page_title: Toga
section_title: Varieties
hierarchical_section_title: Toga / Varieties
caption_attribution_description: English: Toga picta in a wall painting from the François Tomb at Vulci
context_page_description: The toga, a distinctive garment of ancient Rome, was a roughly semicircular cloth, between 12 and 20 feet in length, draped over the shoulders and around the body. It was usually woven from white wool, and was worn over a tunic. In Roman historical tradition, it is said to have been the favored dress of Romulus, Rome's founder; it was also thought to have originally been worn by both sexes, and by the citizen-military. As Roman women gradually adopted the stola, the toga was recognized as formal wear for Roman citizen men. Women engaged in prostitution might have provided the main exception to this rule.
  The type of toga worn reflected a citizen's rank in the civil hierarchy. Various laws and customs restricted its use to citizens, who were required to wear it for public festivals and civic duties.
  From its probable beginnings as a simple, practical work-garment, the toga became more voluminous, complex, and costly, increasingly unsuited to anything but formal and ceremonial use.
context_section_description: The toga was an approximately semi-circular woolen cloth, usually white, worn draped over the left shoulder and around the body: the word "toga" probably derives from tegere, to cover. It was considered formal wear and was generally reserved for citizens. The Romans considered it unique to themselves, thus their poetic description by Virgil and Martial as the gens togata ('toga-wearing race').  There were many kinds of togas, each reserved by custom to a particular usage or social class.
  Toga virilis ("toga of manhood") also known as toga alba or toga Pura: A plain white toga, worn on formal occasions by adult male commoners, and by Senators not having a curule magistracy. It represented adult male citizenship and its attendant rights, freedoms and responsibilities.
  Toga praetexta: a white toga with a broad purple stripe on its border, worn over a tunic with two broad, vertical purple stripes. It was formal costume for:
  Curule magistrates in their official functions, and traditionally, the Kings of Rome.
  Freeborn boys, and some freeborn girls, before they came of age. It marked their protection by law from sexual predation and immoral or immodest influence. A praetexta was thought effective against malignant magic, as were a boy's bulla, and a girl's lunula.
  Some priesthoods, including the Pontifices, Tresviri Epulones, the augurs, and the Arval brothers.
  Toga candida: "Bright toga"; a toga rubbed with chalk to a dazzling white, worn by candidates (from Latin candida, "pure white") for public office.  Thus Persius speaks of a cretata ambitio, "chalked ambition". Toga candida is the etymological source of the word candidate.
  Toga pulla: "Dark toga", worn by mourners at funerals. A toga praetexta was also acceptable as mourning wear, if turned inside out to conceal its stripe; so was a plain toga pura. Wearing a toga pulla at a funeral feast was a serious breach of social and religious etiquette. Cicero makes a distinction between the toga pulla and an ordinary toga deliberately "dirtied" by its wearer as a legitimate mark of protest or supplication.
  Toga picta ("painted toga"): Dyed solid purple, decorated with imagery in gold thread, and worn over a similarly-decorated tunica palmata; used by generals in their triumphs. During the Empire, it was worn by consuls and emperors. Over time, it became increasingly elaborate, and was combined with elements of the consular trabea.
  Trabea, associated with citizens of equestrian rank; thus their description as trabeati in some contemporary Roman literature. It may have been a shorter form of toga, or a cloak, wrap or sash worn over a toga. It was white with some form of decoration. In the later Imperial era, trabea refers to elaborate forms of consular dress. Some later Roman and post-Roman sources describe it as solid purple or red, either identifying or confusing it with the dress worn by the ancient Roman kings (also used to clothe images of the gods) or reflecting changes in the trabea itself. More certainly, equites wore an angusticlavia, a tunic with narrow, vertical purple stripes, at least one of which would have been visible when worn with a toga or trabea, whatever its form.
  Laena, a long, heavy cloak worn by Flamen priesthoods, fastened at the shoulder with a brooch. A lost work by Suetonius describes it as a toga made "duplex" (doubled by folding over upon itself).
caption: Etruscan wall painting from the François Tomb at Vulci. Some scholars believe this depicts a toga picta, although the cloak depicted has a straight edge, suggesting it is a Greek-style cloak, and not a toga.
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