VILLA IVLILLA Men Women Children's Clothing

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Children's Clothing

Youth in toga praetexta

Young Men

Freeborn males began life in the toga praetexta, which was white with a band of scarlet or purple along the straight edge.

At the age of XVI, he became a young man, and donned the toga virilis, made of unbleached, unadorned wool. Thereafter, he could only earn the toga praetexta by becoming a senator or public magistrate.


Young Ladies

A simple version of the tunica or Greek chiton was the garment for little girls. Young girls wore, instead of the stola, a garment somewhat similar, but not long enough to reach farther than halfway down the thigh. They wore no girdle.

Brides

A bride (who at her marriage became officially a woman) wore, for this occasion, the same type of white tunica recta (or regilla) as the boy's for his coming of age.

The girdle confining her tunica terminated in a "knot of Hercules," i. e., a metal clasp, one end of which was bent and slipped through a loop on the opposite side.

Over the tunica she draped a palla, the color of which does not seem to have been fixed. Her hair was parted in the middle and drawn up upon the crown of her head. A double band of ribbon (the color is not specified) was bound around her forehead, and a flame-colored net covered her hair. Over this was a flame-colored veil (flameum), covering the forehead or resting on the top of the head, and bound by a wreath of flowers which had been picked by the bride herself.


Sources: History of Costume, Historic Costume for the Stage by Lucy Barton

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