garments, using a traditional vertical loom.
Most fabric and clothing was produced by professionals whose trades, standards and specialities were protected by
[80]
guilds; these in turn were recognised and regulated by local authorities. Pieces were woven as closely as
possible to their intended final shape, with minimal waste, cutting and sewing thereafter. Once a woven piece of
fabric was removed from the loom, its loose end-threads were tied off, and left as a decorative fringe, hemmed, or
used to add differently coloured "Etruscan style" borders, as in the purple-red border of the toga praetexta, and the
[80] [81]
vertical coloured stripe of some tunics; a technique known as "tablet weaving". Weaving on an upright, hand-
powered loom was a slow process. The earliest evidence for the transition from vertical to more efficient horizontal,
[82]
foot-powered looms comes from Egypt, around 298 AD. Even then, the lack of mechanical aids in spinning
made yarn production a major bottleneck in the manufacture of cloth.
Colours and dyes[edit]
From Rome's earliest days, a wide variety of colours and coloured fabrics would have been available; in Roman
tradition, the first association of professional dyers dated back to the days of King Numa. Roman dyers would
certainly have had access to the same locally produced, usually plant-based dyes as their neighbours on the Italian
peninsula, producing various shades of red, yellow, blue, green, and brown; blacks could be achieved using iron
salts and oak gall. Other dyes, or dyed cloths, could have been obtained by trade, or through experimentation. For
the very few who could afford it, cloth-of-gold (lamé) was almost certainly available, possibly as early as the 7th
[83]
century BC.
Throughout the Regal, Republican and Imperial eras, the fastest, most expensive and sought-after dye was
imported Tyrian purple, obtained from the murex. Its hues varied according to processing, the most desirable being
[84]
a dark "dried-blood" red. Purple had long-standing associations with regality, and with the divine. It was thought
to sanctify and protect those who wore it, and was officially reserved for the border of the toga praetexta, and for the
solid purple toga picta. Edicts against its wider, more casual use were not particularly successful; it was also used
[85][86]
by wealthy women and, somewhat more disreputably, by some men. Verres is reported as wearing a
purple pallium at all-night parties, not long before his trial, disgrace and exile for corruption. For those who could not
[87]
afford genuine Tyrian purple, counterfeits were available. The expansion of trade networks during the early
Imperial era brought the dark blue of Indian indigo to Rome; though desirable and costly in itself, it also served as a
[88]
base for fake Tyrian purple.
For red hues, madder was one of the cheapest dyes available. Saffron yellow was much admired, but costly. It was
a deep, bright and fiery yellow-orange, and was associated with purity and constancy. It was used for
the flammeum (meaning "flame-coloured"), a veil used by Roman brides and the Flamenica Dialis, who was virgin at
[89]
marriage and forbidden to divorce.
Specific colours were associated with chariot-racing teams and their supporters. The oldest of these were the Reds
and the Whites. During the later Imperial era, the Blues and Greens dominated chariot-racing and, up to a point, civil
and political life in Rome and Constantinople. Although the teams and their supporters had official recognition, their
[90]
rivalry sometimes spilled into civil violence and riot, both within and beyond the circus venue.