65. The Type of Roman Garments.—How is it possible to mention Roman women and Roman weddings without thoughts also of Roman costume and personal adornment? Seldom, indeed, has there been or will there be an age in which fine wearing apparel, and jewelry, and elaborate hair dressing can occupy so great a place in the thoughts of both sexes as it does in this era of the Roman Empire.

Good clothes and fine rings are in fact so important that if you do not possess them, on many social occasions you must hire them. There were several guests at Statilia’s wedding who appeared in gala robes with handsome jewels to match. With them went attendants who passed for confidential freedmen; yet it was whispered they were actually the agents of costume purveyors charged to see that every hired banqueting gown and topaz-set ring was promptly returned.

Roman garments are like the Greek: they are usually wrapped on, they are not like those of a later age which must be put on. Pins, buckles, and brooches usually take the place of buttons. Sometimes, however, costumes of a different type can be met with in the cosmopolitan crowds in the fora. Occasionally are seen Persians and Parthians wearing tight-fitting leathern casings around their lower limbs, like the articles that another day will style “trousers”; and more frequently are met blond or red-headed Gauls wearing caracallæ, close-fitting garments with long sleeves, slit down in front and reaching to the knee.[33] Such dresses are, however, exceptional. Loose shawl-like apparel prevails in Rome just as with nearly all the classical Mediterranean peoples.

66. The Toga, the National Latin Garment.—But Roman tailors have never been servile imitators of Sparta or Athens. Long before Greek costumers became familiar visitors by the Tiber, the Latin folk had found their own national garment—the toga. Every true Roman is proud of the right to wear this distinctive garment, and its use is prohibited to non-Romans, however princely or wealthy. A group of ex-slaves has just come from the prætor, where their master has emancipated them—thereby making them Roman citizens. In a body they are flocking to the clothiers’ stalls whence they can emerge as arrogant togati—lawful members of the imperial race. An unfortunate senator has lately been condemned for malfeasance in office and sentenced to banishment. It is not the least of his penalty that he must also divest himself of his toga: it can never be worn by a degraded exile. Clients have to wear this gown de rigueur when they visit their patrons in the morning—he would feel insulted if they omitted it.

Anybody also having the least official business at the palace must wear the toga; and the reigning Hadrian has just issued an edict commanding all senators and equites to wear the garment on the city streets at all times except when returning from dinner parties; while the distinguished rhetorician Titus Castricius has lately delivered a public lecture,—probably by imperial request, on “the proper costume for senators walking about Rome,” urging obedience to the law. The toga in short occupies a place in Roman manners hardly equaled by any other garment in any other nation.

Nevertheless, many a client or nobleman, as he dons this mantle, inwardly curses the folly of the men of “the good old times” in selecting the toga as the national garment. It is very hot, very clumsy, very hard to drape around one’s self without expert assistance.

Everybody knows the story of old Cincinnatus, how when he was out plowing and the committee of Senators suddenly appeared to say, “You are named dictator; make haste to save the imperilled army”, would not receive them until his wife had run and fetched his toga and he was suitably clad. In his day, however, the toga was almost the only garment worn and was hardly more than a small-sized woolen shawl. Now one always wears a tunica as a house and undergarment, and the toga has been growing ever larger and more elaborate. Dandies still wear togas so huge as to justify Cicero’s sneer: “They wrap themselves in sails not in togas.” But even for decent citizens the garment is disagreeably complicated. The use thereof is one of the penalties for the splendid right to boast, “Civis Romanus sum!”

67. Varieties of Togas.—The normal toga is always of wool and is usually of a dull white, the natural color of the wool; but in the Republican days seekers for election to public office would have their togas bleached to a conspicuous snowy whiteness, and hence their name, Candidati—“extra-white” men. Boys wear the toga prætexta, a toga with an elaborately embroidered purple hem. When they put this off on reaching manhood (fourteen to sixteen) they proudly assume the pure white toga, inwardly hoping, however, that they can some day reappear in the prætexta—for it is also the official robe of the high “curule” magistrates.

More glorious still is the toga picta entirely of purple and with gold embroidery, which can be worn by great officials while they are presiding over public games, and which is used by the Emperors on all state occasions. Quite different, of course, is the gloomy toga pulla, dyed to some dark color, and worn as mourning or to excite sympathy in some threatened calamity; e.g. if one is the defendant in a dangerous lawsuit.

68. Draping the Toga.—The plain white toga, however, suffices in most cases for most Romans. Of course, there is a vast difference between the dirty shawls not without moth holes, which some of Calvus’s clients have thrown around them the morning we visit his mansion, and the garment which his special valet, Parmenio, drapes about him when presently the Senator announces, “I must visit the Forum.”

Parmenio has to be assisted by no less than three other slaves while he literally winds the soft white mass of fine Milesian wool around his master. When skillfully draped, the toga appears to be an easy and elegant garment, leaving the right arm at liberty, and flowing around the person in noble lines implying dignity and deliberation. Well can it be called “one of the handsomest dresses ever worn by man”; but who can tell the pains required to get the huge semi-circular fabric into shape.[34]

Every fold has to settle with precision; every corner has to trail to exactly the right length; and the whole has to be so adjusted that Calvus can walk easily without fear of dislocating his toga, although it is without brooches or other fastenings. When at last, however, all is ready, the results justify the effort. Its wearer appears every inch a Senator: one of the leaders of the arrogant imperial race.

69. The Tunica.—The toga has to be worn everywhere in public, but the instant he is back from the hot Forum, Calvus is more than glad to fling it off. Indoors he, with all other Romans, wears the tunica. The tunic is a comparatively new garment in Italy. In early Rome probably the toga was the only clothing worn at all except a simple undershirt or loin cloth. The tunic in fact resembles closely the Greek chiton,[35] and is made much the same for men and for women. It is a kind of long shirt fashioned by sewing two pieces of cloth together, with holes for the arms or with short sleeves, and secured around the waist by a girdle. Long sleeves (Gallic style) are not unknown but they are accounted very effeminate. Without the belt the tunic falls well down to the ankles, but it is easily shortened by drawing the cloth up through the girdle and letting it tumble around the waist in a loose fold.

In warm weather the tunic is often the only garment that a Roman wears indoors. In cold weather he will put a second tunic (or two or three extra, as did Augustus) under his outer one. Like the toga the tunic is ordinarily made of white wool, the finer the better, but, unlike the toga, if the wearer is of the nobility, the tunic is never plain. When the owner is an eques a narrow strip of purple (angusticlavia), if a senator a broad strip (laticlavia), runs down the entire length of the garment both behind and in front. This is the official token of his rank, that all men may reverence his nobility, and one of the chief tasks of a great man’s valets is to hang the toga so that the purple strips on the tunic will always peep out conspicuously from the undergarment.

70. Capes, Cloaks, and Gala Garments.—The toga and the tunic are the two standard male garments in peace times, but they do not meet every requirement. On festival days, unless the imperial edict is very strictly enforced, most of the younger citizens will be seen streaming to the theater or circus in the lacerna. This, at first, was merely a short sleeveless mantle of light stuff thrown over the toga to protect against dust or rain. Presently it was made into a more festive garment, usually of brilliantly dyed wool, and was substituted for the toga outright. There is a hood usually attached and it is convenient, therefore, to wear the lacerna if one is not anxious to be recognized on the streets; it is so very easy to conceal one’s face.

In bad weather, and with poor country people in general, however, the pænula is more useful. This is much like the lacerna, a sleeveless (“Shaker”) cloak or cape, also provided with a hood, but always made of coarse heavy material. Most travelers wear the pænula, and it is a common garment for the slaves.

Like the pænula in turn is a third type of swinging cloak, but usually cut shorter,—the sagum, issued to soldiers. Sometimes it is of rough material for the severest purposes, sometimes it is a truly elegant garment for officers, floating in bright colors over flashing armor. The generals wear a special sagum of conspicuous red, the paludamentum. The sagum is, in fact, so decidedly the military cloak that the phrase “changing the toga for the sagum” has become a regular way of saying “being suddenly called to arms.”

One can see many Oriental and Greek-style garments in Rome, but native gentlemen have only one other article of apparel that must be mentioned. Everybody ought to keep a gauzy and brilliantly dyed synthesis for indoor wear at formal dinner parties, to wear over the tunic. It can never be worn outdoors except during the jolly riot of the Saturnalia, but indoors it is light, comfortable, and a fine contrast to the heavy togas. Saffron, amethystine, and azure are the favorite colors, and at ultra-fashionable parties it is good form for a male guest to rise between courses and put on a new synthesis of a different hue, held ready by his slaves.

71. Garments of Women: the Stola and the Palla.—Calvus, of course, keeps many specimens of all these garments in his wardrobe. The average poor citizen gets along with a toga, a tunic or two, and probably a pænula. Gratia’s clothes chests and presses are inevitably more ample than her husband’s, but the garments of a Roman lady resemble those of a Greek—they are far more like the masculine garments than are those of women of a later age. Gratia really seldom wears any save three kinds of garments: her tunics, her stolæ, and her pallæ.

Roman ladies anxious about their figures cannot squeeze themselves with corsets, but sometimes they do wear bands of soft leather pressed tightly around their bodies. Then comes the tunic, extremely like the inner tunic worn by the men, but it fits the body rather more closely; sometimes it has no sleeves, and it falls only to the knee and it needs no belt. Over this single garment is the essential dress of the Roman matrona, her stola. It is decidedly more elaborate than the outer tunic of the men. In the main it is not sewn, but is held together by a whole series of clasps and pins—giving an admirable opportunity for the display of gem-set buckles. There is a girdle, passing high, above the waist; the many folds tumble to the feet, but at the very bottom there is an embroidered flounce or hem, and with noble women at least this flounce is always of purple as is the border around the neck.

Like the toga, the stola is an extremely ample garment, giving its owner a chance to display innumerable graceful folds; and like the toga, good taste requires that it should usually be of clear white. To wear the stola is the proud privilege of Roman matrons, and in it no woman of light character is permitted to flaunt herself.[36] Girls put on the stola immediately after their marriage, and even more than the toga it is a garment of grace, permitting beautiful poses of statuesque dignity.

Outdoors a Roman lady will wrap herself in her palla. This is merely a large shawl, although often with elaborate arrangement. Gratia’s maids usually throw one third of its length over her left shoulder, letting the end trail almost to her feet, while the remainder is carried behind the back and wound skilfully around the wearer, although if a head covering is needed, one can draw up some of the cloth and form a loose and convenient hood.

Every woman in Rome possesses a palla; and the wealthy, of course, own whole arsenals of them in every possible size, weight, material, color, and embroidery, suitable for all purposes from winter travel to snaring susceptible youths beside one in the theater.

72. Materials for Garments. Wool and Silk.—So much for the types of garments. Needless to say that their fabrics and details are infinite. Wool is still the standard material. Even now “in these degenerate days” the best Roman matrons keep the spindles and distaffs working with their maids in the peristylia, and make up a large part of all the coarser garments needed by the household. Calvus takes pride in wearing and exhibiting a really handsome toga and in telling his friends “my Gratia made that”; but various other senators can utter like boasts, their wives merely imitating such empresses as Livia, who wove all Augustus’s everyday garments.

On the great villa estates the slaves are kept from busy idleness in winter by weaving cloth, not merely for themselves, but for their masters’ families in the city. But such fabrics, ordinarily, are decidedly coarse. There are really fine woolens made in southern Italy, but the very best comes from the East. “Milesian wool” is a trade name in every market, though very likely much of it actually is from Tyre, Sidon, or Alexandria. A good deal of linen is woven up into comfortable house dresses. Enough cotton comes in from the Orient to make it no rarity for superior garments, but it is too scarce for any common use. What every Roman of fashion dotes upon, however, is silk.

Far away in the East is a half-mythical land, Serica or Seres. Hardly any European has ever penetrated there,[37] but caravan traders pass along small parcels of a wonderful material alleged to grow on trees. Garments made thereof are incomparably lovely; but the material is worth its full weight in gold or even more. As a result the stuff is spun up into the flimsiest and gauziest gala dresses imaginable, and these are often partly made of cotton. Seneca has written in disgust “We see silken garments, if indeed, they can be called ‘garments’ which neither afford protection to the body, nor concealment to modesty.” For all that women like Statilia and her mother will be miserable if they have not plenty of “Serician tissues” wherewith to float into the Amphitheater or Circus and dazzle their rivals in a city where, as complains Juvenal: “Everybody always dresses above his means.”

73. Styles of Arranging Garments. Fullers and Cleaners.—With garments so simple in their sewing as togas and stolas there is little call in Rome for exclusive tailoring establishments or for fashionable makers of “gowns.” Practically all purchased clothing, however costly, is “ready-made,” although the shifting styles in girding, arranging the folds, buckles, etc., are infinite. For example, there is a special arrangement of the toga in peculiarly ample folds known as the “Gabinian cincture,” and this form is practically required every time a man joins in an important sacrifice.

If, nevertheless, the dressmaker’s skill is simple, there is constant demand for that of the cleaner’s, whose art is brought to great perfection. The huge squares of fine woolen seem continually going to or coming from the fullers’ establishments. The fullers pass for peculiarly jovial, friendly people, and the “jolly fuller” is a stock character in comedy.

Soap is a Gallic invention and it is just coming into fairly common use. Garments are still cleansed, however, with “fuller’s meal,” a kind of alkaline earth. Wherever you go around the humbler parts of Rome you hear a monotonous song being trolled over and over, and coming usually from a pungently smelling establishment. It is the fullers’ tripudium (“three step”), sung as they tread out the clothes in the great vats all day long. After the direct cleaning, a fine garment has to be recarded to bring up the soft nap, then it is carefully smoothed in a large wooden press with powerful screws.[38] Every household can do its own laundry work, but in no later age will the “cleaner” reign with the supremacy which he enjoys in Rome. His justification comes when, at great public assemblies, thousands of togas and stolas veritably shine under the Italian sun like newly fallen snow.

74. Barber Shops. The Revived Wearing of Beards.—Rome, too, is a city of barbers. Their shops abound everywhere and are great places for lounging and gossip. Most men have their hair clipped quite short, although a good many dandies delight in wearing fringes or rows of short crisped curls (as did Nero) often reeking with pomatum. People who dislike appearing old sometimes use black hair dye; and not a few elderly senators are said to wear wigs.

The barber shops, however, have recently received a terrific blow; and loud is the lament of the entire profession shared in by all those private “house barbers” who care for the wealthy. Since not long after 300 B.C. Romans have been smooth shaven, beards ordinarily being counted the sign of rusticity or of poverty; although teachers of philosophy wore long whiskers as a kind of professional badge. The day when a youth shaved off his first beard was celebrated almost as elaborately as the day he assumed the pure white “manly” toga. But to general consternation the reigning Emperor Hadrian, in his passionate admiration for Periclean Athens, has astonished all Rome by appearing with a full beard. Of course, every courtier and government official has loyally imitated him. Of course, every senator and eques has with equal loyalty done likewise. Feminine protests have been utterly vain. Beards, sometimes closely trimmed, sometimes long and venerable, have blossomed on almost every manly chin across the entire Empire. Imperial Rome will henceforth continue bearded until the era of Constantine, nearly two hundred years, when the razor will suddenly resume its sway. Such is the power of Cæsarian example!

75. Fashions in Women’s Hairdressing. Hair Ornaments.—If the barbers are unhappy, their gentler rivals, the ornatrices, who dress the hair of ladies, still reign in full glory. No Roman girl dreams of cutting off her hair, but the modes of arranging it are, as says Ovid, “More numerous than the leaves on the oak or the bees on Mount Hybla.” Fashions come and go with astonishing rapidity, and we have seen how Gratia’s statue was devised so that a new coiffure could be substituted for the old (see p. 53).

As a rule young girls bind back their hair in simple coils or clusters of curls, but some of the styles permitted to them from the moment they become matrons defy easy description. The prevailing mode rather favors building up the hair in an elaborate semi-circular mound in front with ringlets and plaits behind; but many a lady appears with a perfect tower-like structure that would collapse instantly were it not an affair compacted with extreme art. Of course, such edifices put a premium on false hair, preferably blonde from Germany, or even on wigs. Auburn hair, however, is extremely fashionable, and many a lady buys the expensive “Batavian caustic” supposed to bleach to the proper shade. Even very modest women can rejoice in great treasure chests of hair ornaments, elaborate hair pins, and combs made of precious metal or fine boxwood, ivory, and tortoise shell; besides all kinds of snoods and wimples usually of scarlet, amethystine, or ivory. Noble dames will keep at least one diadem, a long band of golden chains set with as many pearls and jewels as possible. On simple social occasions they will wear their hair in a net of gold thread. As for the very wealthy, they have one simple and favorite method of displaying their riches—that of bidding their maids, almost every day, to sprinkle the whole coiffure liberally with pure gold dust.

76. Elaborate Toilets.—Needless to say, the toilet is, to ladies of fashion, a slow and serious business, consuming most of the morning.[39] Statilia’s mother, for example, who is now old enough to have to guard her complexion, has as her first duty that of suffering her maidens to peel off the thick layer of cosmetic paste smeared upon her face ere retiring. She complains that her husband is stingy because he will not let her imitate Poppæa (Nero’s Empress), who took a bath in asses’ milk every morning to improve her looks.

Such a lady, of course, requires two maids to dress her and to pile the masses of hair upon her head; the pair being supported and directed by an old freedwoman who “assists at the council,” skilfully improves and flatters, and who perhaps can do something to assuage the domina’s fury if the latter’s silver mirror reveals a misplaced curl, and she stabs the clumsy maid’s arm with a sharp hairpin, or even shrieks out in wrath “Bring in the whipper!”

Blessed with such “tiers and storys” upon their heads, Roman women seldom need anything else out-of-doors except a veil or hood in extreme heat or bad weather. There are no milliners’ shops along the Via Lata or Vicus Tuscus. The men likewise seldom bother about hats, and everybody on normal days goes about town bareheaded, although travelers have the hoods upon their pænulas. Workingmen, however, who are continually exposed to the weather, wear small conical felt hats—the pilei; and travelers who find hoods irksome can keep off the sun by a comfortable broad-brimmed hat, the petasus.

77. Sandals and Shoes.—Shoes, however, are more necessary and nobody but a slave goes barefooted around the streets. In the house nevertheless it is sufficient to wear very light and simple sandals, mere leather soles fastened to the foot with thongs; and even these are laid aside when you stretch out on the couch for meals. To “call for your sandals” is the same thing as “leaving the table.”

Outdoors one often puts on the calceus, which is practically like the shoe of other ages, although fastened not so much by lacings as by a complicated system of straps. Women’s shoes are much like men’s, although inevitably lighter and more often made of brightly colored leathers. High magistrates are proud to wear red “Patrician shoes” with an extra elaborate scheme of bands and an ivory ornament “C” conspicuous upon the outside of the ankle.[40] Ordinary senators wear red shoes without the “C”; and equites a kind of tall boot recalling the days when to be an eques really implied being a horseman. Soldiers naturally clatter about in hob-nailed caligæ, ponderous sandals with such heavy straps and thongs that they become practically marching boots. As for stockings, they are all but unknown in Rome.

78. The Mania for Jewels and Rings.—But what dandy and what fashionable woman is content to appear merely with the standard quantity of clothing? The mania for jewelry is inordinate. Teachers of oratory have to warn their pupils as did the great Quintilian that “the hand [of a good public speaker] should not be covered with rings, and especially these should not be set below the middle joint.” Exquisites of both sexes, in fact, often wear half a dozen rings at once; all with as fine jewels as possible, and with a separate “light” set of rings for summer, and a “heavy” set for winter.

The jewelry work is, of course, exquisite. In the best shops by the Campus Martius can be seen rings of magnificent chasing and carving, set with onyx, sard, banded agate, amethyst, ruby, and sapphire,[41]—some plain, some engraved, and all of a beauty which any later age can envy. Inevitably there are pendants, coronets, and innumerable brooches, and buckles every whit as fine.

In addition, every Roman of equestrian or senatorial rank will wear with pride one perfectly plain gold ring (like a later wedding ring) as the token of his own nobility, and as the memorial of a time when a simple gold ring was the sign of real wealth. Every person of consequence also will wear a special signet ring, often an intaglio cut with some mythological character. The impression of this frequently takes the place of a personal signature, and the illicit use of such a ring constitutes the gravest kind of forgery.

79. Pearls in Enormous Favor.—Time fails to speak of the beautiful cameos, intaglios, engraved medals, and huge engraved gems which are the triumphs of the lapidaries, and which many rich connoisseurs put in their collections; but one must not omit certain precious objects which Romans seem to prize above all others: pearls. The more pearls apparently that the fashionable can spangle upon shoes, dress, fingers, and (for women) upon the hair, the better. The great jewelers will say that they sell more pearls than all the ordinary gems put together.

The imperial councilors protest in vain at the ceaseless export of gold to India to pay for the unprofitable imports of pearls from Taprobane (Ceylon), but the mania for such gems continues. People still tell how Julius Cæsar gave to Servilia, the mother of Marcus Brutus, a single weight pearl worth six million sesterces ($240,000); or how the inordinately rich Lollia Paulina, one of Caligula’s overnumerous wives, appeared at a dinner party, with great pearls spangled over her unlovely person worth all together every whit of forty million sesterces ($1,600,000).[42] There are no such tantalizing collections as hers now in Rome, but many a lady of modest means has in her coffers a few pearls large and beautiful; and the cynics declare that in a crowd “the sight of a big pearl in a woman’s ear is better than a lictor to clear the way for her.”

80. Perfumes: Their Constant Use.—Nevertheless, something else is needful for a fine toilet beyond clothes, rings, and pearls, namely, perfumes. The old-line Italians were a coarse and hardy folk; and later the Orientals, whom slavery or self-interest has brought into Italy, have a truly barbaric love for powerful odors. Even modest women, therefore, of reputed good taste like Gratia, will appear in public charged with scents which another generation would find highly unwelcome.

There is no alcohol in which to carry perfumery. The odorous substances have to be dissolved in olive oil, making them at best greasy and liable to grow flat and obnoxious after a little exposure. But perfumery is practically indispensable. Men use it hardly less than do women. At fine banquets vials of perfumery are passed among the guests to pour over their heads and hands. The foppish youths who wave the hair on their heads, and render the rest of their bodies sleek and shiny with depilatories, simply reek with strong perfumery.

On almost every important street you can find the little shops, usually kept by women, where are sold scented powders, fragrant oils for bathers, and the precious bottles of gold, silver, glass, and alabaster for the unguents, as well as the standard perfumes themselves. Profitless it is to catalogue these last; Pliny the Elder has listed twenty-one standard varieties mostly named after favorite flowers (e.g. narcissus) or Oriental spices (cinnamon, etc.).[43] Every funeral demands its supply of myrrh; every sacrifice a quantity of Arabian frankincense. The perfume trade with the East is an important factor in Roman commerce, but very many of the popular unguents are compounded in Italy. The great city of Capua in Campania grows rich by the industry;[44] and the “perfumery interest” is one of the prime business elements in the economic life of the Empire. So much for the garments and ornaments which typical Romans put upon their persons. It is now right to ask concerning a more important matter still—what do they have for dinner?