Man's Toga

Lady in Stola

Stola and Palla

The Roman's ingenuity for 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. Wool was the primary material of choice and easy availablity, although to some extent linen and silk as early as the 4th century BC 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 with either knots or brooches/pins.
As undergarments Romans would wear a simple 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 (cinctus referred usually to a garment tied or bound around the body by a belt or rope of some sort).
Women would also wear a simple brassière in the form of a band, tightly tied around her body.
In the early days the toga was worn directly on the naked body, then later a simple tunic was added underneath, tied at the waist with a belt.
Some Romans either due to tradition or to some form of asceticism would continue to wear the toga without a tunic underneath for a good while but the prevailing custom was several layers of clothing with the tunic being on the inside and quite possibly several tunics depending on the weather.
 

Priest's Toga

The Palla Cloak

The male tunic/tunica reached to the knees, while the female one was longer, some of them reaching as far as the ground. The warmth of summer may mean that one tunic was enough, while 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 was percieved as an effeminate form of dress to have sleeved tunics past the barest reach of the upper arm until the third century AD when long sleeved tunics became socially acceptible for men as well as women.

The richest form of the long-sleeved tunic, the dalmatica, in many cases replaced the toga altogether. In the same age that this transition took place, long, close-fitting trousers were widely worn.  But this was way down the road yet for this change to take place.

A purple stripe worn on the tunic was called a clavus and indicated membership to a particular order:
- the latus clavus (or laticlavium) denoted senators.
- 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.
 
 

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 known 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.

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 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.