The Toga and Roman Identity

257 Pages·2019·4.904 MB·English

by  Ursula Rothe

Th e Toga and Roman Identity
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ii
Th e Toga and Roman Identity
Ursula Rothe
iii
BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
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First published in Great Britain 2020

Copyright © Ursula Rothe, 2020

Ursula Rothe has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act, 1988, to be identifi ed as Author of this work.

For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. viii constitute an extension
of this copyright page.

Cover design: Terry Woodley
Cover image © Lararium, House of the Vettii, Pompeii.
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Contents
List of Figures vi
Acknowledgements viii
List of Abbreviations x
1 Introduction 1
2 Th e Toga: A Brief History 17
3 Th e Toga and the Roman Man 37
4 Th e Toga and Social Status 71
5 Th e Toga and Politics 101
6 Th e Toga in the Provinces 123
7 Th e Toga in Late Antiquity 147
Epilogue 159
Glossary 163
Notes 165
Bibliography 209
Index 235
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Figures
1.1 Relief panel on the western side of the Ara Pacis showing Aeneas
sacrifi cing 10
1.2 Detail of a mosaic from Hadrumetum showing Vergil and Muses 11
2.1 Detail of a wall painting in the Tomb of the Augurs, Tarquinia 18
2.2 Cloak 2 from Grave 89, Verucchio (top) and reconstruction (bottom) 19
2.3 How the toga was draped 27
2.4 Reverse of a silver d enarius of C. Minucius Augurinus from Rome 29
2.5 ‘Arringatore’ statue from Lake Trasimeno 29
2.6 Grave portrait of a Roman couple from the Via Statilia, Rome 30
2.7 Statue of the ‘Togatus Barberini’ from Rome 31
2.8 ‘Brothers’ sarcophagus’ 32
2.9 Detail of the forum frieze, Arch of Constantine, Rome 33
2.10 Statue of the ‘young magistrate’ from Rome 34
3.1 Statue of a mother and daughter from Rome 39
3.2 L ararium painting in the House of the Vettii, Pompeii 47
3.3 Fresco from the House of Julia Felix, Pompeii 53
3.4 Relief from Ç ukurba ğ (Nicomedia) showing part of
an adventus scene 61
4.1 Detail of the south frieze of the Ara Pacis 75
4.2 T ransvectio equitum scene on the base of a column of
Antoninus Pius 80
4.3 Funerary relief of a family, Rome 90
4.4 Funerary relief of a potter and his wife 98
5.1 Reverse of a bronze s estertius of Nero from Rome 115
5.2 Reverse of a gold a ureus of Trajan from Rome 117
5.3 Reverse of a bronze s estertius of Hadrian from Rome 119
6.1 Grave stele for M. Valerius Celerinus from Cologne 129
6.2 Grave stele for Apana and family from Prado de Arriba, Lugo 131
6.3 Igel Pillar in the village of Igel near Trier 134
6.4 Scenes from the south face of the Igel Pillar 135
6.5 Grave stele for Quartus, Licovia and family from Celje 137
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Figures vii
6.6 Detail of the base of a sarcophagus from Palmyra showing a
sacrifi cial scene 144
7.1 Consular diptych of Magnus(?) 152
7.2 Detail of the south- east face of the pedestal of Th eodosius’ obelisk,
Istanbul 155
7.3 Detail of a miniature showing Nicephorus III 158
E.1 Statue of Napoleon Bonaparte by Jé r ô me Maglioli in the Place- du-
Mar é chal-Foch, Ajaccio, Corsica 160
E.2 Mus é e de la Romanit é , Nîmes 161
Acknowledgements
Th is book is the end result of a conversation I had with a senior colleague several
years ago in which we shared our frustration about the lack of a comprehensive
cultural study of the toga that we could use in our work on Roman dress and
social history. Aft er a while, the colleague looked at me and said, ‘well, you’re just
going to have to write one, aren’t you?’ And so I did. As such, from its inception,
this book was the result not only of my own desire to place antiquity’s most
iconic garment into the limelight of scholarly discussion, but also of substantial
input from colleagues and friends to whom I am extremely grateful.
A large part of the research took place during a three- month stint as Hugh
Last Fellow at the British School at Rome in 2018, and I am truly thankful to the
BSR for giving me the opportunity to disappear into the blissful oblivion of
uninterrupted research in such a beautiful and productive environment. I am
especially grateful to the BSR staff – in particular Val Scott, Stefania Peterlini and
Christine Martin – for helping me fi nd materials and access collections. I am
also indebted to Lara Pucci, Janet Wade, Krešimir Vuković and all my fellow-
fellows at the BSR for allowing me to bounce my ideas off them, and for showing
such enthusiasm for my work that toga- spotting in the streets and museums of
Rome became a regular hobby of the cohort; many of the ideas presented in this
book only took shape through those interactions, and I can only hope that I was
able to contribute as much to their work as they did to mine. Whilst in Rome I
also benefi tted from working in the libraries of the DAI, the AAR, the Bibliotheca
Hertziana and the Koninklijk Nederlands Instituut: my sincere thanks to those
institutions and their invariably helpful staff .
Apart from my time in Rome, my work writing up the manuscript was greatly
helped by several extended periods of self- imposed exile abroad, and I am
grateful to Petros Diveris and Rachel Robertson for the use of their residences in
Astypalea and Paris for this purpose. It would be disingenuous of me not to also
thank the cats of the Ballo in Astypalea for keeping me sane through those long,
isolated days and nights on the island. (Cannello, Vivienne, Klikli – you know
who you are.)
Finally, and most importantly, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to
those various colleagues who read and commented on parts of this book or
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Acknowledgements ix
provided expert advice: Costas Panayotakis, Mary Harlow and Ortolf Harl,
Claire Holleran for a very useful conversation about buying togas, Jen Baird, Ted
Kaizer and Lucinda Dirven for their help with the section on Palmyra, Jonathan
Edmondson for his advice on the Quartus inscription, and Glenys Davies, Mark
Humphries and James Th orne for reading and providing copious and extremely
helpful comments on draft s of chapters. I am also grateful for the questions and
comments provided by the audiences of papers in which I presented sections of
this material, especially Elena Th eodorakopoulos, Hannah Cornwell and those
at the University of Birmingham who, in a truly enjoyable and fruitful post-
paper discussion, helped me to expand my ideas about the toga and status. I am
thankful also to the anonymous reviewers at Bloomsbury, through whose
diligence and insight many signifi cant improvements have been made to the
manuscript. Any errors remaining in it are, of course, my own.