05-03-2010, 01:31 AM
Quote:I was talking to one of my natural dye friends today about the lack of green in Roman clothing and she mentioned that green tends to fade in art.
I have been told that green dye is difficult to detect when you are dealing with textiles that today are just brown rags. However some green textiles like complete tunics do survive from Egypt. There are some examples of green tunics which appear very bright, no evidence of fading, on mosaics and paintings there is just not a lot of them.
There was the green circus faction and again you do see images of green clothed charioteers which have clearly not faded in anyway, Green was Nero's favourite colour . Tertullian says that the green colour represented Mother Earth and Nero was known for his bad taste and effeminate dress sense so perhaps this might be an explanation for why it was not popular as a colour for males, other than charioteers and possibly as hunting dress.
Green is not always a fashionable colour even today. It does however compliment those with red hair, like Nero!
Nice tunic Paul. There is an example of a similar textile fragment from Vindolanda made from different colours of un-dyed wool. It is the sort of garment alluded to very briefly by Roman writers when they describe barbarian dress or if a Roman general has gone off the rails and gone native. We just do not know how common this would be in Roman armies and Roman art hardly shows it at all.
Yes that is the Optio in question. I bet your heart fluttered for a brief moment when you first saw the reconstruction!
Graham.
"Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream" Edgar Allan Poe.
"Every brush-stroke is torn from my body" The Rebel, Tony Hancock.
"..I sweated in that damn dirty armor....TWENTY YEARS!', Charlton Heston, The Warlord.
"Every brush-stroke is torn from my body" The Rebel, Tony Hancock.
"..I sweated in that damn dirty armor....TWENTY YEARS!', Charlton Heston, The Warlord.
