The color purple and the roman laws...

[Folkert van Wijk]

My question is this:

What would happen if a Celt would walk around in a by Roman conquered province wearing purple(ish) clothes...??

I know purple was a color only alowed to the Roman elites and even then restricted to rules such the wide of the their purple clavii...

But what about the ignorant Celts comming from a whealty Clan??
far away in let's say 100 AD some where allong the limes...

[Carlton Bach]

As in all traditional societies, people would probably shake their heads and giggle.

The prohibition against purple (erratically enforced and never universal as far as we can tell) targeted the arrogation of symbols of power. If the authorities had reason to believe that kind of thing was going on, they would take very decisive action. A senator or (wqorse) military commander parading in a purple cloajk drastically reduced his life expectancy even under quite undersatanding emperors. A barbarian strutting his stuff in gaudy finery - well, what better do you expect of him? He has no clue and obviously, no evil intent.

Keep in mind, too, that the prohibition was specific to purple dye (the colour might well have been achievable by other means) and enforced only in some cases.

[Epictetus]

Tacitus mentions that the women of Germany wear purple, and he doesn't make any other comment about it.

Neither does the dress of the women differ from that of the men, save that the women are orderly attired in linen embroidered with purple, and use no sleeves, so that all their arms are bare.

Germania, 17.

[Folkert van Wijk]

Thanks guys....

So it apears I can put on my Purple shecked sagum then...
Without running into trouble with the roman law enforcers... :wink:

And what about the auxilia then...?
Would I be upsetting any tough strict Centurio??

[john m roberts]

I think the ban was specifically aimed at the murex dye produced in and near Tyre. Apparently it was quite distinctive. Does the shellfish that produced it even exist now?

[Martin Moser]

Does the shellfish that produced it even exist now?

Apparently yes! Comes to 2439.50 EUR per g. Don't panic, you can order as little as 25mg. OTOH you might be able to negotiate quite a discount for taking 1kg .... :-P P
For those that read German, check the detailed information on their site - very interesting (English version is very short unfortunately).

[Paullus Scipio]

The Murex/shellfish dye in ancient times produced 'True Purple' and was ( and evidently still is! - see Martin's post above) very expensive.

Most ancient 'purples' were actually a crimson shade.
Johnny Shumate pointed me to a brief but very good wikipaedia article on the subject.....

http://=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrian_purple

[Folkert van Wijk]

Yeah that's good info.

Thanks Paul and Johny..

[Martin Moser]

FWIW, analyses of coptic textiles show that "purple" clavi, orbiculi, etc. were also made with a combination of madder and woad dyeing.

For a discussion of purple clavi and the significance of clavi in general see also Pausch, Matthias: Die römische Tunika. Ein Beitrag zur Peregrinisierung der antiken Kleidung. Wißner, Augsburg 2003. pp 112.

[jpvdgiessen]

For those interested, I wrote some years ago the following article De techeletkleur van de purperslak about this subject. It's in Dutch, but at the end there are several links to English articles.

[Folkert van Wijk]

Interresting... thank you very much JP.

I happen to be dutch, so do understand all of it.
Most of the story is about the color AD do have maybe more info about this color BC?

[jpvdgiessen]

Hi Folkert,

No I haven't much information about BC. In the Tell-el-Amarna Tablets (1400 BC) there is a phrase subatu sa takilti - a garment of purple

There are some archeological findings in Israël and other countries of colored cotton but this seems always the "Madder" (Rubia tinctorum L. Dutch: Meekrap) I've posted some references on my website (see Referenties, right above), which is an abstract from my forthcoming book "Flora of the Bible".

For a timeline of the use of Murex trunculus see Navon

[Folkert van Wijk]

Thanks JP

[Nihonius Legio]

Purple dye was made by a mullosc or some other kind of shell fish that is believed to be extinct today. Even in Roman times it was very rare and expensive. Because of this, it's unlikely a barbarian would come by purple cloth unless he killed someone of very high rank in society. That would mean his punishment would be death.
Even if someone made purple in some other way (supposedly there wasnt an other way) they would still be showing themselves to be a higher rank than others. It'd be like impersonating an officer today, but with harsh Roman justice. Average people would be ticked off at someone trying to look better than everyone else anyway.

[jpvdgiessen]

Purple dye was made by a mullosc or some other kind of shell fish that is believed to be extinct today.

Please give some references where this extinction is mentioned.

Even in Roman times it was very rare and expensive. Because of this, it's unlikely a barbarian would come by purple cloth unless he killed someone of very high rank in society.

Not if the cheaper purple color from the Madder is used, but Celts were living too far north, for making this purple from the Madder, because the plant was imported in the Netherlands and other areas in the 15th century. But if he was rich enough he could imported it, cities like Thyatira and Sardis were exporting this stuff.