Jewelry of all kinds was indeed worn profusely by both sexes, and it was a common saying in ancient Greece, when a man was effeminate or voluptuous, that he ought to go to Lydia and have his ears pierced.
Before passing on to the dresses of Imperial Rome, it will not be out of place to consider the important question of how to clothe the personages of the New Testament.
I call this question an important one, because the New Testament is, par excellence, the great field for subjects of a high class, and in the present era of research and investigation, it cannot be a matter of indifference to the painter how the Founder of Christianity and his disciples were dressed.
The Mosaic laws strictly forbade any representation of living organisms. We have therefore nothing to guide us in our research, as we have for Egyptian, Assyrian, and Greek costume. The dress of the Jewish priests is tolerably minutely described in Leviticus, and is indeed almost identical with that worn at the present day; but we have no authority whatever for the ordinary dress of the Jews in the time of Tiberius.
The old masters almost invariably adopted some shade of red and blue for the dress of Christ, and the same colors were also generally reserved for the robes of the Virgin Mary.
This choice of colors seems to have originated somewhere about the sixth century, but it was not till much later that the Church adopted these colors so exclusively that the artist had no option in the matter. This traditional choice of colors became more and more binding as ages rolled on. It has lasted even to the present day, and few painters of religious subjects for church decoration would venture upon a departure from the time-honored red and blue.
The practice may have some advantages. In the first place, these colors (when in combination) have come to have a kind of sacred significance, and from being reserved for the highest personages of the New Testament, they serve the same purpose that was formerly fulfilled by the nimbus.
They attract the eye to the principal figure in the composition. Again, they are strong primary colors; their juxtaposition in a picture is unusual, and therefore likely to draw attention to the figure which is clothed in them.
The disadvantages are, first, the difficulty of harmonizing two such colors as red and blue (a difficulty enormously increased when there are several figures in the composition); and, secondly, the great improbability that our Saviour or the Virgin Mary ever were so attired.
In the very early ages of Christianity, we never find this red and blue.