leather. It followed the line of the abdomen at bottom, and seems to have been impressed whilst wet with forms corresponding to those of the human body, and this peculiarity was preserved in its appearance when it was after wards made of metal. At top, the square aperture for the throat was guarded by the pectorale, a band or plate of brass; and the shoulders were likewise protected by pieces made to slip over each other. The galea and cassis were two distinct head-pieces originally, the former, like the lorica being of leather, and the latter of metal: but in the course of time the words were applied indifferently. "Polybius has furnished us with a very minute account of the military equipment of the Romans of his time; and it is from his description, and not from the statues, which have been generally considered as authorities, but which are of a later date, that we must collect materials for the military costume of the latter days of the republic. "He tells us then that the Roman infantry was divided into four bodies: the youngest men and of the lowest condition were set apart for the light-armed troops (velites); the next in age were called the hastati; the third, who were in their full strength and vigour, the principes; and the oldest of all were called triarii. The velites were armed with swords, light javelins (a cubit and a span in length), and bucklers of a circular form, three feet in diameter; and they wore on their heads some simple covering, like the skin of a wolf or other animal. The hastati wore complete armour, which consisted of a shield of a convex surface, two feet and a half broad and four feet or four feet and a palm in length, made of two planks glued together, and covered, first with calves' skin, having in its centre a shell or boss of iron; on their right thigh a sword, called the Spanish sword, made not only to thrust but to cut with either edge, the blade remarkably firm and strong; two piles or javelins, one stouter than the other, but both about six cubits long; a brazen helmet; and greaves for the legs. Upon the helmet was worn an ornament of three upright feathers either black or red, about a cubit in height, which, being placed on the very top of their heads, made them seem much taller, and gave them a beautiful and terrible appearance. Their breasts were protected by the pectorale of brass; but such as were rated at more than ten thousand drachmae wore a ringed lorica. The principes and triarii were armed in the same manner as the hastati, except only that the triarii carried pikes instead of javelins. The Roman cavalry, the same author tells us, were in his time armed like the Greeks, but that, anciently, it was very different, for then they wore no armour on their bodies, but were covered in the time of action with only an under garment; they were thereby enabled certainly to mount and dismount with great facility, but they were too much exposed to danger in close engagements. "The signiferi, or standard-bearers, seem to have been habited like their fellow-soldiers, with the exception of the scalp and mane of a lion which covered their heads and hung down on their shoulders. The eagles of Brutus and Cassius were of silver. The lictors, according to Petronius, wore white habits, and from the following passage of Cicero it would appear they sometimes wore the saga, or paludamentum, and sometimes a small kind of toga:-"Togule ad portam lictoribus præsto fuerunt quibus illi acceptis sagula rejecerunt." The fasces were bound with purple ribbons. The axes were taken from them by Publicola; but T. Lartius, the first dictator, restored them. The augurs wore the trabea of purple and scarlet; that is to say, dyed first with one colour and then with the other. Cicero uses the word "dibaphus," twice dyed, for the augural robe (Epist. Fam., lib. ii. 16); and in another passage calls it "our purple," being himself a member of the college of augurs. The shape of the aforesaid trabea is another puzzle for the antiquaries. Dyonysius of Halicarnassus says plainly enough that it only differed from the quality of its stuff; but Rubenius would make it appear from the lines of Virgil— 'Parvaque sedebat Succinctus trabea.'-EN 7 that it was short, and resembled the paludamentum, for which reason he says the salii (priests of Mars), who are sometimes termed "trabeati," are called “ paludati" by Festus. The Roman women originally wore the toga as well as the men, but they soon abandoned it for the Greek pallium, an elegant mantle, under which they wore a tunic descending in graceful folds to the feet, called the stola. "Another exterior habit was called the peplum, also of Grecian origin. It is very difficult, says Montfauçon, to distinguish these habits one from the other. There was also a habit called crocota, most probably because it was of a saffron colour, as we are told it was worn not only by women, but by effeminate men revellers, and buffoons. "The fashions of ladies' head-dresses changed as often in those times as they do now. Vitta and fascia, ribbons or fillets, were the most simple and respectable ornaments for the hair. Ovid particularly mentions the former as the distinguishing badges of honest matrons and chaste virgins. "The calantica was, according to some, a coverchief. Servius says the mitra was the same thing as the calantica, though it anciently signified amongst the Greeks a ribbon, a fillet, a zone. Another coverchief called flammeumor flammeolum, was worn by a new-married female on the wedding-day. According to Nonius, matrons also wore the flammeum, and Tertullian seems to indicate that in his time it was a common ornament which Christian women wore also. The caliendrum, mentioned by Horace (i. Sat. viii. 48), and afterwards by Arnobius, was a round of false hair which women added to their natural locks, in order to lengthen them and improve their appearance. The Roman ladies wore bracelets (armilla) of silver, or gilt metal, and sometimes of pure gold, necklaces, and earrings. Pliny says they seek the pearl in the Red Sea, and the emeralds in the depths of the earth. It is for this they pierce their ears.' These earrings were extremely long, and sometimes of so great a price, says Seneca, that a pair of them would consume the revenue of a rich house; and again, that the folly of them (the women) was such, that one of them would carry two or three patrimonies hanging at her ears.' Green and vermillion were favourite colours, both with Greek and Roman females. Such garments were called 'vestes herbida,' from the hue and juice of the herbs with which they were stained. The rage for green and vermillion was of long duration, for Cyprian and Tertullian, inveighing against luxury, name particularly those colours as most agreeable to the women: and Martian Capella, who wrote in the fifth century, even says, Floridam discoloremque vestem herbida palla contexuerat.' At banquets, and on joyful occasions, white dresses were made use of. Among the many colours in request with gentlewomen, Ovid reckons white roses.' "The dress of the ancient Roman consuls consisted of the tunic, called from its ornament laticlavian, the toga prætexta (i. e. bordered with purple), and the red sandals called mullei. Of all the disputed points before alluded to, that which has occasioned the most controversy, is the distinguishing mark of the senatorial and equestrian classes. "The latus clavus is said to have been the characteristic of the magistrates and senators, and the augustus clavus that of the equites or knights. "That it was a purple ornament we learn from Pliny and Ovid; but concerning its shape there are almost as many opinions as there have been pages written on the subject, not one of the ancients having taken the trouble to describe what to them was a matter of no curiosity, or by accident dropped a hint which might serve as a clue to the enigma. Some antiquaries contend that it was a round knob or nail with which the tunic was studded all over; others that it was a flower; some that it was a fibula; some that it was a ribbon worn like a modern order; and others, again, that it was a stripe of purple wove in or sewn on the tunic; but these last are divided among themselves as to the direction in which this stripe ran. "The learned Père Montfauçon, in his Antiquité Expliquée par les Figures,' observes that Lampridius, in his 'Life of Alexander Severus,' says that at feasts napkins were used adorned with scarlet clavi, clavata cocco mantillia.' These clavi were also seen in the sheets that covered the beds on which the ancients lay to take their meals. Ammianus Marcellinus also tells us that a table was covered with cloths so ornamented, and disposed in such a manner, that the whole appeared like the habit of a prince. 66 Upon this Montfauçon remarks, that, presuming the clavus to be a stripe or band of purple running round the edges of these cloths, it would not be difficult by laying them one over the other to show nothing but their borders, and thereby present a mass of purple to the eye, which might of course be very properly compared to the habit of a prince, but that this could not be effected were the cloths merely studded with purple knobs, or embroidered with purple flowers, as in that case the white ground must inevitably appear. In addition to this he observes that St. Basil, in explanation of a passage in Isaiah, says, he blames the luxury of women who border their garments with purple, or who insert it into the stuff itself;' and that St. Jerome, on the same passage, uses the expression of 'clavatum purpura.' "Now, though these observations go some way towards proving the clavus to have been a band or stripe (broad for the senators and narrow for the knights), we are as much in the dark as ever respecting the direction it took. It could not have bordered the tunic, or surely, like that of the Spaniards, it would have been called prætexta (as the toga was when so ornamented). Nothing appears likely to solve this difficulty but the discovery of some painting of Roman times, in which colour may afford the necessary information. "Noble Roman youths wore the prætexta, and the bulla, a golden ornament, which from the rare specimen in the collection of Samuel Rogers, Esq., we should compare to the case of what is called a hunting-watch. It has generally been described as a small golden ball; but, unless the one we have seen has been by accident much compressed or flattened, we should say they were not more globular than an old-fashioned watch. Macrobius says they were sometimes in the shape of a heart, and that they frequently contained preservatives against envy, etc. On arriving at the age of puberty, which was fourteen, youths abandoned the bulla, and exchanged the toga prætexta for the toga pura, which was also called the 'toga virilis,' and 'libera :'—virilis, in allusion to the period of life at which they had arrived; and libera, because at the same time, if they were pupilli, they attained full power over their property, and were released from tutela. There is no ascertaining the age of young Marcius, in the tragedy of Coriolanus; but as he only appears in the scene before the Volscian camp when he is brought to supplicate his father, he should wear nothing but a black tunic, the toga and all ornaments being laid aside in mourning and times of public calamity. "Of Julius Cæsar we learn the following facts relative to his dress and personal appearance. Suetonius tells us that he was tall, fair-complexioned, round-limbed, rather full-faced, and with black eyes; that he obtained from the senate permission to wear constantly a laurel crown (Dion Cassius says on account of his baldness); that he was remarkable in his dress, wearing the laticlavian tunic with sleeves to it, having gatherings about the wrist, and always had it girded rather loosely, which latter circumstance gave origin to the expression of Sulla, Beware of the loose-coated boy,' or of the man who is so ill girt.' Dion Cassius adds that he had also the right to wear a royal robe in assemblies:" that he wore a red sash and the calcei mullei even on ordinary days, to show his descent from the Alban kings. A statue of Julius Cæsar, armed, is engraved in Rossi's Racolta di Statue Antiche e Moderne,' folio, Rome, 1704; also one of Octavianus or Augustus Cæsar:-the latter statue having been once in the possession of the celebrated Marquis Maffei, Octavius affected simplicity in his appearance, and humility in his conduct; and, consistently with this description, we find his armour of the plainest kind. His lorica, or cuirass, is entirely without ornament, except the two rows of plates at the bottom. The thorax is partly hidden by the paludamentum, which was worn by this emperor and by Julius Cæsar of a much larger size than those of his successors. Although he is without the cinctura, or belt, he holds in his right hand the paragonium, a short sword. which, as the name imports, was fastened to it. "Suetonius tells us that Octavius was in height five feet nine inches, of a complexion between brown and fair, his hair a little curled and inclining to yellow. He had clear bright eyes, small ears, and an aquiline nose,-his eyebrows meeting. He wore his toga neither too scanty nor too full, and the clavus of his tunic neither remarkably broad nor narrow. His shoes were a little thicker in the sole than common, to make him appear taller than In the winter he wore a thick toga, four tunics, a shirt, a flannel stomacher, and wrappers on his legs and thighs. He could not bear the winter's sun, and never walked in the open air without a broad-brimmed hat on his head. he was. "From the time of Caius Marius the senators wore black boots or buskins reaching to the middle of the leg, with the letter C in silver or ivory upon them, or rather the figure of a half-moon or crescent. There is one engraved in Montfauçon, from the cabinet of P. Kircher. It was worn above the heel, at the height of the ankle; but this last honour, it is conjectured, was only granted to such as were descended from the hundred senators elected by Romulus. "As to the purple of the ancients, Gibbon says 'it was of a dark cast, as deep as bull's blood.'-See also President Goguet's Origine des Loix et des Arts,' part ii. 1. 2, c. 2, pp. 184, 215. But there were several sorts of purple, and each hue was fashionable in its turn. In my youth,' says Cornelius Nepos (who died during the reign of Augustus; Pliny, ix. 39), the violet purple was fashionable, and sold for a hundred denarii the pound. Some time afterwards the red purple of Tarentum came into vogue, and to this succeeded the red Tyrian twice dyed, which was not to be bought under one thousand denarii.' Here, then, we have three sorts of purple worn during the life of one man. The red purple is mentioned by Macrobius: he says the redness of the purple border of the toga prætexta was admonitory to those who assumed it to preserve the modesty of demeanour becoming young noblemen; and Virgil says that the sacrificing priest should cover his head with purple, without noticing whether its hue be red or violet. Indeed, purple was a tint applied indiscriminately by the ancients to every tint produced by the mixture of red and blue, and sometimes to the pure colours themselves. J. R. P." "Cicero also says that Cæsar sat in the rostra, in a purple toga, on a golden seat, crowned: 'Sedebat in rostris collega tuus, amictus toga purpurea, in sella aurea, coronatus.'"-Phil., 2, 34. t "The crescent is seen upon the standards of the Roman centuries, probably to denote the number 100." SCENE I.-Rome. ACT 1. Flourish. Enter the Tribunes and Senators, aloft: and then enter SATURNINUS and his Followers at one door, and BASSIANUS and his Followers at the other, with drum and colours. Sat. Noble patricians, patrons of my right, Bass. Romans, friends, followers, favourers of my right, If ever Bassianus, Cæsar's son, Were gracious in the eyes of royal Rome, And, Romans, fight for freedom in your choice. Marc. Princes, that strive by factions and by friends Ambitiously for rule and empery, Know that the people of Rome, for whom we stand A special party, have by common voice, For many good and great deserts to Rome: A nobler man, a braver warrior, And now at last, laden with honour's spoils, Bass. Marcus Andronicus, so I do affy [Exeunt Followers of BASSIANUS. Sat. Friends, that have been thus forward in my right, I thank you all, and here dismiss you all; And to the love and favour of my country Bass. Tribunes, and me, a poor competitor. Enter a Captain, and others. Cap. Romans, make way: the good Andronicus, Patron of virtue, Rome's best champion, Successful in the battles that he fights, With honour and with fortune is return'd, From where he circumscribed with his sword, And brought to yoke, the enemies of Rome. [Sound drums and trumpets, and then enter two of TITUS' Sons. After them two Men bearing a coffin covered with black: then two other Sons. After them TITUS ANDRONICUS; and then TAMORA, the queen of Goths, and her two Sons, CHIRON and DEMETRIUS, with AARON the Moor, and others, (as many as can be.) They set down the coffin, and TITUS speaks. Tit. Hail, Rome, victorious in thy mourning weeds! Lo, as the bark that hath discharg'd her fraught, Here Goths have given me leave to sheath my sword. Titus, unkind, and careless of thine own, How many sons of mine hast thou in store, Luc. Give us the proudest prisoner of the Goths, Tit. I give him you, the noblest that survives, The eldest son of this distressed queen. Tam. Stay, Roman brethren, gracious conqueror, Victorious Titus, rue the tears I shed, A mother's tears in passion for her son. And if thy sons were ever dear to thee, O think my son to be as dear to me. Sufficeth not, that we are brought to Rome To beautify thy triumpbs and return Captive to thee, and to thy Roman yoke; Tit. Patient yourself, madam, and pardon me. These are the brethren, whom you Goths beheld Alive and dead, and for their brethren slain Religiously they ask a sacrifice : To this your son is mark'd, and die he must, Chi. Was ever Scythia half so barbarous ? Demet. Oppose not Scythia to ambitious Rome. Alarbus goes to rest, and we survive To tremble under Titus' threat'ning look. Enter the Sons of ANDRONICUS again. Luc. See, lord and father, how we have perform'd Our Roman rites: Alarbus' limbs are lopp'd, Make this his latest farewell to their souls. Lav. In peace and honour live lord Titus long; My noble lord and father, live in fame! Lo, at this tomb my tributary tears I render for my brethren's obsequies: And at thy feet I kneel, with tears of joy Tit. Kind Rome, thou hast thus lovingly reserv'd Enter MARCUS ANDRONICUS, SATURNINUS, Marc. Long live lord Titus, my beloved brother, Gracious triumpher in the eyes of Rome! |