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SOCIAL CLASS AND PUBLIC DISPLAY
Social Classes in the Late Republic
Rome was a highly hierarchial and class-conscious society, but there was the possibility
of mobility between most classes (indicated in the diagram above by dotted lines)
because by the second century BCE class was no longer determined solely by birth. The
classes described below superseded the old patrician/plebeian distinction, though certain
elements of dress and religious positions and rituals were still reserved for patricians.
There was a large gulf between the wealthy upper classes (the senatorial and equestrian
classes, shown on the pediment of the temple above), and the poorer lower classes,
though it was still possible—although quite difficult—to move upwards by acquiring
sufficient wealth.
Upper Classes

Senatorial class (senatores): The basis for this class was political. It included all
men who served in the Senate, and by extension their families. This class was

dominated by the nobles (nobiles), families whose ancestors included at least one
consul (earlier the qualification had been a curule magistracy, i.e. curule aedile
and up). The first man in his family to be elected consul, thus qualifying his
family for noble status, was called a “new man” (novus homo). Senators had to
prove that they had property worth at least 1,000,000 sesterces; there was no
salary attached to service in the Senate, and senators were prohibited from
engaging personally in nonagricultural business, trade or public contracts. Men of
the senatorial class wore the tunic with broad stripes (laticlavi).
Equestrian class (equites): The basis for this class was economic. A man could
be formally enrolled in the equestrian order if he could prove that he possessed a
stable minimum amount of wealth (property worth at least 400,000 sesterces); by
extension his family members were also considered equestrians. However, if an
equestrian was elected to a magistracy and entered the Senate, he moved up to the
senatorial class; this was not particularly easy or frequent. Equestrians were
primarily involved in the types of business prohibited to senators. Equestrians
wore the tunic with narrow stripes (angusti clavi).
Women: Although membership in these classes was dominated by the same families
over many generations, the classes themselves were defined according to male activities
rather than birth. Women's place in these classes was therefore somewhat problematic.
However, there came to be a customary acceptance that women belonged to the social
class of their fathers and then of their husbands, although the women had no special dress
that distinguished their status. This female participation in social status began to
crystallize and formalize under Augustus, who explicitly included the daughters,
granddaughters, and great-granddaughters of senators in his law prohibiting members of
the senatorial class from contracting legal marriages with freedpeople.
Belonging to one of these upper classes had many significant consequences for Romans
besides prestige, for social class determined one's economic and political opportunities,
as well as legal rights, benefits and penalties. Rome had nothing comparable to our
middle class; the gulf between these two upper classes and the much larger lower classes
was immense. However, as long as one was a freeborn Roman citizen there was at least a
slight possibility of moving into the equestrian class through the acquisition of wealth.
Entry into the senatorial class, even for wealthy equestrians, was extremely difficult,
since for centuries a small number of elite families had monopolized this class.
Lower Classes


Commons (plebs or vulgus): all other freeborn Roman citizens. The special
mark of dress for citizen males was the toga. All Roman citizens had conubium,
the right to contract a legal marriage with another Roman citizen and beget
legitimate children who were themselves Roman citizens.
Latins (Latini): freeborn residents of Italy (until 89 BCE, when they were all
granted full citizenship) and of certain other Roman municipalities who had some



legal rights but were not full Roman citizens. Former slaves who had been
informally freed by Roman citizens were a special category, “Junian Latins.”
Foreigners (peregrini): all other freeborn men and women who lived in Roman
territories. In 212 CE most freeborn people living within the Roman empire were
granted Roman citizenship.
Freedpeople (liberti or libertini): men and women who had been slaves but had
bought their freedom or been manumitted. They were not fully free because they
had various restrictions on their rights and owed certain duties to their former
masters, who now became their patrons, but they could become citizens if their
former masters were citizens and they had been formally manumitted; they were
not, however, eligible for public office. This was the one class it was not possible
to leave, though the class encompassed only one generation. The next generation,
their freeborn children, became full citizens (i.e., members of the commons,
though there was a social stigma attached to being a freedman's son) and could
even become equestrians if rich enough. Freedpeople had low social status, and
most were probably fairly poor, but it was possible for them to achieve some
success in a trade, and a few might even become wealthy. They had no special
distinction of dress, though their names indicated their status as freedpeople.
Slaves (servi): system of chattel slavery where human beings were born into
slavery or sold into slavery through war or piracy. Slaves were the property of
their owners by law, but by custom some slaves (especially urban, domestic
slaves) might be allowed their own savings (peculium) with which they might
later buy their freedom, or their masters could manumit them, so some mobility
into the previous class was possible. . Roman slavery was not racially based, and
slaves had no special distinction of dress, though slaves who had run away were
sometimes made to wear metal collars with inscriptions such as the following: “I
have run away. Capture me. When you have returned me to my master, Zoninus,
you will receive a reward.”
Women: Since the lower classes were not defined by male activities, there was no
problem with including women; female and male children were automatically members
of the social class of their parents (except for freedpeople, since only one generation
could be “freed”). If the parents were Roman citizens and had contracted a legal Roman
marriage, the children followed the social status of their father (i.e., they were Roman
citizens). However, in the case of Latins, foreigners, and slaves, children took the social
status of their mother, even if their father was a freeborn Roman citizen.
Social Classes in the Empire
During the Empire, most of these social classes continued, although after the grants of
full citizenship in 212 CE the foreigner and Latin classes (except for Junian Latins)
virtually disappeared. There was a new and tiny class at the very top of the social
pyramid, comprising the emperors and their families, indicated at the very top of the
above diagram. From the time of Augustus, the state was identified with the imperial
household (domus), and the women belonging to that household
naturally became associated with imperial status, imperial titles such
as Augusta and mater castrorum (“mother of the military camps”),
and even some forms of power, although these women (like all
Roman women) were formally excluded from political offices and the
emperors consistently stressed their domestic roles. There was also a
new category in the class of freedpeople, since freedmen of the
emperor were frequently given important bureaucratic posts, garnered
a great deal of wealth, and exercised considerable influence. Even
imperial slaves had a certain status. Thus the imperial household
created status anomalies in several of the social classes.
The nature of the senatorial class also changed during the Empire.
Although the Senate and magistrates continued to exist, they no
longer had any real political power, and their membership in this class
depended ultimately on the favor of the emperor. Nevertheless rank
retained its importance and became even more clearly marked and
formalized. In fact, elite women during the Empire also openly laid
claim to the social status associated with rank. By the end of the
second century CE, the word clarissimi and the feminine clarissimae
(“most distinguished”) became a kind of title denoting male and female members of the
senatorial class. In the third century CE, the law explicitly divided Romans into two
groups, the honestiores (“more honorable people,” including senators, equestrians,
municipal officials, and soldiers) and the humiliores (“more insignificant people,”
including all other groups). Legal penalties were significantly more harsh for the latter
group, and women as well as men were included in this division.
Public Display: Patronage
Public display of status was a very important feature of Roman society. It was not enough
to belong to one of the upper classes—status and rank had to be seen, to be publicly
recognized, in order to be meaningful. Hence the clothing of upper-class Roman males
had distinctive features which made their rank immediately visible to all around them (for
more information, see Roman Clothing).
The patron-client relationship was also a major instrument for the public display of status.
The Romans called mutual support between upper-class men of relative—though
competitive—equality amicitia, “friendship.” However, nearly every aspect of Roman
life was affected by the widespread system of patronage, based on publicly
acknowledged inequality between patron (patronus) and client (cliens); the prevalence
of patronage in Roman society was both a result and a cause of its hierarchical, statusconscious nature, as well as of the wide gulf between the upper and lower classes.
There were two types of patronage:


public—in which a patron became the protector and benefactor of a group (e.g., a
craftsman's guild, a religious association, even an entire city); such patronage
usually involved large gifts of money for public buildings, alimentary schemes,
public entertainment, etc., but could also involve various forms of protection and
advocacy.
personal—in which a patron aided an individual of lower status through money,
gifts, dinner invitations, help with lawsuits or business affairs, and other forms of
advice and protection. Patronage relationships might be maintained through
several generations of the same families.
Personal patronage extended to a man's or woman's freedpeople as well as to freeborn
individuals of a lower status, but the former involved legally binding duties and services
that the freedperson owed his or her patron in exchange for manumission. Public patrons
expected to receive public acknowledgment from their client groups in the form of
statues and inscriptions; personal patrons expected various forms of public displays of
deference such as the morning greeting (see below), accompanying the patron to the
Forum, etc. During the Republic, both types of patrons demanded political support from
their clients; this type of support became much less significant in the Empire, though
social support and deference remained very important. The patronage system made
possible the rich legacy of Roman literature, since wealthy patrons provided authors with
a livelihood and expected in return commemoration in the literature or at least enhanced
status as intellectuals. For example, Maecenas, a wealthy and influential equestrian
associated with the court of Augustus, was the patron of the poets Horace and Vergil.
An important daily public ritual associated with patronage was the salutatio, or morning
greeting, when clients flocked to the homes of their wealthy patrons. This was a formal
occasion, requiring both patron and client to wear togas; thus the difference in their
clothing would be another visual reminder of their difference in status. Clients clustered
in the atrium, the vestibule, and even the streets outside the patron's house, waiting to be
summoned individually to greet the patron in his tablinum; after the greeting they might
be required to accompany the patron to the Forum or lawcourts if he needed a public
entourage. Certainly there could be a paternalistic benevolence on the part of the patron
and loyalty on the part of the client, but nevertheless public display was at the heart of the
system. Patronage was the grease that kept the wheels of the Roman economy, society,
and politics turning.
Like other public aspects of Roman society, the rituals of patronage derived from the
male lifestyle. However, because upper-class women participated in the Roman status
structure and could manage their own wealth (including freeing slaves), they could serve
as both public and personal patrons. Inscriptions throughout Italy and the provinces
commemorate women as public patrons. The image at right, for example, shows a statue
of Eumachia, a priestess and wealthy woman who put up a large public building in the
Forum of Pompeii and was a public patron of the guild of the fullers, who erected this
statue in her building. The inscription reads, “The fullers [dedicated this statue] to
Eumachia, daughter of Lucius, public priestess.” In fact, participation in public patronage
seems to have been considered an honorable activity for a woman throughout Roman
history. Personal patronage was more problematic, however, especially
if a woman's clients were men, since it seemed to undermine the
concept of natural male superiority and created opportunities for
sexual innuendo. Nevertheless, elite Roman women certainly did serve
as patrons for men, especially during the Empire, when connections to
the imperial family gave women access and influence in the court.
Public Display: Imagines
An imago (plural, imagines) was a wax portrait mask of a man who
had held high political office (curule aedile and up). A funerary relief
dating from the end of the first century BCE (shown in this detail) is
flanked by imagines in order to document the social rank of the family.
Families of senatorial status prominently displayed the imagines of
their distinguished ancestors in the public part of their houses (the
atrium and the tablinum), where they could be seen and admired by all
clients and visitors. The imagines played an even more dramatic role in
these families' major public events, such as funerals, when
appropriately costumed actors wore the masks and impersonated these
distinguished ancestors during the funeral procession through the city
and the public eulogy in the Forum (the Greek historian Polybius,
writing in the second century BCE, provides a detailed description of such a funeral
which underlines the significance of the imagines). The more imagines a family could
display, the more status it had. Thus the denial of the right to make an imago of a
particular man and to display it publicly was a severe punishment that could be imposed
if he was convicted of a crime or proscribed; during the Empire, this was part of a
strategy called damnatio memoriae, the official “erasure of memory.”
In sculptures like the statue on the left, imagines are often portrayed as portrait busts. In
this statue a senator, clad in an elegantly draped toga, proudly carries the busts of his
grandfather (50-40 BCE) and his father (20-15 BCE); note that the head of the statue,
while ancient, does not belong to the body (another view of the statue). Originally
imagines could only be displayed at the funerals of male relatives, but by the end of the
Republic they were on display at the funerals of distinguished women as well. The lid of
this sarcophagus of an aristocratic woman during the Flavian period (c. 80 CE) shows the
deceased woman holding the bust of a distinguished ancestor.
Sources
Barbara F. McManus, The College of New Rochelle
[email protected]
July, 2003
http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/socialclass.html
Roman Dress
Dress of Rome
Toga
Stola and Palla
Stola and Palla
Priest's Toga
The Palla
Cloak
Roman ingenuity of solving problems of all sorts was not only to apply itself to
engineering and architecture, but also to the mundane matter of clothing.
First and foremost clothes needed to be simple. As for possible materials there was only
really one. Wool, although to some extent linen was also available.
The needles of the day were coarse and unwieldy. Hence any stitching or sewing
produced less than elegant garments. This of course also ruled out button holes, and
meant that any kind of clothing was held together wither with knows or safety pins.
As undergarments Romans would wear a simply loin cloth knotted on each side. This
garment appeared to have several names. The most probable explanation for this is that
they varied in shape.
They were the subligar, subligaculum, campestre, cinctus.
Women would also wear a simple brassière in the form of a band, tightly tied around her
body.
If in the early days the toga was worn directly on the naked body, then later a simple
tunic was added, tied at the waist with a belt.
There was some old families with ancient ancestry insisted on continuing the tradition of
dressing without a tunic, but their fellow Romans understood them to be old fashioned
relics of times by.
The Tunic
If the male tunic tunica reached to the knees, then the female one
was longer, some of them reaching as far as the ground. If the
warmth if summer meant that one tunic was enough, then the cold
of winter might call for several tunics to be worn on top of each
other. Emperor Augustus, who had a rather frail constitution, was
known to wear four tunics at a time. If the wealthy Romans would
wear a tunic under their toga, then for the poor, the slaves as well
as small children it was all they would wear.
Women would wear long sleeved tunics. For men it lasted until
the third century AD for long sleeved tunics to become socially
acceptible. Until then it was perceived as highly effeminate to be
wearing one.
The richest form of the long-sleeved tunic, the dalmatica, in many
cases replaced the toga altogether. In the same age, long, closefitting trousers were widely worn.
A purple stripe worn on the tunic was called a clavus and
Dalmatica Tunic indicated membership to a particular order:
For larger picture click - the latus clavus (or laticlavium) denoted senators.
on image above
- the angustus clavus was the mark of the equestrian order.
The tunica palmata was a tunic embroidered with palm leaves and
was worn by the triumphator during his triumph, or possibly at
other very exceptional occasions.
How to dress in a toga
The Toga
The standard dress worn by Roman citizens was the toga for men and the stola for
women.
Basically it was a large blanket, draped over the body, leaving one arm free.
Through experiments historians have concluded that the vast blanket took the form of a
semi circle. It was along the straight edge the the purple stripe of a senator's toga
praetexta ran.
It was up to 5 1/2 metres long and at its widest point it will have been up to 2 metres
wide.
No doubt keeping such a cumbersome item of clothing on one's body, and looking
elegant, will have been fraught with practical problems as one moved about, sat down
and got up again.
It is also know that many politicians campaigning for public office would go as far as
whitening their toga with chalk.
At dinner parties and in private the toga was simply deemed to impractical and so on
such occasions it was often replaced by the synthesis, a sort of dressing gown.
However, at any public engagement the dignified toga was virtually obligatory, for
anyone who didn't want to be seen as a slave or a workman in Rome had to be seen in a
toga. The only exception for this was the festival of the saturnalia when everyone,
including the magistrates, left their toga at home.
Women's Dress
Stola and Palla
Lady in Stola
Stola and Palla
For larger picture click
on image above
For larger picture click
on image above
For larger picture click
on image above
The stola was as much the national costume for women as the toga was for men.
In early Rome women at first had worn the toga, dressing in the same fashion as the men.
But very soon female clothing had begun to differ.
The stola was, much like the toga a large blanket, except that it was rectangular in
shape.Draped around the body, it formed a long garment, reaching to the ground. A
purple stripe (institia) lined the edge of the garment.
In the third century AD this toga matronalis was, like the male toga, replaced by the
dalmatica.
As an overgarment women in the early days of the republic wore the ricinium, a simple
square cloak, covering the shoulders. But later the ricinium was replaced by the palla.
Cloaks
The Palla Cloak
For larger picture click
on image above
Cloaks and other overgarments helped protect the Roman against
bad weather. A variety are known, at times worn over the toga
itself, but more often replacing it.
The palla (or pallium) which was worn over the tunic or the
toga.
The lacerna was originally a military cloak, but during the
empire it begun to be extensively worn by the middle class. The
wealthier people tended to wear brightly coloured lacerna,
whereas the poor wore cheaper dull, dark ones.
The paenula was a very simple type of cloak, used especially as
protection against bad weather. It was put on by simply pulling
one's head through the central hole and was normally fitted with
a hood. They could be made of either leather (paenula scortae),
or very heavy felt (paenula gausapina).
The laena (also called duplex) was thick, round cloak which was
folded double at the shoulders and was generally of heavy
material, much like the military cloak, the sagum.
The poor wore short and dark laena, whereas the wealthy would
wear brightly coloured one to cover their shoulders at banquets
during the cold season.
The cucullus (meaning 'hood'), as well as the bardocullus,
birrus, and the caracalla, was a heavy hooded cloak. The
caracalla (caracalla talaris) in particular reached to feet. It is
especially famous as it lent its name to the emperor who still
today is known under his nickname 'Caracalla' for habitually
wearing the garment.
However, this heavy cloak should not be confused with the
female caracalla, which was a light, sleeveless linen wrap.
footwear
Roman footwear showed little distinction between male and female. One usually wore
sandals tied round the ankle with thin strips of leather.
There were three main types of footwear:
The calcei were the standard outdoor footwear for a Roman and formed part of the
national dress with the toga. It was a soft leather shoe, generally speaking a cross
between a shoe and a sandal.
Sandals (soleae or sandalia) were generally regarded as indoor footwear. It was as much
an outrage to be seen in public wearing sandals outside as it was to visit your host's
banquet in anything other. Hence a wealthy Roman would have a slave accompany to a
banquet, to carry his sandals, where he would change into them.
The third general type were simply slippers (socci), which were also meant for indoor
use.
There were of course other types of footwear. The pero was a simple piece of leather
wrapped around the foot, the caliga was the military sandal and the sculponea was a
wooden clog, worn only by poor peasants and slaves.
The Roman soldier's
military sandal, the caliga.
(Plural: caligae)
Beards and Hairstyles
The tradition of intricately groomed beards was quite common among the Greeks and
Etruscans (the principle cultural influences on the Romans). The Romans though until
300 BC remained pretty much ungroomed.
It was only with the introduction of the fashion of shaving during the age of Alexander
that the Greeks began to shave. This of course also happened in the so-called area of
Magna Graecia in southern Italy which was controlled by Greek colonies. From there the
fashion was introduced to the Romans. It finally took a firm hold in Rome in about the
third century BC. The great general Scipio Africanus is believed to have been the first to
have begun the fashion of shaving daily. During the third century BC many barbers from
the Greek parts of Sicily moved to Rome and opened shops.
Young men tended not to shave at first and it was seen as very fashionable to keep a
small, well-groomed beard (barbula). It was largely when the first grey hairs started
showing that the beard would be shaven off completely.
This fashion lasted for a long time until the reign of emperor Hadrian. Hadrian's face was
slightly disfigured, hence he grew a beard to hide the fact. Beard hence returned to
fashion, until the the reign of Constantine the Great who reversed the trend, with the men
of the empire remaining mostly clean-shaven.
As for Roman men's hairstyles, they tended all to keep their hair cut short. Some very
vain ones might have had their hair curled with curling irons, whilst being pampered for
hours at the barbers'', but they were a small minority. Under Marcus Aurelius the fashion
for shaving one's head clean was introduced. Whilst early Christians tended to have their
hair and beards cut short.
Women, in Rome, just as in any other civilization to this day, wore far more elaborate
hairstyles than their men.
Young women simply gathered their hair into a bun at the back of the neck, or coiled it
into a knot a the top of the head.
Married women's hairstyles were more complicated. At first, the women of early Rome
wore their hair in Etruscan fashion, keeping all of it tied up tightly with ribbons on the
very crown of the head (tutulus). Though this strange arrangement disappeared very soon,
though some priestesses still retained its use.
The age of the Flavian emperors (Vespasian, Titus and Domitian) is largely seen as the
age of the most flamboyant fashion in hairstyles. On of the styles used largely at court
had the hair arranged in several layers, falling to the face in an abundance of ringlets.
Such fashion in hairstyle required expert hairdressers, as well as false hair to be added to
create such a mass of hair.
False hair, wigs, hair lotions and dyes were all known to the Romans.
Much like today, many women had their hair bleached blonde. And to supply the demand
in blonde false hair, needed to complete the complicated hair styles, a flourishing trade in
blonde hair from blonde northern barbarians sprung up.
Byzantine Dress
Dress of Constantinople
Middle
Class
Middle Class
Nobleman
Noble Lady
http://www.roman-empire.net/society/soc-dress.html
Priest
Priest
ROMAN CLOTHING: WOMEN
Women cannot partake of magistracies, priesthoods, triumphs, badges of office, gifts, or
spoils of war; elegance, finery, and beautiful clothes are women's badges, in these they
find joy and take pride, this our forebears called the women's world. (Livy, History of
Rome 34.5)
In the above passage, Livy quotes a Roman tribune's argument for the repeal of the
Oppian Law, a wartime measure which curtailed the finery that upper-class Roman
women could display and which provoked the first recorded protest demonstration by
women, as aristocratic Roman matrons took to the streets in 195 BCE to urge repeal of
the law (click here for the context of this passage). As the tribune pointed out, high-class
Roman women did not have the same distinctions of clothing that immediately marked
out the status of their male counterparts; in fact the only certain distinction of dress
allowed to women was the stola, which indicated a woman's marital status, not her social
class or wealth. In addition, except for minor variations of color or fabric, women's
clothing styles were relatively simple and unchanging, so they had to emphasize
elaborate hairstyles and jewelry in order to stand out from other women.
Similar to Roman men, the basic item of clothing was the tunic (tunica), though women's
tunics were fuller and longer, usually extending to the feet. There were two basic styles
of tunic, both similar to tunics worn by Greek women.
THE PEPLOS
The peplos was made from two rectangular pieces of cloth partially sewn together on
both sides; the open sections at the top were then folded down in the front and back. The
woman pulled this garment over her head and fastened it at her shoulders with two large
pins, forming a sleeveless dress; she then tied a belt over or under the folds. This statue
shows a Roman woman wearing a peplos and holding a glass vial for perfume.
THE CHITON
The more common sleeved tunic worn by women was similar to the Greek chiton. Two
wide pieces of cloth were sewn together almost to the top, leaving just enough room for
armholes. The woman pulled this garment over her head and used several pins or buttons
to fasten it at intervals over her shoulders and arms, forming a dress with sleeves which
could be belted under the breasts, at the waist, or at the hips. The length of the sleeves
was determined by the width of the cloth. Statues clearly show the manner of fastening
the sleeves as well as various modes of draping and belting the tunic. Tunics could be
brightly colored or made of lightweight fabrics such as linen or silk, as in this wall
painting of a fashionable young woman pouring
perfume into a tiny container.
THE STOLA
At the time of her marriage, the Roman woman
donned the stola, a long, sleeveless tunic,
frequently if not always suspended at the shoulders
from short straps, which was worn on top of
another tunic. It is probable that the stola was
typically made of undyed wool. The stola was a
symbol of marriage, and by the late Republic all
women married according to Roman law were
entitled to wear it. Not all did, of course, since it
was not a particularly fashionable or flattering
garment, but wearing the stola was a way for a
woman to publicly proclaim her respectability and
adherence to tradition. Statues of the first empress
Livia, for example, prominently display her stola,
even this one whose head has been lost (a close-up
clearly shows the strap of her stola).
As the drawing at left shows, respectable women
also wore a long cloak, called a palla, over their
tunic and stola when they went outside. This was
rectangular in shape and was typically draped over
the left shoulder, under the right arm and back
across the body, carried by the left arm or thrown
back again over the left shoulder. The palla could
also be pulled up to cover the head, as shown in the above statue of Livia or in this
depiction of a matron whose elegantly draped palla has a fringe.
HAIRSTYLES:
Women relied mostly on elaborate hairstyles and jewelry rather than clothing to vary
their appearance (see hairstyle 1, hairstyle 2, hairstyle 3, and hairstyle 4). In fact, an
elaborate hairstyle is the only thing worn by this woman, who had herself sculpted as the
goddess Venus (I like to imagine that this sculptor had an ironic sense of humor, since the
contrast between her realistic portrait head and the prefab Venus-like body is so striking).
Some of these styles were influenced by coiffures adopted by empresses, as for example
the unusual hairstyle worn by Julia Domna during the latter half of the second century
CE:, shown in this coin and in the two views of her sculpted head below. In fact, some
lucky Roman girl of that period had a beautiful jointed ivory doll wearing a gold
necklace, bracelets, and anklets, with a hairdo imitating that of the empress. This doll also
proves that Barbie was not the first anatomically correct “fashion doll”! No doubt this
doll's owner dressed her in elegant clothes mimicing those worn by aristocratic women.
One of the most famous styles was worn by women during the period of the Flavian
emperors (Vespasian to Hadrian, 69-138 CE); this is the style that Juvenal mocks when
he describes the woman who appears tall from the front but quite the opposite from the
back (on this sarcophagus a woman with a Flavian hairstyle proudly displays the bust of
an important male in her family; note her stola as well). Numerous slaves skilled in the
arts of hairdressing and cosmetics were needed for these elaborate hairdos, as were
hairpins (shown here with a beautifully carved ivory box in which to store them), wigs,
and hair swatches. This hairpin made of bone is topped by the carved head of a woman
with an elaborate hairstyle, while this one bears an inscription and originally showed the
heads of a couple (the woman's head has broken off). Women also wore hairnets made of
finely woven gold wires; this gold hairnet from Rome mirrors the hairnet shown on this
Pompeian fresco portrait of a girl (often mistakenly labelled “Sappho”). Women also had
many creams, cosmetics, and perfumes; this cosmetic box belonging to a woman in
Pompeii was made of bronze and beautifully carved bone (wood portions have been
restored). cosmetics and hairstyling required mirrors, which were made of highly
polished bronze or silver in rectangular or round shapes. The most elaborate had handles
and relief carvings on the back, like this silver mirror depicting the myth of Phrixus
riding the ram with the golden fleece.
JEWELRY:
Fashionable upper-class women wore
considerable amounts of jewelry. One
design that persisted from a very early
period to late antiquity was the fibula, a
pin whose basic design resembled our
safety pin. It was a useful clothing
fastener and was often beautifully
decorated, as is the case with this
Etruscan gold fibula depicting a cat
stalking two unsuspecting birds. Since
Roman clothing was frequently pinned
rather than sewn, many fasteners were
beautifully decorated; this gold pin has
an amethyst cameo with a female bust,
and the large garnet in this pin has an
winged Victory intaglio carving. A
representative collection of jewelry
from the first to the third centuries CE
includes earrings, necklaces, pendants,
bracelets and rings of gold, gems
(garnets were especially popular), and
cameos (here is another collection of
Roman jewelry). Gold bracelets were
often fashioned in the form of snakes
(see another snake bracelet with carved
scales), and rings often had relief carvings, like this gold betrothal ring with a couple
clasping right hands, or intaglios, like this camel. A popular style of jewelry apparently
invented by the Romans was made of hollow, polished gold hemispheres fashioned into
necklaces, bracelets, and earrings. Pearls were particularly prized and costly; this
impressive gold necklace, found in Pompeii, is set with emeralds and large pearls. Silver
was used less frequently, as in this medallion with chain, this bracelet with a portrait of a
child, or this ring showing two snakes holding in their mouths a patera (a dish used in
religious ceremonies). This silver ring has an inscription (with letters in reverse for
stamping) that reads LIBERA VIVAS, “may you live free.” Cameo portraits were also
worn, as in this pendant depicting a married couple or in this striking gold pendant with
glass beads and plasma cameos of the faces of children. Gold coins (aurei) were often
made into jewelry: a gold ring with a coin of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, a pendant
with garnets and a coin of the emperor Caracalla, an armband with coins of Caracalla and
his wife Plautilla, and a belt made with coins of fourth-century CE emperors Constans to
Theodosius. The portrait of the woman at left is one of many so-called “mummy
portraits” dating from Egypt after it became a Roman province; these portraits, usually
depicting only the face and shoulders, present us with strikingly individualized faces of
varying ethnicities, Greco-Roman clothing, adornment, and hairstyles, combined with the
quintessentially Egyptian custom of mummification. We know that this woman was
named Isidora, since her name is painted in Greek on the wooden sarcophagus, and her
hairstyle dates to the period of the emperor Trajan, the beginning of the second century
CE.
http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/clothing2.html