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09-14-2003, 01:53 PM

Reading Lepidina's post in the Evidence For Knitting thread I noticed she wrote, "The Greeks and Romans have little need for winter-type clothing." I understood she was no doubt thinking about the heavy weather gear that would have been needed in the colder northern climate but it did get me thinking. 
Although the Meditterranean is generally warmer it can get pretty nippy here too. Where we live on a coastal plain it never gets cold enough to snow but it's not totally unknown for the temperature to reach freezing point and we do get some pretty mean hail storms in the winter and temperatures below 10C. Only a short drive away in the hills snow is not unusual. 
I've also realized it's also a matter of what one is accostomed to. When I first came here from a British winter I could quite happily wander round in a t.shirt. These days any drop in temperature below about 22C I'm already running for the woollies. This leads me to assume (unless there have been major climate changes over 2000 years?) that the Greeks and Romans too must have made some significant seasonal adjustment to their clothing. 
If so, would this have been a matter of adding things like socks, extra undertunics, wearing thicker pallas or cloaks etc or was there a distinct form of winter wear? 
There doesn't seem to be much evidence as far as I can see, from artistic representations. But then again I don't think winter woollies would have been considered very aesthetic in art. And come to think of it, I don't recall having seen any paintings portaying bad weather! 
I am wondering if there is any evidence, perhaps literary, to indicate what was worn in winter?

09-16-2003, 02:15 PM

Salve Anaten, 
 
&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp Just a few quick responses (bad schedule today and I can track down better sources in a few days): This is a Frequently Asked Question that I often get. There hasn't been much written about it lately, but I have a few ideas: 
 
1. From a decades old British documentary series "Connections" by James Burke, I believe, regarding the invention and development of buttons, hooks and other clothing fasteners in Europe: clothing in the early Medieval period was not much different from Late Empire and Migration era clothing. Loose tunics and hanging, wrapping robes. But the High Middle Ages clothes were tight fitted, layered, and covered the head, neck, and everything. Vide: manuscript illuminations of the Twelth and early Thirteenth Centuries and then the 1500s. Burke proposes a mini-Ice Age, investigated and evidenced on the show and companion book using polar ice layers and ancient tree rings for support. According to him, things got suddenly colder around 1325-1350, which led to the development of tight fitting clothing and fewer baths, high necklines on women and warm headgear, etc. Supposition: things may have been just warmer enough in southern Europe in classical times that Romans may not have needed much more than extra tunics and hooded cloaks. This of course excludes Alpine snow and wet cold climates like Britannia, the Carpathian Alps, or really long cold campaigns like Trajan's against the Dacians as depicted on the column. 
 
2. At least in the Republic and early Empire, males were considered effeminate for wearing long sleeves or panting the legs like Celts, Gauls, or those effeminate Parthians and Bythinians. Roman "virtus" may have made it unwise for any male with political aspirations to even deign to recognize the discomfort. For my own experience as long as the torso is well wrapped to cut out the wind chill, the legs don't really feel the cold. Now, admittedly, I'm male and I have not tried this in Minnesota or Canada in winter yet, and if I ever do I suspect that any sensible Roman would have put on layers of pants and tight fitting Germanic sleeved shirts and warm furry barbarian hats and gloves the way we still do. 
 
3. But imagine a Mediterranean just a few degrees warmer than now. When one reads Martial and Juvenal and encounters all the references to miserably sweating in a toga, it might have made the Baths even more pleasurable and necessary. 
 
That's all I have time for now. More later. Any comments or counter-arguments, anyone? 
 
Wade Heaton 
Lucius Cornelius Libo 
Wheaton@selu,edu 
www.togaman.com

09-17-2003, 02:54 PM

One other factor I thought about when driving to my night class yesterday. Something that I haven't seen discussed yet, though that doesn't mean anything since I'm so new to this; ancient bathing customs and techniques. 
 
It's my understanding that, at least for males, the basic procedure followed this process: old dirt and oil scraped off the skin with a stigil, sweat inducing exercise (running, medicine ball, weights, wrestling, etc.) plunging in alternating frigid and hot baths to open and close the pores, then an application of clean, fresh oil. 
 
It could be that a layer of oil could also preserve body heat next to the skin so when combined with layered tunics and an overwrap of toga or pallium (again male) to blck oout the wind chill, the combination of all the above mentioned factors might have rendered special cold weather garments unusual at least in the southern Mediterranean. 
 
Again, no conclusive proof, but it might help open of some fields for discussion. 
 
Wade Heaton 
Lucius Cornelius Libo 
[email protected] 
www.togaman.com

09-21-2003, 12:52 PM

Thanks for the input Wade. I was thinking more about early empire...should have mentioned that. 
I tried to find some imfo about climate changes without much luck. But one site did mention that it may have been anything between 1-6 degrees warmer in the Med in ancient times. 
Your theory about the oil is pretty interesting and does seem viable. It brings to mind the protective oil/grease cross channel swimmers use to help protect them against the cold, wet suits not being allowed. It occured to me too that the Romans would have had higher natural levels of body oil as they didn't constantly soap their bodies as we do. 
I guess they would simply have been more hardy as well. Thinking about it we are pretty pampered today with our airconditioning and heating systems. 
 
Jackie.

09-22-2003, 02:53 PM

Jackie, 
 
I've been trying to get on this page and RomCivTalk all day and have only just been able to access it. When you say "site" (1-6 dgrees warmer in ancient times) do you mean an actual website or the thread on Roman Britain economics/Ireland on RomArmyTalk? If the former, there is a comment in that other thread I wanted to point out. Maybe we can query that post about a source and any newer studies since the mid-eighties. 
 
Those old newreel flix of channel swimmers and the like were just what I had in mind. Our modern concepts of hygeine are so different and our dependence on artificial atmosphere control (beyond fire that is) may color our perception of comfort. I was also thinking that just as today, the concept of personal space may have varied from culture to culture; On an early February day in the Forum, for instance, standing in a brisk breeze may have been easier in a large crowd of people, both for wind breaks and for warmth. In August or September, I would guess that the relative distance between people would be more relaxed and spacious (depending, of course on the event and crowd numbers). The only mention I recall about civilians and cold is Suetonius' description of aging Augustus putting on extra tunics. I'll have to do some research, but I really don't think it was much of an issue usually. But then the ordinary doesn't make headlines, does it. We do know that they wore hooded cloaks and Augustus chided citizens for wearing them in the Forum, so maybe they did just what we do when they could get away with it. 
 
Let's see if we can get some more data on this. 
 
Thanks again 
 
Wade

09-27-2003, 02:44 PM

Hi Wade, 
Sorry I've been pretty busy this week and haven't had much chance to get to the computer. 
Now you mention it, that temperature change may have stuck in the back of my mind from the RAT post as I don't recollect where I saw it. 
It would be interesting to know the source. I tried to find out more imfo on climate changes but didn't have much luck. 
As far as ancient sources go I dug up a couple of references by Pliny the Younger to winter. 
Describing his villa in Tuscany he writes that the air in winter is sharp and frosty and that olives and myrtles don't flourish although laurel thrives. He also comments that now and again the cold does kill it though not more often than it does in the neighbourhood of Rome. 
In book three he writes of his uncle: 
"And in winter saw that his hands were protected by long sleeves so that even bitter weather should not rob him of a working hour." 
 
I was wondering about the sleeves as I found another reference that suggests that besides being sewn to the tunic they were also worn as a separate part of the dress. What do you make of that one? Detachable sleeves? 
The site can be found here: 
www.ku.edu/history/index/...anica.html 
 
Looking at this I confess I am a bit confused about the translation of manicae as they seem to refer to both sleeves and gloves, and I can't figure out which Pliny was wearing. (It's sleeves in the Penguin translation of the letters.) 
The above text also mentions leggings. I've seen several passing references to these but can't seem to find any detailed imfo about them e.g what did they look like, who wore them, when etc? 
Any ideas? 
 
I'm not sure what to make of the proxemics angle, though looking at group scenes from Roman art, the figures often seem to be bunched really close together! 
 
Jackie.

09-29-2003, 12:30 PM

Hi Jackie, 
 
&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp Well you got me on the Pliny. From the reference to his uncle's hands it does make more sense to translate that as gloves, but I also had some thoughts that just as there is plenty of evidence that even the legions and officers wore warmer tighter clothes when they needed to, there may have been a different standard within the pomerium of the city and the country, traveling or at the villa. The farm was by definition "rustic" and therefore "uncivilized," so the adoption of "uncivilized" comfort and practicality may have been not quite the breach of Romanitas it might have been in the city. 
&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp I was browsing through an Osprey Men-at-Arms on Roman Military clothing looking for something else and I happened to find under the heading of "Trousers (bracae)" the following: 
 
Trousers were considered by Classical writers of the old school as hopelessly barbarian and effemiante. Cicero, for example, referred contempuously to the 'bracatae nationes,' "the trouser-clad peoples" (Epistulae ad Familiares IX, 15,2,6). Yet once again the pure Roman ideals were to sucumb as first the army, and then society in general adopted these garments. Trousers were known in the Classical world as early as the 5th centry BC when the Greeks encountered nomadic tribes like the Scythian. Trousers, like boots, were inventions of these warrrior horsemen, and it is very likely that it was the Scythians who passed on these fashions to other peoples like the Celts and Germans. The Greeks, however, unlike the Romans, remained true to their principles and never wore trousers......(...)....A pair of trousers carried by a servant from Silistria in Bulgaria are again almost identical to those from Thorsberg, and it was probably trousers of this type that the Emperor Honorius tried to ban within the city of Rome as late as AD 397." 
 
&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp So, Romans did cover up their arms, legs and feet when it got cold and hoped no one would think bad thoughts about them. But even in the late 4th century the old ideal was still an issue in the city itself. 
 
Wade

rekirts · 09-30-2003, 10:18 AM

I wonder if a fella stationed on Hadrian's Wall would wear trousers in the winter--especially if hunting while off duty or something? I'm not sure how cold it gets there (or would have gotten circa 200 C.E.). We have extremely cold winter temperatures here, and even a tough Roman would lose bits of his legs and feet to frostbite without some sort of covering. I wonder at what temperature the dignity factor gave way to the comfort factor. 
 
Wendy "I am an admirer of the ancients,but not like some people so as to despise the talent of our own times." Pliny the Younger

10-01-2003, 07:28 AM

Wendy, 
&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp Way back at the beginning of this thread, we confined ourselves to the southern Mediterranean. All the reconstructed images of Hadrian's Wall show warm, tight fitting clothing. We also are discussing a speculative model for "inside the pomerium" and "in the wilderness" informal dresscodes. Without a doubt, wet-cold in Brittania called for other measures, then as now. More later. 
 
Wade

10-01-2003, 11:39 PM

Again from the letters of the Pliny the Younger: 
 
In book 5:6 Pliny is discussing his preference for his home in Tuscany above his other retreats. He writes that he can enjoy more peace and comfort there and has fewer cares then: 
"I need never wear a formal toga and there are no neighbours to disturb me." 
I think this is as a good as clue as any that a more informal dress code was adopted in the countryside, at least if one wasn't entertaining. 
Pliny goes on to say that he keeps his mind in training with work and his body with hunting. This is just one of many references Pliny makes to hunting and it is obvious he was very enthusiastic about this pastime. 
The references I noticed to leggings were in association with huntsmen and agricultural workers. I am a bit wary of speculating on things because of their practicality (having noticed the practise is frowned upon on in the RAT forum!) but it does seem to me that leg coverings would make sense whilst hunting to protect oneself whilst pursuing quarry through dense undergrowth. 
Just a thought. 
 
And Wendy, just as an aside. Whilst looking for stuff on cold weather I came across references to Aristotle, Hippocrates and Galen being aware of the problems of cold injury (including frostbite) in the military, although I couldn't find the sources themselves.

10-02-2003, 02:34 PM

Jackie, 
 
Do you have the Latin for "formal toga?" That would be interesting, since I have yet to come across any concept of an informal toga. This is not the place or thread, but much of my basic presentation recounts references to how much ancient Romans hated having to wear one. After all, they kept having the legislate ordinances to maintain the 'dresscode' in the forum Romanum. 
 
Wade

**Robert Vermaat** · 10-24-2003, 11:39 AM

Togaman or anyone, would you know a good method of making a woollen sagum more rain-proof? 
 
Valete, 
Valerius/Robert

10-24-2003, 01:22 PM

Robert, 
&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp That is a good quetion and one that has occured to me. I have put my historical costumer and seanstress on it, who also weaves and has raised her own sheep (in the past). She is going to research it for both of us, but her initial response was that processing the wool would have eliminated most of the natural lanolin. Only a "full-fleeced" cloak would have any natural rain repellant. Both of us, however, had it stuck somewhere in our brains that some type of oil was rubbed on the make it shed water, but exactly what, eluded us, for now. She is looking it up for all three of us. Since I suspect that you did not want to use Scotch-Gard or any modern synthetic sealant, the type of oil is key. I'll let you know as soon as I hear from her. 
 
Wade

**Robert Vermaat** · 10-25-2003, 04:08 PM

Wade, 
That is very kind of you. Will you give me a shout at [email protected] when you find out? 
 
Valete, 
Valerius/Robert

10-26-2003, 03:35 PM

Wade, 
Do I have the Latin for 'informal toga'? 
I hate to admit this, but I don't have the Latin for much at all. The rudimentary knowledge I gained at school, long ago went into hibernation in some inaccessible part of the gray matter! 
I understood that sentence to mean the toga was regarded as a formal item whereas one could get away with slouching round in just one's tunica out of town. 
 
Jackie.

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