Roman Women

by Alfred Brittain

While we are on the subject of the extraordinary fight of the women for the repeal of this sumptuary law, it will not be inappropriate to take a glance at the female dress of the time. There is ample evidence to show that the women of ancient Rome were as prone to changing fashions as are the ladies of our own day; but for several centuries the various parts of their attire remained very much the same, the varying style affecting chiefly the material and the quality. The costume of a Roman lady consisted of three principal garment?,--the under tunic, the stola, and the palla.

The under tunic was simply a sleeveless chemise, which was worn next to the body. Stays, of course, were utterly unknown to the ancients, as is shown by their statuary, which in these times affords us our only opportunity of knowing what a naturally developed female figure is like. A bosom band, or, as it was called, a strophium, made of leather, was frequently worn above the tunic.

The stola was a white garment with sleeves, which covered only the upper part of the arm; it was fastened above the shoulder with a clasp. The stola hung in large folds reaching to and covering the feet; around the bottom was sewn a broad flounce, called the instita. Above this instita was a purple band, which was the only color, other than white, ever used for the stola, except a colored stripe or sometimes gold around the neck. Among the Romans, the stola had a serious significance, beyond its use as an article of attire. Only matrons of unsullied reputation were permitted to wear it. Women of tarnished character were obliged to wear a dark-colored toga, somewhat similar to that of the men; we find Horace speaking of the togata,--in contradistinction to the matrons, and Tibullus writes of the prostitute with her toga.

The palla, the out-of-doors garment, was to the women what the toga was to the men. This was a large, white, and probably square, robe, or mantle,--later on, colors became fashionable,--and the complex manner of wearing it may best be understood by an examination of Roman statuary. The feet were protected by sandals in the house, and shoes for street or public wear; these were greatly ornamented. The shoes were of various colors, generally white, but frequently green or yellow, and fastened with red strings.

The Roman ladies, like those of modern times, exercised great care in the dressing and arranging of their hair; and it is not to be denied that they frequently sought, by artificial means, to rectify mistakes which they deemed nature had made in the selection of color. In the time of Juvenal, blonde seems to have had the preference. The ordinary style was to carry the hair in smooth braids to the back of the head and there fasten it in a knot, as usually seen in the statues. In ancient Rome the curling iron was no less an intimate and indispensable friend of the lady of fashion than it is at present; by this and other means, too intricate for explanation by the uninitiated, marvellous creations were produced. The satirist says: "Into so many tiers she forms her curls, so many stories high she builds her head; in front you will look upon an Andromache, behind she is a dwarf,--you would imagine her another person." History reveals no age in which attention to personal adornment was not such an intimate characteristic of female nature that women, when unendowed with remarkable beauty, have been able to refrain from unwisely seeking to attract notice by disfiguring themselves.

The Roman women wore ornaments in considerable profusion. These consisted principally of necklaces, arm bands, finger rings, and ear rings. Generally they were of gold, set with precious stones, and the workmanship was often of a most exquisite character. A necklace was found at Pompeii which was made of a band of plaited gold; on each half of the clasp there is a well-executed frog, and on the edges where the clasp joined were rubies, one of which still remains in its setting; suspended to the necklace are seventy-one small, artistically shaped pendants. Very many specimens of the jewelry worn by the women of ancient Rome are still in existence, and they indicate fine artistic taste on the part of the wearers, as well as great ability in design and execution on that of the makers.

On the dressing table of the fashionable Roman lady there appeared a wealth and a variety of cosmetics and costly essences in boxes and receptacles delicately formed of ivory and precious metals, as well as many other appliances for the toilet; so that her advantages in these respects were probably in no way inferior to those of her fair successors in modern times. An age was drawing near which, among many other examples of its monstrous luxuriousness, gave birth to efforts to enhance feminine attractiveness--efforts which doubtless were as futile as they were foolish.

The time, however, had already come when, notwithstanding that their manners were under the eye of such a censor as Cato, the women of Rome had entirely and forever abandoned their old simplicity of life. In the Epidicus of Plautus, written at about the time of the disturbance over the Oppian law, the matrons were represented on the stage as though decked out with valuable estates; the cost of a cloak was the price of a farm.

The new woman had begun to make her appearance in Rome. This proverbial phenomenon, so greatly talked of in our own time, is by no means a modern discovery. She is a principal and an inevitable accompaniment of progress in every age and race. She is either a natural evolution or a monstrosity, according to the social conditions of her time. When progress is normal and national development healthy, a more enlightened and more sanely independent type of woman is continually appearing; but so naturally and so quietly does she step into the higher position for which she has been enabled to prepare herself that her coming is without observation. On the other hand, where society is decadent, where abnormal growths are favored by the heat of unrestrained passions, and where volcanic revolutions in a nation may exalt characters which belong to the shades of inferiority to positions of high conspicuity, there appear feminine wonders upon earth; and men's hearts fail them for fear, as they await with consternation the things which are shortly to come to pass. Rome, during the latter years of the republican period, was in a condition favorable to the production of anything bizarre and phenomenal. The new wealth, the new learning, the new idleness, and the new vices were fit soil for the production of a new woman who would astonish the world for all time with her capacity for every excess of moral insanity.

We do not, however, mean to allege that with the greater privileges and increased freedom which entered into woman's life the old virtues and time-honored excellences entirely disappeared. As Cornelia graced with her learning and dignity the Rome of Cato's day, so did Cæcilia with her charity and her goodness the Rome of Cicero. That orator was undoubtedly prejudiced in her favor on account of the great kindness she showed to Roscius, his client; but he could not have eulogized this matron as he did, had not public opinion concurred with him in setting her up as a model for all other women. "An incomparable woman," her accomplished relations had no less honor conferred on them by her character than she received by their dignity. Thus an unbroken chain of noble-minded matrons may be traced through the darkest days of Rome's decadent morality. Nevertheless, though virtue did not cease to be exemplified by the few, or to be extolled by the writers, the growing depravity of the times made it constantly easier for unprincipled and impudent women to find their conduct accepted as the ordinary rule of life.