dyeing linen

[Graham Sumner]

I was talking to one of my natural dye friends today about the lack of green in Roman clothing and she mentioned that green tends to fade in art.

I have been told that green dye is difficult to detect when you are dealing with textiles that today are just brown rags. However some green textiles like complete tunics do survive from Egypt. There are some examples of green tunics which appear very bright, no evidence of fading, on mosaics and paintings there is just not a lot of them.

There was the green circus faction and again you do see images of green clothed charioteers which have clearly not faded in anyway, Green was Nero's favourite colour . Tertullian says that the green colour represented Mother Earth and Nero was known for his bad taste and effeminate dress sense so perhaps this might be an explanation for why it was not popular as a colour for males, other than charioteers and possibly as hunting dress.

Green is not always a fashionable colour even today. It does however compliment those with red hair, like Nero!

Nice tunic Paul. There is an example of a similar textile fragment from Vindolanda made from different colours of un-dyed wool. It is the sort of garment alluded to very briefly by Roman writers when they describe barbarian dress or if a Roman general has gone off the rails and gone native. We just do not know how common this would be in Roman armies and Roman art hardly shows it at all.

Yes that is the Optio in question. I bet your heart fluttered for a brief moment when you first saw the reconstruction!

Graham.

[Lepidina]

Green is not always a fashionable colours even today. It does however compliment those with red hair, like Nero!

Graham.

True. I, a blonde, look great in certain shades of green and horrible in others. As a costume designer, green is HORRIBLE to light on stage. Either the person or clothing will look good, rarely both. I once put a lime green pantsuit on stage and my lighting director nearly killed me but he managed to make both him and the actor look good.

Anyway, green with hunting and symbolizing the Earth might be a reason that there wasn't a lot of green. Is there any literary evidence that people wore certain colors for religious reasons? The only one I can think of is Jewish priests having murex purple on their robes.

[Crispvs]

Thanks Graham,

I wasn't really trying to suggest that my decidedly barbaric tunic (explained to the public as 'locally purchased') would be typcal of the type of fabric Romans might wear, but really meant it to demonstrate a range of shades which could all be considered to be found in undyed woollen garments, to demonstrate to those who might be reading this and did not already know, that 'undyed' does not necessarily mean 'off-white'.

Crispvs

[Jona Lendering]

Maybe Jona has some input.

Nope. I've no idea.

[John M McDermott]

He wears what appears to be a sagum. I thought sagums were a military item of clothing not worn by civilians. Certainly, he cannot be a slave with clavii?

Now who is being rigid!

A sagum is simply a rectangular cloak of which there are many types with many different names. It is very hard to distinguish them by artistic representations alone. The paenula cloak is worn by many military types but is also seen worn by civilians, The tunic worn hitched up at the waist is also seen worn by civilian workers as is the tunic with clavi. Servants (slaves) pouring drinks, serving food etc..wear tunics with clavi.

Poor people and poor slaves possibly did not wear anything better than rags.

A green tunic is rare and with an orange red cloak that might suggest some wealth perhaps on the owner of the estate represented in the mosaic who provided the clothes for his workers. On the other hand It could be a veteran or someone else. It is also common to suggest that the artist does not know what he is talking about! :wink:

Graham

I thought the purpose of the clavii was to show citizenship. It would seem then, it is a meaningless decoration, signifying nothing?

I have thought of the sagum as a "war cloak". There is a saying about it floating around: "In sagum est"? Apparently, it too signifies nothing in particular, just another garment?

[Lepidina]

I thought the purpose of the clavii was to show citizenship. It would seem then, it is a meaningless decoration, signifying nothing?

Nope. There are pictures of slaves or at least servants that are wearing tunics with clavi. There were rules about the size and color of clavi for certain classes but outside of that, I think almost anything went.

[Graham Sumner]

Hi John

I thought the purpose of the clavii was to show citizenship. It would seem then, it is a meaningless decoration, signifying nothing?

Members of the Senatorial class were supposed to have wide stripes roughly a fingers length in width and those of the Equestrian class stripes roughly a fingers width in width. However it is clear these rules were not followed and if you look at the tunic Martin has just reconstructed based on an original, shown in another thread, clearly that individual was wearing a tunic with clavi far bigger than what they were entitled too. It is just human nature.

I have thought of the sagum as a "war cloak". There is a saying about it floating around: "In sagum est"? Apparently, it too signifies nothing in particular, just another garment?

Roman sources say the Sagum was Gallic in origin so presumably the Romans would have called something like the Thorsberg cloak a Sagum. They adopted the design and It did become a popular military cloak and "putting on the Sagum' was seen as a term for going to war. It is nevertheless one of many rectangular cloaks. It was probably the weight, quality and colour or all three which distinguished it to the Romans from other cloaks at a particular time. The clothing changes all the time and sometimes new terminology comes in for old fashions. The 'Carracalla' for instance is really nothing more than a slightly longer Paenula. In the Greek speaking East, Roman garments are given Greek names just to confuse things further.

Graham.

[John M McDermott]

Members of the Senatorial class were supposed to have wide stripes roughly a fingers length in width and those of the Equestrian class stripes roughly a fingers width in width. However it is clear these rules were not followed and if you look at the tunic Martin has just reconstructed based on an original, shown in another thread, clearly that individual was wearing a tunic with clavi far bigger than what they were entitled too. It is just human nature.

Roman sources say the Sagum was Gallic in origin so presumably the Romans would have called something like the Thorsberg cloak a Sagum. They adopted the design and It did become a popular military cloak and "putting on the Sagum' was seen as a term for going to war. It is nevertheless one of many rectangular cloaks. It was probably the weight, quality and colour or all three which distinguished it to the Romans from other cloaks at a particular time. The clothing changes all the time and sometimes new terminology comes in for old fashions. The Carracalla for instance is really a slightly longer Paenula.

Well, neither comment directly addresses the question.

Did the clavii have any significance? If everyone, including slaves wore it at will, then it would seem logical to conclude that it was merely fashion, like the polka dot, and had no meaning whatsoever. This would seem to require more explanation, eg. perhaps it started that way, but changed in later periods. Otherwise, you're stuck with the conclusion that it was simply something stuck on a tunic with no thought of formality at all.

The same with the sagum. Was it really just a square piece of cloth? A square piece of cloth is a square piece of cloth at the end of the day. It follows then that trying to attach military significance to it is a waste of time? Why worry about sagums? They are, after all, just another square piece of cloth.

[Robert Vermaat]

Hi John,

Fist, a request - could you please adjust your quoting of messages of others? Quoting these in full is confusing and it takes up a lot of space. As a mod, i try to keep up.

The same with the sagum. Was it really just a square piece of cloth? A square piece of cloth is a square piece of cloth at the end of the day. It follows then that trying to attach military significance to it is a waste of time? Why worry about sagums? They are, after all, just another square piece of cloth.

Well, I recall that in this discussion it was you who made the connection between a sagum as a military piece of clothing.

[Crispvs]

John,

As Graham has already pointed out, the weight of the material may be what distinguished it from other cloaks. I am sure YOU can distinguish the difference between a piece of calico and a piece of canvas of the same dimensions, despite their both being made from cotton. I think the Romans were intelligent enough to tell the difference between two different weights of woollen cloth and it would not be unreasonable for them to have given them different names, just as today we are comfortable with different names for different weights or treatments of the same basic material.

Regarding significance or otherwise of clavi, have you stopped to consider the very real likelihood that many, if not the majority of slaves, may well have been dressed in their owners' cast offs?

In closing, can I echo Robert's comment about quoting? It has been exercising my patience too as I have been following this discussion. :wink:

Crispvs

[John M McDermott]

And yet, the questions still go unanswered. Why is there not the bravery on some person's part to step forward and say: Clavii meant nothing! Sagums were a square piece of cloth worn by anyone!

The question is begged over and over.

[Lepidina]

And yet, the questions still go unanswered. Why is there not the bravery on some person's part to step forward and say: Clavii meant nothing! Sagums were a square piece of cloth worn by anyone!

The question is begged over and over.

CLAVI MEANT NOTHING!!

There, I said it. :mrgreen:

[John M McDermott]

LepidinaCLAVI MEANT NOTHING!!

There, I said it.

And the Sagum? Come on.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Well, there is that mosaic with the pig herd, wearing clavii and a sagum......how much lower on the totum pole could you get?

[Lepidina]

And the Sagum? Come on.

I'm a civilian chick. I'll leave the bickering over military stuff to you guys. :mrgreen: