Roman Clothing: Keeping Warm and Dry

Authors: Geddes, P. & Hewitt, C., (2007), “Cold Weather Clothing” and “Foul Weather Clothing”, first published in The Imperial Courier, Volume 2, Issue 6 and 7, THE RMRS, pp. 2-5 and pp. 2-4 respectively.

Asked to describe how a Roman soldier dressed, most people will have in mind a man wearing a short tunic and open-work boots, plus his helmet, armour and weapons. This popular image is reinforced by the costumes seen in films and on television and worn by groups like The Roman Military Research Society (THE RMRS) who seek to recreate how Romans looked. The evidence used to create these impressions is drawn from frescoes, mosaics, monuments, and grave stelae. Most of these represent the clothing typically worn in a Mediterranean climate where the Romans originated. Yet one style of dress would not be appropriate across an empire that stretched from colder and wetter provinces of Britannia and NW Europe to the hot dry climates in the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East. Clothing choices would clearly vary accordingly. Considering the example of the Roman army, its soldiers were seasoned professionals used to tough conditions, and acclimatised to them, but sensible enough to know that dressing for the weather can be the difference between sickness and health. The military maxim “any fool can be cold and wet” would have been as pertinent then as it is today. So, what clothing options would Romans have available to keep themselves warm and dry?

Warming wool Most Roman tunics (Latin: tunicae, sing. tunica) and outer garments were made from wool, whether lightweight fine weaves or heavier, coarser ones. Against the skin, however, might be a linen undergarment, which would be considerably more comfortable and easier to clean and dry than wool. But for warmth, harder wearing wool was, and remains, a sensible choice. Indeed, to stay warm, Romans might wear layers of clothing. The Emperor Augustus, for example, is said to have routinely worn no less than four tunics at a time, so it is not unreasonable to assume others did something similar. Likewise, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that soldiers may have purchased a locally made long sleeved tunic to be worn under their Roman style woollen ones.

Unless the natural sheep’s fleece is preferred, perhaps for reasons of cost which would limit the available colours to creamy white, brown, or black/grey, then the woven wool cloth was dyed. The evidence suggests that the ancients liked colourful clothing much as we do today, but dyes were also a status marker. The dying of wool requires that it be degreased before entering the dye bath. This process, usually performed before spinning, removed the wool’s natural lanolin by immersing it in stale urine which, although a waste product, has the required ammonia content to break down the fats, was relatively cheap and was easy to collect. Once degreased, the wool becomes much easier to dye, but the natural waterproofing provided by the lanolin is lost.

Cloaks While no longer popular, one outer garment has a proven track record in keeping people warm and dry throughout the ages - the cloak. Our term “cloak” covers a wide variety of items from the Roman period. Exploiting their natural waterproofing properties, the warmest of these would have been the:

• Gausapa, a very warm, waterproof, felt cloak made from goats’ wool that was introduced in the mid-first century AD. As it was felted, it would have been practically windproof and by nearly reaching the floor, would have been just the job for those “fortunate” to have been sent to Britain or the Germanic frontiers.

• Cilicium, another very warm goat’s hair cloak beloved of the Emperor Augustus who, as previously mentioned, “felt the cold”.

• Cucullus and the Bardocucullus, both of which are Celtic loan words for a hooded cape or cloak. The Bardocucullus was a very thick, heavy version of the Cucullus that retained much of its natural oils thus making it practically waterproof. There is evidence that these cloak styles could be of leather instead of heavy wool or felt. Whether the Cucullus or Bardocucullus varied in style or cut from the garments described as the “short cape” and the “Gallic cape” is unclear; possibly they did not.

• Birrus Britainicus, a long, deeply hooded, cape or cloak type garment sewn together at the front from the breastbone to the navel. The gap at the neck above the breastbone was filled with a triangular fillet of material that may have been buttoned or pinned in place. This was an expensive garment (according to the Edict of Diocletian examples might cost 5.000 denarii) in some places, but slave wear in others. This style of cloak may have originated around Venta (Winchester).

In a military context, two sorts of cloaks seem to have been common amongst the general soldiery, namely the paenula (pl. paenulae) and the sagum (pl. saga). These cloaks, especially saga, could be noticeably big and heavy, and consequently warm. In the case of the paenula, it could also feature a hood. Literary references reveal there were also under-cloaks (subpaenulae), and at least one of the Rhineland stelae seems to show something which looks like shoulder doubling on the inside of the cloak. Military cloaks, however, were not practical to wear all the time, so they represent only one type of cold weather protection used by soldiers.

Hats From frescoes and mosaics, we know the Romans wore wide-brimmed hats to shade the face in sunny weather so it stands to reason that they probably would have worn hats in cold weather. The former, like those worn by agricultural workers in some mosaics and statuettes, are often coloured yellow almost certainly to represent straw. Such brimmed hats could just as easily have been made from warmer and more waterproof materials such as felt and leather, however.

It is therefore possible that hats worn in winter resembled the brimmed hats worn in sunnier weather, or they were one and the same. Depictions on Greek vases often show travellers wearing high boots (or shoes and lower leg coverings) and nearly always these characters are wearing a hat and cloak. Given that this clothing seems designed for inclement weather, it is most likely that any brimmed hat shown was not made of straw but of felt or leather to better resist the cold and rain. The wearing of such hats might also explain statement by Vegetius [1] that soldiers in earlier times had worn heavy leather hats. It is unlikely, however, that hats were issued to soldiers, or indeed permitted by military regulations, but as a private purchase may have been tolerated. For the most part, soldiers probably relied on their hooded cloaks to keep heads warm and dry. But where a cloak is impractical, it has been suggested that soldiers may have worn their helmet linings as hats. As some of these linings appear to have been glued into their helmets, this cannot have been the case all the time (if it at all).

Scarves Anyone who lives in a cold climate knows that, alongside a hat, scarves are particularly good at keeping you warm. The few known Roman depictions of scarves show them to be shaped like modern scarves (sometimes even with tasselled ends). Depending on how it is worn, the ends of a scarf can provide extra insulation to the chest area. Strictly speaking, however, the garment was used to keep clean rather than warm. It was called a focale or sudarium (the latter from the Latin for “sweat cloth”) and was used to wipe the sweat from the neck and face in hot weather. They were originally worn by men around their neck or tied to their belt. Soldiers wearing scarves are shown on carved reliefs, for example on the columns of Emperors Trajan and Marcus Aurelius. Most are either tucked beneath the soldier’s armour or worn outside it and tied in front.

Despite some reservations, including the charge that modern re-enactors are not tough enough, it does seem that Roman soldiers at times wore scarves. As Sumner (2009) points out, perhaps the Roman soldier did so for the very reason that re-enactors have discovered, namely that a scarf protects the neck from the armour chafing and acts as a sweat cloth. Unfortunately, as scarves are almost invariably concealed from view, it is uncertain what shape they were originally. According to Sumner, two types seem likely, and both possibly worn. The first may have been a square cloth folded into a triangle, while the second a longer, thinner version more typical of modern scarves.

Trousers Despite the obvious preference for simple tunics in the classical Mediterranean world, the ancient Greeks were well aware of trousers as early as the 5th-century BC after encountering nomadic tribes like the Scythians. While trousers and boots were favoured by the horsemen from the steppes, the Romans were initially contemptuous of trouser wearing as both barbarous and effeminate [2]. When the Roman army began campaigning in Gaul and Germany, however, it seems the soldiers expediently adopted the local fashion to supplement their trusted cloaks, hats and scarves. Trousers first appear as part of the Roman army’s uniform on the tombstones of auxiliary soldiers, especially cavalrymen, campaigning in northern climes.

Where trousers are depicted on friezes, they tend to reach to just below the knee. These are the type commonly referred to today as breeches or bracae. On Trajan’s Column, for example, bracae are worn by auxiliary troops and surprisingly by senior officers, including the Emperor himself, but not by the legionaries (Sumner, 2009, p. 178). In contrast, the Tropaeum Triani at Adamclisi, Romania, considered a more realistic representation, shows the citizen soldiers in bracae.

Leg Wraps and bindings Hosea, a general term for any form of leg covering, are known to have been worn by Romans in the absence of trousers. One form, leg wraps, are rectangular pieces of cloth which, as their name suggests, are wrapped around the lower leg. They can be tied in place using warp threads (from the weaving process) that have been deliberately left long and then plaited to form an integral tie rather than one sewn on. While the technique copies that used by ancient weavers for decorative purposes, weft threads extending through the selvedge, or heading band, to make a fastening will inevitably part company with the main body of the cloth. Using a separate binding strip is one solution for longer term (yearly) use. Leg wraps probably had a Germanic origin but would almost certainly have been used by Roman soldiers in Britain, particularly by those serving in legions previously been stationed in Germany.

In contrast, the bandage like leg bindings look like the puttees worn by late 19th- and early 20th-century soldiers. These seem to be native to the Italians and are fairly commonly seen in contemporary depictions. Not only a good way to keep the lower extremities warm, fascia (Latin for “a band, bandage, swathe”) also offer protection from rough undergrowth, and provide support to the muscles of the leg. Indeed, the latter may have been the primary reasons for their use, but it would have made common sense to use them as cold weather clothing.

Both items were probably known as “fascia” and when combined with socks provide excellent cold protection. Fascia and socks (udones) may have been standard army issue as a papyrus from Masada lists these items, with other clothing, as among the deductions from a soldier’s pay.

Socks Despite their apparent rarity in the sculptural record, we know that socks were fairly common. They are in fact mentioned in one of the Vindolanda tablets [3] (significant because it tells us soldiers could receive clothing as gifts from their families) and are probably shown on the Cancalleria reliefs in Rome. Socks could be made in three ways: from a 'quasi triangular' piece of material sewn up either side, by a knitting method similar to crochet known as 'Sprang-work', or as a foot wrap. Examples of the first two styles have survived, with the cloth type surviving not only from Vindolanda but also from a series of waterlogged graves in Gaul. Likewise, the Sprang work type is known from examples that have survived from Oxyrhynchus in Egypt dated to the 2nd-century AD (pictured above). These Egyptian examples were brightly striped and incorporated a separate toe to accommodate thong type sandals. The possible socks shown on the Cancalleria reliefs lack toes and heels and could have been made from a cloth or sprang work tube with a horizontal slit halfway down that would open around the heel when worn. Both knitted and Sprang work may be felted [4], which would make them warmer without necessarily being more difficult to dry out or deliberately weatherproofing.

The third version, which may only be counted as a sock from its use as foot cover, is the footwrap. A strip of narrow material is wrapped around the foot starting at the toe and ending up at about the ankle. The positioning of this wrapping is the only thing that differentiates it from a puttee, or leg binding.

Conclusion Any Roman, but especially soldiers in the field, facing inclement weather would be sensible enough to dress appropriately and had a number of clothing options to wear singly or in combination. Thus, Romans had at their disposal socks, lower leg coverings, trousers, extra tunics, scarves, cloaks, and maybe even rainproof hats. After all, “there’s no such thing as bad weather, just poor clothing choices”.

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Endnotes:

1. Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus, Epitoma Rei Militaris (Epitome of Military Science). ▲

2. The Roman writer, Marcus Tullius Cicero, dismissively referred to “bracatae nationes” or 'trouser-clad peoples' in his Epistulae ad Familiares (“Letters to Friends”, IX, 15,2,6). ▲

3. Vindolanda is a Roman auxiliary fort (castrum) just South of Hadrian's Wall, which it originally pre-dated. Its name may derive from the Latinisation of an existing placename thought to mean “white” or “blessed” “meadow”. Excavations have recovered hundreds of small wooden tablets that, on closer inspection, have revealed a treasure trove of informative correspondence. One such is Vindolanda Tablet 346 (socks are mentioned twice because two different people sent them): ▲

ram tibi paria udon[um [I have sent (?) you] pairs of socks

t. ab Sattua solearum duo from Sattua, two pairs of sandals

et subligariorum duo and two pairs of underpants,

solearum paria duo two pairs of sandals

4. Laufer, B., (1930), “The Early History of Felt”, in American Anthropologist Volume 32 No. 1, pp. 16-18. According to the Greek poet Hesiod, in the 8th-century BC, the ancient Greeks wore socks called “piloi” made from felt (Greek pilos). ▲

Recommended reading:

Sumner, G., (2002), Roman Military Clothing Volumes 1 and 2, Osprey Publishing.

Sumner, G., (2009), Roman Military Dress, The History Press.

Croom, A., (2000), Roman Clothing and Fashion, Tempus.

Connolly, P., (1981), Greece and Roman at War, MacDonald.

Suetonius, Vita Divi Augusti, Loeb.