Toga picta

The toga, a distinctive garment of Ancient Rome, was a roughly semicircular cloth, between 12 and 20 feet in length, draped over the shoulders and around the body. It was usually woven from white wool, and was worn over a tunic. In Roman historical tradition, it is said to have been the favoured dress of Romulus, Rome's founder; it was also thought to have been worn by both sexes, and by the citizen-military. As Roman women gradually adopted the stola, the toga was recognised as formal wear for Roman citizen men. Women engaged in prostitution might have provided the main exception to this rule. The type of toga worn reflected a citizen's rank in the civil hierarchy. Various laws and customs restricted its use to citizens, who were required to wear it for public festivals and civic duties.

From its probable beginnings as a simple, practical work-garment, the toga became more voluminous, complex and costly, increasingly unsuited to anything but formal and ceremonial use. It was and is still considered Ancient Rome's "national costume"; as such, it had great symbolic value, but it was hard to put on, uncomfortable and challenging to wear correctly, and never truly popular. When circumstances allowed, those otherwise entitled or obliged to wear it opted for more comfortable, casual garments. It gradually fell out of use, firstly among citizens of the lower class, then those of the middle class. Eventually, it was worn only by the highest classes for ceremonial occasions, and by the 5th century AD, it had been replaced as official costume by the more practical pallium and paenula.

The toga was an approximately semi-circular woolen cloth, usually white, worn draped over the shoulders and around the body: the word "toga" probably derives from tegere, to cover. It was considered formal wear, and was generally reserved for citizens. The Romans considered it unique to themselves; thus their poetic description by Virgil and Martial as the gens togata (toga-wearing race) There were many kinds of toga, each reserved by custom to particular usage or social class.

The earliest form of toga might have resembled the ancient Greek himation and Etruscan tebenna, which were simple, rectangular lengths of cloth that served as both body-wrap and blanket for peasants, shepherds and itinerant herdsmen. Roman historians believed that Rome's legendary founder and first king, the erstwhile shepherd Romulus, had worn a toga as his clothing of choice; the purple-bordered toga praetexta was supposedly used by Etruscan magistrates, and introduced to Rome by her third king, Tullus Hostilius.

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