Sumptuary Laws in the Roman Republic and Empire

Introduction: The Roman Republic and Roman Empire

The Roman Republic and the Roman Empire were both grandiose enterprises and both occupy a central place in world history. However, they differed in many significant ways while also sharing commonalities in social structure, dress customs, and the way society developed. The major difference between the two was that the Senate and the people held considerable power in the Republic, while the Emperor reigned supreme in the Roman Empire. While some people conflate the two, there is far more than meets the eye when it comes to Roman history.

The Roman Republic ran from approximately 500 BC to 30 BC. During this period, Roman rule expanded from the city of Rome to the broader Mediterranean world. Some of this expansion was accepted willingly by the acquired territories while other takeovers were achieved by force. The regions incorporated into the Republic included the northern parts of Africa, France, Greece, and Spain. The end of the Roman Republic came when the leader Octavian named himself Augustus and Emperor in 27 BC. The Republic itself began when the Etruscans were overthrown in roughly 509 BC.

The government of the Roman Republic serves as a loose basis for the government of the United States, though it must be recognized that a republic and a democracy are not the same thing. In a democracy, every citizen is expected to have an active role in government; this was simply not the case in the Roman Republic. The Republic maintained varying levels of citizenship. A "full citizen" could vote, could marry freeborn people, and could engage in commerce. However, some citizens were denied the right to vote while still enjoying other rights by virtue of their presence in the Republic (U.S. History, 2015).

There were even slaves within the Roman Republic. They were eventually freed and granted citizenship. In 212 AD, the Edict of Caracalla declared that all free people could vote, and all non-Roman allies of the Republic had gained citizenship as early as 90 BC. In the earlier Republic, however, the rich aristocracy — known as patricians — dominated its power structure. These patricians tended to hold the two highest offices in the Republic: the consulship. The consuls were elected by a group of aristocrats, which effectively excluded non-patricians, known as plebeians, from power. In general, plebeians had absolutely no say in Roman government, and while both men and women were considered citizens, only men could vote — a condition that was particularly pronounced in the earlier period of the Republic (U.S. History, 2015).

Over time, the separation between patricians and plebeians softened. The plebeians began to assert their own power by electing their own representatives, known as tribunes. The tribunes eventually gained enough authority to veto measures and laws passed by the Senate. There came a point when plebeians could even hold the position of consul, something previously reserved exclusively for patricians (U.S. History, 2015).

The Senate began with one hundred members but later expanded to three times that size. It was the most powerful governing body in Rome, especially after the kings were expelled. Senators came exclusively from the patrician class for a very long time, though this eventually shifted. They gathered in an ornate building called the Curia, located in the Roman Forum. Julius Caesar later built an even larger curia. In the latter days of the Republic, the Senate became the scene of bloody purges — Dictator Sulla had a large number of senators killed around 82 BC and simultaneously expanded Senate membership from 300 to 600. The Senate also had the practice of appointing a single person as dictator during wartime. Uniquely, the Roman Republic often extended the same rights and opportunities to people of conquered lands as to existing citizens (U.S. History, 2015).

The earlier years of the Republic were marked by the Punic Wars — a series of conflicts whose name derived from "the people of Carthage." After three Punic Wars, the Romans ended the struggle with a prolonged siege of Carthage that ended in the city being burned to the ground. Salt was reportedly spread around the city so that nothing would grow there again (U.S. History, 2015).

The transition to the Roman Empire was violent. Julius Caesar was assassinated in approximately 44 BCE, stabbed repeatedly by a group of conspirators. A bloody civil war followed. However, after this turbulent period involving figures such as Octavian and Marc Antony, there followed an era of relative peace running from 27 BC to approximately 180 AD. This period was known as the Pax Romana, or Roman Peace. Economic prosperity was high, and the Empire encircled the Mediterranean and Black Seas. The population of the Empire reached approximately 70 million people and encompassed territories including England, Morocco, and Iraq. Three hundred years later, however, the Roman Empire collapsed entirely (U.S. History, 2015).

Roman Clothing and Garments

Before examining the sumptuary laws themselves, it is useful to describe the articles of clothing worn in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire, and to identify who was permitted to wear them and why. Every Roman would typically wear two to three articles of clothing, not counting footwear. Roman dress was heavily influenced by contact with the Greeks and Etruscans. Despite the stark differences in status between men and women, the two sexes dressed in a surprisingly similar fashion. There were broadly two categories of garment:

Indutus — meaning "put on" — referred to garments that most modern people would consider underwear. Amictus — meaning "wrapped around" — referred to the outer garments (T&T, 2015).

The toga is perhaps the most famous Roman garment, though it was originally worn by women rather than men. It became one of the two primary garments worn by Romans, the other being the tunic. The toga was a loose woolen robe of semicircular form. It had no sleeves, was open from the waist upward, and was closed below the waist. It wrapped around the body under the right arm and draped over the left shoulder to hold it in place. Togas came in various forms depending on the wearer's status and the occasion, as described below. The tunic was a white woolen garment worn beneath the toga by those permitted to wear one. On men, the tunic fell to approximately the knee; on women, it extended to the feet. Individuals of a certain rank would adorn the tunic with a stripe of a particular color, which indicated their office or standing (T&T, 2015).

Romans initially did not wear trousers of any kind, including stockings or breeches. They sometimes wrapped their legs with pieces of cloth referred to as tibialia or feminalia depending on what part of the leg they covered. Eventually, however, trousers and breeches did appear. The primary foot covering was the calceus, which covered the whole foot and closely resembled modern shoes. As described in period sources:

"The chief coverings for the feet were the calceus, which covered the whole foot, somewhat like our shoes, and was tied above with a latchet or lace, and the solea, a slipper or sandal which covered only the sole of the foot, and was fastened on with leather thongs or strings. The shoes of the senators came up to the middle of their legs and had a golden or silver crescent on the top of the foot. The shoes of the soldiery were called caligae, sometimes shod with nails. Comedians wore the socci or slippers, and tragedians the cothurni" (T&T, 2015).

Additional sources expand on these garments. Much Roman clothing was made of wool, which is not easily sewn, and linen was also used — particularly high-quality linen from Spain, Syria, and Egypt. The needles of the day were described as "coarse and unwieldy" compared to modern equivalents. Because buttonholes could not easily be made, clothing was held together with fasteners such as brooches and clasps. Undergarments for men were loin cloths knotted on each side, known by various names including subligar, subligaculum, campestre, licium, and cinctus. Women would often wear a simple brassiere — a band tied snugly around or under the bust (Roman-Empire.net, 2015).

The standard dress for most Romans, including slaves, was the tunic alone. Differences in the tunic indicated social rank: senators wore the latus clavus (a broad purple stripe), while members of the equestrian order wore the angustus clavus. The most elaborate form of tunic was the dalmatica, which in the later years of the Roman Empire sometimes replaced the toga altogether. Around the same period, trousers entered Roman dress due to Germanic influence (Roman-Empire.net, 2015).

The toga could measure anywhere from two and a half to five and a half meters. During mourning, a special toga known as the toga pulla or toga sordida was worn. For formal occasions, those who normally wore a toga might instead wear a garment called a synthesis (Roman-Empire.net, 2015).

The stola was the characteristic outer garment of Roman women, and wealthier women might have theirs made of silk. An over-garment called the ricinium was later replaced by the palla, which was draped around the body similarly to a toga but was less bulky (Roman-Empire.net, 2015).

Children who did not wear togas wore simple belted tunics and also wore an amulet called a bulla. Boys typically removed the bulla and transitioned to adult dress at seventeen years of age (Roman-Empire.net, 2015).

Cloaks were also an important part of Roman dress. The sagum was worn by soldiers and officers. The pallium was worn over a tunic or toga and appears to have been a highly decorated outer garment associated with the wealthy. The lacerna began as a military cloak and eventually became worn by the middle class. The paenula was a simpler cloak for protection against weather. The paludamentum was worn exclusively by the commander in chief of a military unit. The laena (also known as the duplex) was later replaced by the sagum (Roman-Empire.net, 2015).

Sumptuary Laws: Overview and Purpose

With the clothing types described, the sumptuary laws can now be addressed in full. In essence, these laws dictated how people of different social stations should dress and what consequences would follow for noncompliance. They existed so that a person's status — whether measured in wealth or social rank — could be identified at a glance from their clothing. For example, only Roman citizens were permitted to wear togas; non-citizens were strictly barred from doing so.

The broader body of regulations was known as the Sumtuariae Leges. These were Roman laws passed to prevent excessive expenditure on banquets, clothing, and related displays of wealth. The Roman government was particularly sensitive to extravagance that exceeded what was considered appropriate for a person of a given standing. As described in period scholarship, "the clothing materials and choice of color was in part dependent upon status and wealth, but in the main by the Roman Sumptuary Laws. Public display of status was a very important feature of Roman society. The Romans required that their status and rank be immediately recognized in order to be meaningful. The clothing of wealthy and upper-class Roman males made their rank immediately visible in terms of the materials used, the style of clothing, and the color. The color and width of the bands, or stripes of color, on tunics were called the clavus. The clavus, together with its style and color, were instantly recognizable as an indication of office or rank" (T&T, 2015).

The specific rules were far-reaching. Among the most notable:

Women were permitted to wear no more than one ounce of gold on their clothing. The Emperor alone was permitted to wear the trabea, a toga that was entirely purple in color. Statues of the gods were also purple. Only augurs were permitted to wear a saffron toga. Only consuls at public festivals and equites during parades could wear a white garment with a purple stripe on the tunic. Senators and their sons (but not daughters) were entitled to the latus clavus — a broad purple stripe over the tunic. Roman citizens were permitted to wear the toga, and ordinary male citizens could wear the toga virilis upon reaching the age of seventeen. Young men under seventeen were allowed to wear the toga praetexta, a toga bordered in purple, which was also worn by magistrates at certain ceremonies. The toga picta or toga palmate, a toga with a gold border, was reserved for triumphant generals. Only Roman matrons — that is, married women — were permitted to wear the stola. Women accused of adultery or prostitution were forbidden from wearing the stola and were required instead to wear the togatae. Trousers were formally banned beginning in 423 AD, when Emperor Honorius declared them to be the garb of barbarians and thus beneath any Roman. Emperor Augustus similarly banned the wearing of dark-colored clothing in the media cavea of the theater (T&T, 2015).

Conclusion

There may have been some valid concern underlying the sumptuary laws of Rome. The character of those laws probably differed somewhat between the more representative rule of the Roman Republic and the autocratic structure of the Roman Empire that followed. However, looking at Roman history in its totality, the differences were less pronounced than they might first appear. The laws of both periods reveal a consistent preoccupation with maintaining a visible social order — one in which rank, wealth, and status were inscribed on the body through clothing, color, and material. Then as now, regulations often purport to serve one purpose while actually serving another: in the Roman case, the stated aim of curbing extravagance masked the deeper goal of preserving hierarchical power. The history of sumptuary law, from ancient Rome through medieval Europe and beyond, demonstrates that the impulse to regulate visible inequality through dress is as enduring as social inequality itself.

Works Cited

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