Pallium (Roman cloak)

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chiton

The pallium was a Roman cloak. It was similar in form to the palla, which had been worn by respectable Roman women since the mid-Republican era.[1] It was a rectangular length of cloth,[2] as was the himation in ancient Greece. It was usually made from wool[3] or flax, but for the higher classes it could be made of silk with the use of gold threads[4] and embroideries.

The garment varied in fineness, colour and ornament. It could be white, purple red (purpurea from murex), black,[5] yellow, blue, pale green, etc.

The pallium was originally considered to be exclusively Greek and despised by Romans, but was favoured by ordinary people, philosophers, and

philosophers and Christians.[6]

It is not to be confused with the pallium used by Catholic clergy, which is related to the omophorion.

See also

References

  1. .
  2. ^ Tertullian, De Pallio, I
  3. ^ Plautus, Miles Gloriosus, III, 1 93
  4. Æneid
    , IV 262-264
  5. ^ Apuleius, The Golden Ass, XI 3
  6. ^ (in French) French article about De Pallio Archived 2011-01-08 at the Wayback Machine

Bibliography

  • Tertullian, De Pallio
  • Suetonius, De Genere Vestium
  • Judith Lynn Sebesta, The World of Roman Costume, Madison WI, University of Wisconsin Press, 1994
  • (in French)
    Gaston Boissier
    , Le traité du manteau de Tertullien in "la Revue des Deux Mondes", 94/5, 1889, pp. 50–78
  • Radicke, Jan: Roman Women's Dress, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2022.