CHAP. 63. (39.)—WHEN PURPLE WAS FIRST USED AT ROME: WHEN THE LATICLAVE VESTMENT AND THE PRÆTEXTA WERE FIRST WORN.
I find that, from the very first, purple has been in use at Rome, but that Romulus employed it for the trabea.2694 As to the toga prætexta and the laticlave2695 vestment, it is a fact well ascertained, that Tullus Hostilius was the first king who made use of them, and that after the conquest of the Etruscans. Cornelius Nepos, who died in the reign of the late Emperor Augustus, has left the following remarks: “In the days of my youth,” says he, “the violet purple was in favour, a pound of which used to sell at one hundred denarii; and not long after, the Tarentine2696 red was all the fashion. This last was succeeded by the Tyrian dibapha,2697 which could not be bought for even one thousand denarii per pound. P. Lentulus Spinther, the curule ædile, was the first who used the dibapha for the prætexta, and he was greatly censured for it; whereas now-a-days,” says he, “who is there that does not have purple hangings2698 to his banqueting-couches, even?”
This Spinther was ædile in the consulship of Cicero, and in the year from the Building of the City, 691. “Dibapha” was the name given to textures that had been doubly dyed, and these were looked upon as a mighty piece of costly extravagance; while now, at the present day, nearly all the purple cloths that are reckoned of any account are dyed in a similar manner.