Otherwise, Roman women’s clothing did not have the
same varieties and distinctions as those used to mark the
status of men. A higher-class woman depended on the ele-
gance, color, and luxury of her garments, her jewelry, and her
hairstyle to set her apart. Women’s sandals, normally made
of leather, had straps arranged in a variety of styles and at-
tached to soles of various heights and ranged from the sturdy,
simple styles of working women and slaves to the luxurious,
extravagantly decorated footwear of sophisticated Roman la-
dies. Women athletes or entertainers wore a sports costume
consisting of short pants and brassieres; this was probably the
underwear of women, which was usually not visible.
Babie s were swadd led i n st r ips of clot h or went na ked , de-
pending on weather and other circumstances. Children were
not distinguished by gender before they reached adolescence.
Until then, whether slave or freeborn, they all wore simple
narrow tunics and sandals. Both freeborn boys and girls wore
rounded togas. Over the tunic the boy wore the characteris-
tic toga praetexta, decorated with a purple-red stripe at the
border, which was meant as a good-luck charm to keep him
safe. For a boy, the formal rite of passage marking the change
from childhood to adulthood took place sometime between
his 15th and 17th year, at which time he laid aside his purple-
bordered toga and put on the plain white toga virilis of an
adult, full-fl edged Roman citizen.
Th e equivalent rite of passage for girls was the wedding.
As was the case with boys, a formal change of dress marked
a girl’s initiation into womanhood and her new status as a
married woman. Just as the boy laid aside his toga praetexta,
the girl put aside her dolls and toys and her toga before the
wedding. As in many cultures, the bride’s wedding costume
was traditional and symbolic. Th e night before the wedding,
she slept in a narrow, white tunic, like a boy’s, and wore a yel-
low hairnet, both of which she had woven herself. Her wed-
ding dress was tied with a square knot, the Hercules knot,
and her hair was dressed in a special, primitive style. It was
parted with a spear and twisted or braided on top of her head
in a kind of bun made up of six braids or coils. Her head was
then covered with a fl ame-colored, yellow veil and a wreath
of fl owers and herbs.
Roman culture, more than any, used dress to mark a per-
son’s status, rank, and wealth. Social roles were fl uid, and per-
haps for this reason they had to be visually recognizable. Th e
son of a freedman, or former slave, was a full-fl edged Roman
citizen, with all the rights and privileges of a freeborn citizen,
including wearing the toga. Th e color, decoration, and man-
ner of wearing a toga indicated various roles or ranks. A plain
toga distinguished an adult male from a boy, who needed
the magical protection of a purple-bordered toga praetexta.
Th is purple-bordered toga worn by a man, on the other hand,
meant that he held one of the highest important Roman of-
fi ces, a curule magistracy. Th e dark toga pulla was worn by
mourners. Th e priests pictured on the famous altar Ara Pacis
in Rome wore traditional leather hats with a peak or apex, and
their togas were draped in front in a semicircular shape. Th e
triumphal toga, purple in the early days and later decorated
with gold, became the imperial costume. Ritual gestures were
rigidly observed: when citizens carried out a religious ritual,
they covered their heads with their togas; another ritual ges-
ture involved wrapping the toga tightly around oneself.
Th e costume and hairstyle of the important public priest-
hood of the vestal virgins resembled those of brides; they
also covered their hair with veils and added woolen fi llets,
or ribbons. From the time of Augustus, a woman’s marital
status was visually marked by her stola. Th ere are literary
references indicating that the toga rather than the stola was
worn by prostitutes and adulteresses.THE AMERICAS
BY JULIA MARTA CLAPP
Because it was made of perishable or delicate materials, such
as woven textiles, leather, and feather work, little clothing of
the ancient Americas has survived, especially from tropical or
wet climates. Archaeologists and art historians have hypoth-
esized about ancient American dress on the basis of evidence
from a few burial sites that contained salvageable clothing.
Art and artifacts from the era also provide clues. Complicat-
ing the issue is that some fi gures, especially in Mesoamerican
art, are depicted nude or in clothing that is represented ab-
stractly and is diffi cult to interpret.
Excavations in the Valley of Mexico have uncovered re-
mains at the site of Tlatilco, which was settled in about 1300
b.c.e. Figurines at such burial sites wear clothes that diff er
by sex. Th e attire is rendered in a simple manner that makes
it challenging to recognize. Anthropologists have speculated
that the female sculptures wear a form of grass skirt and that
the male sculptures wear loincloths.
Little is known about the Olmec (1500–400 b.c.e.), who
occupied the wetlands of the southern Gulf Coast of modern-
day Mexico. Because the land was tropical and wet, textiles
have not survived. Th e Olmec are a relatively unknown cul-
ture compared with later and better-researched civilizations
such as the Maya and the Aztec. Limited knowledge of Olmec
clothing comes from sculpture of the era. Figures are depicted
in animal costumes, such as a fi gure in one Olmec mural in
the Oxtotitlan Cave, Guerrero, Mexico, that wears a birdlike
costume with a scalloped-edge cape. It is unknown, however,
whether this representation is symbolic or is representative of
the actual dress of religious leaders.
In the realm of ordinary daily attire, a fi gurine of a seat-
ed woman found in a tomb at the Olmec city of La Venta (oc-
cupied 900–400 b.c.e.) has a ridge carved across her folded
legs that seems to indicate a skirt. Male fi gures in works such
those in a monument found at Potrero Nuevo, Veracruz,
wear what appear to be simple loincloths. Outside the Olmec
heartland, in the modern-day Mexican state of Guerrero, ar-
chaeologists have found a wall painting in the Juxtlahuaca
cave. Th e fi gure in the painting wears jaguar skins on his
arms and legs, a red-and-yellow striped tunic, and a feather282 clothing and footwear: The Americas