page_title: Clothing in ancient Rome
section_title: Military costume
hierarchical_section_title: Clothing in ancient Rome / Military costume
caption_attribution_description: Português: Palazzo Nuovo - Musei Capitolini - Rome
context_page_description: Clothing in ancient Rome generally comprised a short-sleeved or sleeveless, knee-length tunic for men and boys, and a longer, usually sleeved tunic for women and girls. On formal occasions, adult male citizens could wear a woolen toga, draped over their tunic, and married citizen women wore a woolen mantle, known as a palla, over a stola, a simple, long-sleeved, voluminous garment that hung to midstep. Clothing, footwear and accoutrements identified gender, status, rank and social class. This was especially apparent in the distinctive, privileged official dress of magistrates, priesthoods and the military.
  The toga was considered Rome's "national costume" but for day-to-day activities, most Romans preferred more casual, practical and comfortable clothing; the tunic, in various forms, was the basic garment for all classes, both sexes and most occupations. It was usually made of linen, and was augmented as necessary with underwear, or with various kinds of cold-or-wet weather wear, such as knee-breeches for men, and cloaks, coats and hats. In colder parts of the empire, full length trousers were worn.
context_section_description: For the most part, common soldiers seem to have dressed in belted, knee-length tunics for work or leisure. In the northern provinces, the traditionally short sleeved tunic might be replaced by a warmer, long-sleeved version. Soldiers on active duty wore short trousers under a military kilt, sometimes with a leather jerkin or felt padding to cushion their armour, and a triangular scarf tucked in at the neck. For added protection from wind and weather, they could wear the sagum, a heavy-duty cloak also worn by civilians. According to Roman tradition, soldiers had once worn togas to war, hitching them up with what was known as a "Gabine cinch"; but by the mid-Republican era, this was only used for sacrificial rites and a formal declaration of war. Thereafter, citizen-soldiers wore togas only for formal occasions. Cicero's "sagum-wearing" soldiers versus "toga-wearing" civilians are rhetorical and literary trope, referring to a wished-for transition from military might to peaceful, civil authority. When on duty in the city, the Praetorian guard concealed their weapons beneath their white "civilian" togas.
  The sagum distinguished common soldiers from the highest ranking commanders, who wore a larger, purple-red cloak, the paludamentum. The colour of the ranker's sagum is uncertain. Roman military clothing was probably less uniform and more adaptive to local conditions and supplies than is suggested by its idealised depictions in contemporary literature, statuary and monuments. Nevertheless, Rome's levies abroad were supposed to represent Rome in her purest form; provincials were supposed to adopt Roman ways, not vice versa. Even when foreign garments – such as trousers – proved more practical than standard issue, soldiers and commanders who used them were viewed with disdain and alarm by their more conservative compatriots, for undermining Rome's military virtus by "going native".
  In Mediterranean climates, soldiers typically wore hobnailed "open boots" (caligae). In colder and wetter climates, an enclosing "shoeboot" was preferred. Some of the Vindolanda tablets mention the despatch of clothing – including cloaks, socks, and warm underwear – by families to their relatives, serving at Brittania's northern frontier.
  During the early and middle Republican era, conscripted soldiers and their officers were expected to provide or pay for all their personal equipment. From the late republic onwards, they were salaried professionals, and bought their own clothing from legionary stores, quartermasters or civilian contractors. Military needs were prioritised. Clothing was expensive to start with, and the military demand was high; this inevitably pushed up prices, and a common soldier's clothing expenses could be more than a third of his annual pay. In the rampant inflation of the later Imperial era, as currency and salaries were devalued, deductions from military salaries for clothing and other staples were replaced by payments in kind, leaving common soldiers cash-poor, but adequately clothed.
caption: Marble statue of Mars from the Forum of Nerva, wearing a plumed Corinthian helmet and muscle cuirass, 2nd century AD
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