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The toga (, ), a distinctive garment of Ancient Rome, was a roughly semicircular cloth, between in length, draped over the shoulders and around the body. It was usually woven from white wool, and was worn over a tunic. In Roman historical tradition, it is said to have been the favored dress of Romulus, Rome's founder; it was also thought to have originally been worn by both sexes, and by the citizen-military. As Roman women gradually adopted the stola, the toga was recognized as formal wear for male Roman citizens.). Women found guilty of adultery and women engaged in prostitution might have provided the main exceptions to this rule..
The type of toga worn reflected a citizen's rank in the civil hierarchy. Various Roman law restricted its use to citizens, who were required to wear it for public festivals and civic duties.
From its probable beginnings as a simple, practical work-garment, the toga became more voluminous, complex, and costly, increasingly unsuited to anything but formal and ceremonial use. It was and is considered ancient Rome's "national costume"; as such, it had great symbolic value; however even among Romans, it was hard to put on, uncomfortable and challenging to wear correctly, and never truly popular. When circumstances allowed, those otherwise entitled or obliged to wear it opted for more comfortable, casual garments. It gradually fell out of use, firstly among citizens of the lower class, then those of the middle class. Eventually, it was worn only by the highest classes for ceremonial occasions.
In the wider context of classical Greco-Roman fashion, the Greek enkyklon (, "circular garment") was perhaps similar in shape to the Roman toga, but never acquired the same significance as a distinctive mark of citizenship.. The 2nd-century divination Artemidorus Daldianus in his Oneirocritica derived the toga's form and name from the Greek tebennos (τήβεννος), supposedly an Arcadian garment invented by and named after Temenus... Emilio Peruzzi claims that the toga was brought to Italy from Mycenaean Greece, its name based on Mycenaean Greek te-pa, referring to a heavy woollen garment or fabric.; .
Togas were relatively uniform in pattern and style but varied significantly in the quality and quantity of their fabric, and the marks of higher rank or office. The highest-status toga, the solidly purple, gold-embroidered toga picta could be worn only at particular ceremonies by the highest-ranking Roman magistrate. Tyrian purple was supposedly reserved for the toga picta, the border of the toga praetexta, and elements of the priestly dress worn by the inviolate Vestal Virgins. It was colour-fast, extremely expensive and the "most talked-about colour in Greco-Roman antiquity". Romans categorised it as a blood-red hue, which sanctified its wearer. The purple-bordered praetexta worn by freeborn youths acknowledged their vulnerability and sanctity in law. Once a boy came of age (usually at puberty) he adopted the plain white toga virilis; this meant that he was free to set up his own household, marry, and vote.On coming of age, he also gave his protective bulla into the care of the family Lares.; ; . Young girls who wore the praetexta on formal occasions put it aside at menarche or marriage, and adopted the stola.: A minority of young girls seem to have used the praetexta, perhaps because their parents embraced the self-conscious revivalism typified in Augustan legislation and mores. Even the whiteness of the toga virilis was subject to class distinction. Senatorial versions were expensively laundered to an exceptional, snowy white; those of lower ranking citizens were a duller shade, more cheaply laundered.
Citizenship carried specific privileges, rights and responsibilities.Respectable women, the sons of freeborn men, and provincials during the early empire could hold lesser forms of citizenship; they were protected by law but could not vote, or stand for public office. Citizenship could be inherited, granted, up or down-graded, and removed for specific offences. The formula togatorum ("list of toga-wearers") listed the various military obligations that Rome's socii were required to supply to Rome in times of war. Togati, "those who wear the toga", is not precisely equivalent to "Roman citizens", and may mean more broadly "Romanized".. In Roman territories, the toga was explicitly forbidden to non-citizens; to foreigners, freedmen, and slaves; to Roman exiles;Exiles were deprived of citizenship and the protection of Roman law. and to men of Infamia or shameful reputation; an individual's status should be discernable at a glance.. A freedman or foreigner might pose as a togate citizen, or a common citizen as an equestrian; such pretenders were sometimes ferreted out in the Roman census. Formal seating arrangements in public theatres and circuses reflected the dominance of Rome's togate elect. Senators sat at the very front, equites behind them, common citizens behind equites; and so on, through the non-togate mass of freedmen, foreigners, and slaves.Women probably sat or stood at the very back – apart from the sacred Vestals, who had their own box at the front. Imposters were sometimes detected and evicted from the equestrian seats..
Various anecdotes reflect the toga's symbolic value. In Livy's history of Rome, the patrician hero Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, retired from public life and clad (presumably) in tunic or loincloth, is ploughing his field when emissaries of the Roman Senate arrive, and ask him to put on his toga. His wife fetches it and he puts it on. Then he is told that he has been appointed Roman dictator. He promptly heads for Rome.. Donning the toga transforms Cincinnatus from rustic, sweaty ploughman – though a gentleman nevertheless, of impeccable stock and reputation – into Rome's leading politician, eager to serve his country; a top-quality Roman.. Rome's abundant public and private statuary reinforced the notion that all Rome's great men wore togas, and must always have done so..
Every male Roman citizen was entitled to wear some kind of toga – Martial refers to a lesser citizen's "small toga" and a poor man's "little toga" (both togula),. but the poorest probably had to make do with a shabby, patched-up toga, if he bothered at all.; throughout the empire, there is evidence that old clothing was recycled, repaired and handed down the social scale, from one owner to the next, until it fell to rags. Centonarii ("patch workers") made a living by sewing clothing and other items from recycled fabric patches. The cost of a new, simple hooded cloak, using far less material than a toga, might represent three fifths of an individual's annual minimum subsistence cost: see . Conversely, the costly, full-length toga seems to have been a rather awkward mark of distinction when worn by "the wrong sort". The poet Horace writes "of a rich ex-slave 'parading from end to end of the Via Sacra in a toga three yards long' to show off his new status and wealth.".
In the early 2nd century AD, the satirist Juvenal claimed that "in a great part of Italy, no-one wears the toga, except in death"; in Martial's rural idyll there is "never a lawsuit, the toga is scarce, the mind at ease"... Most citizens who owned a toga would have cherished it as a costly material object, and worn it when they must for special occasions. Family, friendships and alliances, and the gainful pursuit of wealth through business and trade would have been their major preoccupations, not the otium (cultured leisure) claimed as a right by the elite.: Contra Goldman's description of Roman clothing, including the toga, as "simple and elegant, practical and comfortable" in .. Rank, reputation and Romanitas were paramount, even in death, so almost invariably, a male citizen's memorial image showed him clad in his toga. He wore it at his funeral, and it probably served as his shroud..
Despite the overwhelming quantity of Roman togate portraits at every social level, and in every imaginable circumstance, at most times Rome's thoroughfares would have been crowded with citizens and non-citizens in a variety of colourful garments, with few togas in evidence. Only a higher-class Roman, a magistrate, would have had lictors to clear his way, and even then, wearing a toga was a challenge. The toga's apparent natural simplicity and "elegant, flowing lines" were the result of diligent practice and cultivation; to avoid an embarrassing disarrangement of its folds, its wearer had to walk with measured, stately gait, yet with virile purpose and energy. If he moved too slowly, he might seem aimless, "sluggish of mind" – or, worst of all, "womanly".. Vout (1996) suggests that the toga's most challenging qualities as garment fitted the Romans' view of themselves and their civilization. Like the empire itself, the peace that the toga came to represent had been earned through the extraordinary and unremitting collective efforts of its citizens, who could therefore claim "the time and dignity to dress in such a way"..
Martial and his friend Juvenal suffered the system as clients for years, and found the whole business demeaning. A client had to be at his patron's beck and call, to perform whatever "togate works" were required; and the patron might even expect to be addressed as " domine" (lord, or master); a citizen-client of the Equites, superior to all lesser mortals by virtue of rank and costume, might thus approach the shameful condition of dependent servitude. For a client whose patron was another's client, the potential for shame was still worse. Even as a satirical analogy, the equation of togate client and slave would have shocked those who cherished the toga as a symbol of personal dignity and auctoritas – a meaning underlined during the Saturnalia festival, when the toga was "very consciously put aside", in a ritualised, strictly limited inversion of the master-slave relationship.
Patrons were few, and most had to compete with their peers to attract the best, most useful clients. Clients were many, and those of least interest to the patron had to scrabble for notice among the "togate horde" ( turbae togatae). One in a dirty or patched toga would likely be subject to ridicule; or he might, if sufficiently dogged and persistent, secure a pittance of cash, or perhaps a dinner. When the patron left his house to conduct his business of the day at the law courts, forum or wherever else, escorted (if a magistrate) by his togate , his clients must form his retinue. Each togate client represented a potential vote:A citizen's voting power was directly proportionate to his rank, status and wealth. to impress his peers and inferiors, and stay ahead in the game, a patron should have as many high-quality clients as possible; or at least, he should seem to. Martial has one patron hire a herd ( grex) of fake clients in togas, then pawn his ring to pay for his evening meal.; .
The emperor Marcus Aurelius, rather than wear the "dress to which his rank entitled him" at his own salutationes, chose to wear a plain white citizen's toga instead; an act of modesty for any patron, unlike Caligula, who wore a triumphal toga picta or any other garment he chose, according to whim; or Nero, who caused considerable offence when he received visiting senators while dressed in a tunic embroidered with flowers, topped off with a muslin neckerchief..
To a great extent, the toga itself determined the orator's style of delivery: "we should not cover the shoulder and the whole of the throat, otherwise our dress will be unduly narrowed and will lose the impressive effect produced by breadth at the chest. The left arm should only be raised so far as to form a right angle at the elbow, while the edge of the toga should fall in equal lengths on either side." If, on the other hand, the "toga falls down at the beginning of our speech, or when we have only proceeded but a little way, the failure to replace it is a sign of indifference, or sloth, or sheer ignorance of the way in which clothes should be worn". By the time he had presented his case, the orator was likely to be hot and sweaty; but even this could be employed to good effect.Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, 11.3.131‒149.
Appian's history of Rome finds its strife-torn Late Republic tottering at the edge of chaos; most seem to dress as they like, not as they ought: "For now the Roman people are much mixed with foreigners, there is equal citizenship for freedmen, and slaves dress like their masters. With the exception of the Senators, free citizens and slaves wear the same costume.".
The Augustan Principate brought peace, and declared its intent as the restoration of true Republican order, morality and tradition.
Augustus was determined to bring back "the traditional style" (the toga). He ordered that any theater-goer in dark (or colored or dirty) clothing be sent to the back seats, traditionally reserved for those who had no toga; ordinary or common women, freedmen, low-class foreigners and slaves. He reserved the most honorable seats, front of house, for senators and equites; this was how it had always been, before the chaos of the civil wars; or rather, how it was supposed to have been. Infuriated by the sight of a darkly clad throng of men at a public meeting, he sarcastically quoted Virgil at them: " Romanos, rerum dominos, gentemque togatam" ("Romans, lords of the world and the toga-wearing people"), then ordered that in future, the ban anyone not wearing the toga from the Forum and its environs – Rome's "civic heart"..
During the reign of Augustus, the toga rasa was introduced, an ordinary toga for which the rough fibers were teased from the woven nap, then shaved back to a smoother, more comfortable finish. By Pliny's day (circa 70 AD), this was probably standard among the elite.. Pliny also describes a glossy, smooth, lightweight but dense fabric woven from poppy-stem fibers and flax, in use from at least the time of the Punic Wars. Although probably appropriate for a "summer toga", it was criticized for its improper luxuriance..
Higher-class female prostitutes ( Meretrix) and women divorced for adultery were denied the stola. Meretrices might have been expected or perhaps compelled, at least in public, to wear the "female toga" ( toga muliebris).. This use of the toga appears unique; all others categorized as Infamia were explicitly forbidden to wear it. In this context, modern sources understand the toga – or perhaps merely the description of particular women as togata – as an instrument of inversion and realignment; a respectable (thus stola-clad) woman should be demure, sexually passive, modest and obedient, morally impeccable. The archetypical meretrix of Roman literature dresses gaudily and provocatively. Edwards (1997) describes her as "antithetical to the Roman male citizen". An adulterous matron betrayed her family and reputation; and if found guilty, and divorced, the law forbade her remarriage to a Roman citizen. In the public gaze, she was aligned with the meretrix., citing Servius, In Aenidem, 1.281 and Nonius, 14.867L; for the former wearing of togas by women other than prostitutes and adulteresses. Some modern scholars doubt the "togate adulteress" as more than literary and social invective: cf .; . When worn by a woman in this later era, the toga would have been a "blatant display" of her "exclusion from the respectable Roman hierarchy". However, the view that a convicted adulteress ( moecha damnata) actually wore a toga in public has been challenged; Radicke believes that the only prostitutes who could be made to wear particular items of clothing were unfree, compelled by their owners or pimps to wear the relatively shorter, "skimpy", less costly toga exigua, which was more revealing, easily opened, and thus convenient to their profession.
Late republican practice and legal reform allowed the creation of standing armies, and opened a military career to any Roman citizen or freedman of good reputation.. A soldier who showed the requisite "disciplined ferocity" in battle and was held in esteem by his peers and superiors could be promoted to higher rank: a plebeian could achieve Equestrian order status.. Non-citizens and foreign-born auxiliaries given Honesta missio were usually granted citizenship, land or stipend, the right to wear the toga, and an obligation to the patron who had granted these honours; usually their senior officer. A dishonourable discharge meant infamia.. Colonies of retired veterans were scattered throughout the Empire. In literary stereotype, civilians are routinely bullied by burly soldiers, inclined to throw their weight around..
Though soldiers were citizens, Cicero typifies the former as " sagum wearing" and the latter as " togati". He employs the phrase cedant arma togae ("let arms yield to the toga"), meaning "may peace replace war", or "may military power yield to civilian power", in the context of his own uneasy alliance with Pompey. He intended it as metonym, linking his own "power to command" as consul ( Imperium togatus) with Pompey's as general ( imperator armatus); but it was interpreted as a request to step down. Cicero, having lost Pompey's ever-wavering support, was driven to exile.. In reality, arms rarely yielded to civilian power. During the early Roman Imperial era, members of the Praetorian Guard (the emperor's personal guard as "First Citizen", and a military force under his personal command), concealed their weapons under white, civilian-style togas when on duty in the city, offering the reassuring illusion that they represented a traditional Republican, civilian authority, rather than the military arm of an Imperial autocracy..
An officiant capite velato who needed free use of both hands to perform ritualas while plowing the sulcus primigenius undertaken at the founding of new Roman colonia employ the cinctus Gabinus (cinctus Gabinus) or "rite" (ritus Gabinus) which tied the toga back.. This style, later said to have been part of Etruscan priestly dress,Servius, note to Aeneid 7.612; Larissa Bonfante, "Ritual Dress," p. 185, and Fay Glinister, "Veiled and Unveiled: Uncovering Roman Influence in Hellenistic Italy," p. 197, both in Votives, Places, and Rituals in Etruscan Religion: Studies in Honor of Jean MacIntosh Turfa (Brill, 2009). was associated by the Romans with their early wars with nearby Gabii. and was thus used during Roman declarations of war.Servius, note to Aeneid 7.612; see also and .
Hand-woven cloth was slow and costly to produce, and compared to simpler forms of clothing, the toga used an extravagant amount of it. To minimise waste, the smaller, old-style forms of toga may have been woven as a single, seamless, selvedged piece; the later, larger versions may have been made from several pieces sewn together; size seems to have counted for a lot.. More cloth signified greater wealth and usually, though not invariably, higher rank. The purple-red border of the toga praetexta was woven onto the toga using a process known as "tablet weaving"; such applied borders are a feature of Etruscan dress..
Modern sources broadly agree that if made from a single piece of fabric, the toga of a high status Roman in the late Republic would have required a piece approximately in length; in the Imperial era, around , a third more than its predecessor, and in the late Imperial era around wide and up to in length for the most complex, pleated forms..
The sinus (literally, a bay or inlet) appears in the Imperial era as a loose over-fold, slung from beneath the left arm, downwards across the chest, then upwards to the right shoulder. Early examples were slender, but later forms were much fuller; the loop hangs at knee-length, suspended there by draping over the crook of the right arm.
The umbo (literally "knob") was a pouch of the toga's fabric pulled out over the balteus (the diagonal section of the toga across the chest) in imperial-era forms of the toga. Its added weight and friction would have helped (though not very effectively) secure the toga's fabric onto the left shoulder. As the toga developed, the umbo grew in size..
The most complex togas appear on high-quality portrait busts and imperial reliefs of the mid-to-late Empire, probably reserved for emperors and the highest civil officials. The so-called "banded" or "stacked" toga (Latinised as toga contabulata) appeared in the late 2nd century AD and was distinguished by its broad, smooth, slab-like panels or swathes of pleated material, more or less correspondent with umbo, sinus and balteus, or applied over the same. On statuary, one swathe of fabric rises from low between the legs, and is laid over the left shoulder; another more or less follows the upper edge of the sinus; yet another follows the lower edge of a more-or-less vestigial balteus then descends to the upper shin. As in other forms, the sinus itself is hung over the crook of the right arm.Modern reconstructions have employed applied panels of fabric, pins, and hidden stitches to achieve the effect; the underlying structure of the original remains unknown. If its full-length representations are accurate, it would have severely constrained its wearer's movements. Dressing in a toga contabulata would have taken some time, and specialist assistance. When not in use, it required careful storage in some form of press or hanger to keep it in shape. Such inconvenient features of the later toga are confirmed by Tertullian, who preferred the pallium.. High-status (consular or senatorial) images from the late 4th century show a further ornate variation, known as the "Broad Eastern Toga"; it hung to the mid-calf, was heavily embroidered, and was worn over two pallium-style undergarments, one of which had full length sleeves. Its sinus was draped over the left arm..
The toga nevertheless remained the formal costume of the Roman senatorial elite. A law issued by co-emperors Gratian, Valentinian II and Theodosius I in 382 AD (Codex Theodosianus 14.10.1) states that while senators in the city of Rome may wear the paenula in daily life, they must wear the toga when attending their official duties.. Failure to do so would result in the senator being stripped of rank and authority, and of the right to enter the Curia Julia.. Byzantine art show the highest functionaries of court, church and state in magnificently wrought, extravagantly exclusive court dress and priestly robes; some at least are thought to be versions of the Imperial toga.. In the West, the kings and aristocrats of new European kingdoms styled their dress after that of late military generals rather than the senatorial order, and the toga thus did not survive the end of centralized Roman governance..
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