temples. Purple, pale green and white, richly embroidered, are favourite colours in the dresses represented on the painted tombs.
 |
| Redrawn from photo (Mansell). |
| Fig. 20. |
The chief article of male dress was called the tebenna. We are told by ancient writers that the toga praetexta, with its purple border (περιπόρφυρος τήβεννα), as worn by Roman magistrates and priests, had been derived from the Etruscans (Pliny, N.H. ix. 63, “praetextae apud Etruscos originem invenere”); and the famous statue of the orator in Florence (Plate, fig. 22), an Etruscan work of the 3rd century B.C., represents a man clothed in this garment, which will be described below. Under the tebenna, or toga, which was necessary only for public appearance, the Etruscans wore a short tunic similar to the Greek chiton. For workmen and others of inferior occupation this appears to have been the only dress. Youths, when engaged in horsemanship and other exercises, wore a chlamys round the shoulders, which, however, was semicircular in cut, and was fastened on the breast by buttons and a loop, or tied in a knot, whereas the Greek chlamys was oblong and fastened on the shoulder by a brooch. On public or festal occasions the Etruscan noble wore, besides the tebenna, a bulla, or necklace of bullae, and a wreath, corona Etrusca. The bulla was a circular gold locket containing a charm of some kind against evil.[1] On the later sarcophagi the male figures wear not only a wreath or corona proper, but also a garland of flowers hung round the neck. The male head-dress was the galerus, a hat of leather, said to have been worn by the Lucumos in early times, or the apex, a pointed hat corresponding to the tutulus worn by females. The fashion of shoes worn by Roman senators was said to have been derived from Etruria. Etruscan shoes were prized both in Greece and in Rome.
Helbig’s articles, referred to at the close of the next section, should be consulted. J. Martha, L’Art étrusque, gives reproductions of the most important monuments. See also the works on Etruscan civilization named in the art. Etruria.
v. Roman Costume.—We are told that the toga, the national garment of the Romans, was originally worn both by men and by women; and though the female dress of the Romans was in historical times essentially the same as that of the Greeks, young girls still wore the toga on festal occasions, as we see from the reliefs of the Ara Pacis Augustae. In early times no undergarment was worn save a loin-cloth (subligaculum), which seems to be a survival of early Mediterranean fashions (see above, sect. Aegean Costume), and candidates for office in historical times appeared in the toga and subligaculum only. In this period, however, the tunica, corresponding to the Greek chiton, was universally worn in ordinary life, and the toga gradually became a full-dress garment which was only worn over the tunica on important social occasions; Juvenal (iii. 171) tells us that in a great part of Italy no one wore the toga except at his burial!
The toga was a piece of woollen cloth in the form of a segment of a circle,[2] the chord of the arc being about three times the height of the wearer, and the height a little less than one-half of this length. One end of this garment was thrown over the left shoulder and allowed to hang down in front; the remainder was drawn round the body and disposed in various ways. In the cinctus Gabinus, which was the fashion adopted in early times when fighting was in prospect, the end of the toga was drawn tightly round the waist and formed a kind of girdle; this was retained in certain official functions, such as the opening of the temple of Janus in historical times.[3] In time of peace the toga was wrapped round the right arm, leaving the hand only free, much after the fashion of the Greek himation, and thrown over the left shoulder so as to fall down behind (see Roman Art, Plate II., fig. 11, male figure to r.); or, if greater freedom were desired, it was passed under the right arm-pit. In religious ceremonies, the magistrate presiding at the sacrifice drew the back of the toga over his head; see in the same illustration the priest with veiled head, ritu Gabino, who also wears his toga with the cinctus Gabinus. Towards the end of the republic a new fashion was generally adopted. A considerable length of the toga was allowed to hang from the left shoulder; the remainder was passed round the body so as to rise like a baldric (balteus) from the right hip to the left shoulder, being folded over in front (the fold was called sinus), then brought round the back of the neck so that the end fell over the right shoulder; the hanging portion on the left side was drawn up through the sinus, and bulged out in an umbo (Plate, fig. 24). Later still, this portion, instead of forming a bundle of folds in the centre, was carefully folded over and carried up over the left shoulder, and in course of time these folds were carefully arranged in several thicknesses resembling boards, tabulae, hence called contabulatio (Plate, fig. 23). Yet another fashion was that adopted by the flamens, who passed the right-hand portion of the toga over the right shoulder and arm and back over the left shoulder, so that it hung down in a curve over the front of the body; the upper edge was folded over. The flamens are thus represented on the Ara Pacis Augustae.
The plain white toga (toga pura) was the ordinary dress of the citizen, but the toga praetexta, which had a border of purple, was worn by boys till the age of sixteen, when they assumed the plain toga virilis, and also by curule magistrates and some priests. A purple toga with embroidery (toga picta) was worn together with a gold-embroidered tunic (tunica palmata) by generals while celebrating a triumph and by magistrates presiding at games; it represented the traditional dress of the kings and was adopted by Julius Caesar as a permanent costume. The emperors wore it on occasions of special importance. The trabea, which in historical times was worn by the consuls when opening the temple of Janus, by the equites at their yearly inspection and on some other occasions, and by the Salii at their ritual dances, and had (according to tradition) formed the original costume of the augurs and flamens (who afterwards adopted the toga praetexta), was apparently a toga smaller in size than the ordinary civil dress, decorated with scarlet stripes (trabes). It was fastened with brooches (fibulae) and appears to have been worn by the equites, e.g. at the funeral ceremony of Antoninus Pius.
The tunica was precisely like the Greek chiton; that of the senator had two broad stripes of purple (latus clavus) down the centre, that of the knight two narrow stripes (angustus clavus). A woollen undergarment (subucula) was often worn by men; the women’s under-tunic was of linen (indusium). When women gave up the use of the toga, they adopted the stola, a long tunic with a border of a darker colour (instita) along the lower edge; the neck also sometimes had a border (patagium). The tunic with long sleeves (tunica manicata) was a later fashion. Over this the ricinium or rica, a shawl covering the head and shoulders, was worn in early times, and retained by certain priestesses as an official costume;[4] but it gave place to the palla, the equivalent of the Greek himation, and the dress of the Roman women henceforward differed in no essential particular from that of the Greek.
- ↑ It was also worn by Roman children.
- ↑ This seems more likely than the alternative view that it was of elliptical shape and was folded before being put on. Quintilian (xi. 3, 139. a locus classicus for the toga) speaks of it as “rotunda”; but this need not be taken literally.
- ↑ The Lares are thus represented in art.
- ↑ The suffibulum of the vestals, which was fastened on the breast by a brooch (fibula), was a garment of this sort. The marriage-veil (flammeum) derived its name from its bright orange colour. The palliolum was a kind of mantilla.
