How to carry things? Pockets?

[Epictetus]

Inspired by a question in a thread about pouches, I began wondering how people carried things as they went about their daily activities. I did some random googling but couldn't find anything helpful. The ancients didn't have pockets in their clothing, did they? Did they place items in the folds of their togas, or inside their tunics, or carry big pouches, or what?

[Alanus]

They carried stuff in their cheeks... like squirrels. :woot:

I think pouches were "big" back then. Pockets didn't come along until Red Buttons introduced them in the film Haitari.

[Epictetus]

Pouches seem to make a lot of sense, just how women carry things around in purses nowadays. But I can't recall any frescoes of anyone carrying things like this. I did some image searching and couldn't find a thing. If you look at everyday images, it seems no one is carrying anything.

Perhaps they just had less stuff to carry around? Money, maybe, or a few other things. In the modern era we seem to have dozens of things we have to constantly have with us - glasses, keys, wallets, mobile phones, whatever. Maybe the ancients simply had fewer items they thought were indispensable, so had less need of a method to carry them.

[PhilusEstilius]

I think that when they went shopping they would have carried their money in an armpurse fitted tight on the forearm for security such as these type I have made in the past.

[Michael Kerr]

I can't recall when at this time, but I remember hearing on a radio program a few years back that the term pickpocket came to mean people who could remove money pouches & purses that hung on the outside or suspended on belt & that inner pockets were a recent invention.
Regards
Michael Kerr

[M. Demetrius]

Money belts were also known in the 1st C. A soldier on the battlefield would have no need for money, so it's near certain that whatever he had would have been left back in camp, in the treasury, or elsewhere. So a pouch on the military battle dress would be superfluous.

We, however, needing wallets, car keys, phone, Identification, business cards, etc., when we foray out to the public need a place to put things. I've wrapped things up in a cloth (bandana size) and stuck that under my belt, with the knot above and the bag below. I've tucked items under my fascia ventralis, dropped some inside my tunic, and occasionally carried them in my shoulder bag. Probably not "accurate", but a reasonable concession. In civilian dress, though, a belt pouch seems agreeable to me.

What do others do?

Edit: another word for street thief is "cutpurse". A sharp blade on the bottom of a pouch, and out drops the coin.

[Epictetus]

That's very nice, Brian. Is it worn close to the wrist like a bracelet or back towards to the elbow?

I found this image from the Villa of the Mysteries where it looks like the woman on the right has something (a scroll?) tucked into the folds of her clothes next to her stomach.

This is about where the umbo is in a toga. Probably small things could be stuck in there.

[Gaius Colletti]

Money belts were also known in the 1st C. A soldier on the battlefield would have no need for money, so it's near certain that whatever he had would have been left back in camp, in the treasury, or elsewhere. So a pouch on the military battle dress would be superfluous.
.

Surely they would have had something to put booty and other small spoils in after a battle, coins, rings, torcs...

[richard robinson]

after i saw the canteen from the salt mine in Spain, with its cleverly coiled and woven grass insulation/ carrying cover it dawned on me how I had underestimated/ not conceived of woven grass containers as everyday items. When u consider that straw was used to pack stuff and is/ was used extensively from everything from mats to thatch and basketware I have reappraised its use in traditional cultures as purses, hats and boxes. It is my belief that the "tupperware " of the ancients was actually small woven bags and containers. This is a light solution to carrying anything from food to bottles and coinage etc. Having said all that I also subscribe to well wrought leather pouches suspended from a belt inside the tunica. small woven baskets in this pouch are an ideal way to separate items that are fragile.
regards
Richard

[PhilusEstilius]

David.
What I have found about the armpurse is that with the handle made so as one has to squeeze the hand through, it can be carried on the forearm and even if it drops down to the wrist just an expansion of the fingers outwards prevents it from falling off.
In fact I have always thought that when a soldier went shopping in the vicus he would also be wearing his military belt and pugio over his tunic, with the purse on his arm and his thumb stuck behind his belt, would anyone risk trying to steal his money I don't think so.
It can of course be pushed up higher onto the forearm and indeed stay there until needed to purchase.

[M. Demetrius]

GJC: again, tucked in the fascia ventralis, dropped down the neck of his tunic (with the belt tightly wrapped, nothing can get out, though retrieving it might be a bother.) Or a piece of cloth (like a part of a fallen person's shirt or tunic) wrapped around the booty with the corners coming up above the belt. Seems reasonable enough.

PhilusEstilus: Of course, when shopping. My thinking ran more along what would be used or needed during a battle.

I have no dog in this race, though. Just saying what I, personally, do when at a reenactment. If it were a battle, I wouldn't bring my loculus/pera. I wouldn't need a place to put my cell phone, y'know?