Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
In literature and poetry, Romans were the gens togata ("togate race"), descended from a tough, virile, intrinsically noble peasantry of hard-working, toga-wearing men and women. The toga's origins are uncertain; it may have begun as a simple, practical work-garment and blanket for peasants and herdsmen.
Statue of the Emperor Tiberius showing a draped toga of the 1st century AD. The toga (/ ˈ t oʊ ɡ ə /, Classical Latin: [ˈt̪ɔ.ɡa]), a distinctive garment of Ancient Rome, was a roughly semicircular cloth, between 12 and 20 feet (3.7 and 6.1 m) in length, draped over the shoulders and around the body.
The toga candida, an especially whitened toga, was worn by political candidates. Prostitutes wore the toga muliebris, rather than the tunics worn by most women. The toga pulla was dark-colored and worn for mourning, while the toga purpurea, of purple-dyed wool, was worn in times of triumph and by the Roman emperor.
She was only symbolically called a togata (a woman in toga) since she was unfit to be a matron (as epitomized by the stola). [13] Female and male citizen children could wear a toga praetexta (a toga with purple border), but this usage should be kept apart from wearing the toga as an adult.
Originally the toga was worn by all Romans; free citizens were required to wear togas because only slaves and children wore tunics.By the 2nd century BC, however, it was worn over a tunic, and the tunic became the basic item of dress. Women wore an outer garment known as a stola, which was a long pleated dress similar to the Greek chitons.
Palla (garment) a long rectangular piece of cloth, folded in half lengthwise and used as a cloak by Roman women. Chitons; Togas a very long length of woolen fabric that Romans wrapped around themselves, draping it over the left shoulder and arm and leaving the right arm free. Himation an ancient Greek garment similar to the Roman toga.
The Ravenna mosaics show the men wearing what may be sandals with white socks, and soldiers wear sandals tied around the calf or strips of cloth wrapped round the leg to the calf. These probably went all the way to the toes (similar foot-wrappers are still worn by Russian other ranks).
The shape was rectangular instead of semi-circular, as with the traditional toga. [5] The garment dates to the 3rd century BC, [ 6 ] but the type of dress must be much older. [ 1 ] In Latin literature, the term palla is used ambiguously. [ 7 ]